When Jesus said, "today you will be in paradise with Me"?

Question

What does He mean? At first I thought that Jesus did go to heaven after His crucifixtion, but then Eph 4.9, says that He did go to hell.

Ephesians4:9 (What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions {Or the depths of the earth}?
(NIV)

So did Jesus go to heaven or hell for 3 days?

Thanks!

Answer 1

It means this:

That after death......the other side is instant.

You either go straight to heaven with Christ...
Or into eternal torment without Him

Edit:
Unfortunately, the Watchtower Witness will try to tell you that the comma in that verse should be moved to after the word "today".......

Yet another heresy of the NWT

Jesus freed the souls that were in waiting for Him immediately after His death. These are the faithful who believed in Messiah before Christ actually came.

Answer 2

Hello, Mulereiner:

When someone has a false conception of Scripture, it open the door for a panacea of illusions.

In the Greek, the N.T. has no punctuation. So the translators try to figure out what the author meant. It should be "I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise.

In Ephesians, you believe in Hell, so mentally translate it such, but Hell is really the GRAVE, and Jesus did first DESCEND INTO THE GRAVE, then to heaven.

Concerning the thief in heaven on Friday, you will recall that Sunday morning Jesus said: "I have not yet ascended to my Father." He had to be inaugurated as King of Heaven and Earth before He could return and rule as the "last Adam."

Also, certain graves were opened at Jesus death, but the saints were not resurrected until Sunday. Read Matthew 27:53: "And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

There is an On-line publication that you need read. It is a Bible code that reorients us to primitive Bible truths and it was sealed until the "end of the days." Read all five chapters at http://abiblecode.tripod.com

Shalom, peace in Jesus, Ben Yeshua

Answer 3

You need to understand idioms (figures of speech). Jesus Christ while "still in the tomb", meaning before he actually met with the Father, went to all those who died before the crucifiction, to tell them that the mission had been accomplished and that salvation was now open to everyone.
The idiom "lower, earthly regions" is a figure of speech meaning a place without
salvation, without the Christ (a place of degregation); If you want to know exactly where those people were, go to the book of Luke.
"Hell" is not a burning pit of horrid fire where people are screaming in agony. When the rich man and also the Lazarus died, the rich man was across a large gulf that he could not cross; however, he could see clearly Lazarus in the arms of Abraham being comforted. He could even speak to them, and did. That place, across that gulf,
was not somewhere down inside the Earths core as people describe: its in the same dimension as Heaven is. In fact, those across that gulf can even see the Father and the Throne room. When Jesus went to announce the crucifiction had been done, he went there, to that gulf that separates those who were up until that point without salvation. When he told them the good news, they were then, if they so chose, able to follow Christ across the gulf over to what you might call "Heaven". Christ went there,
and he also appeared to Mary at the Tomb.
You might recall that he said to Mary "don't touch me, for I haven't gone yet to the Father". That is also an idiom - He didn't mean she should not physcially touch him, but what it meant was "Mary, don't keep me, don't "hold me up" - I haven't gone to the Father yet - he had gone to the gulf because that was part of his mission, but he still needed to present himself to the Father and claim his rightful place on the right side of God the Father.
Your answer: both; except you have a notion that hell is somewhere else and that it is some kind of big brimstone horror pit, which is not biblical.
Satan isn't even in hell; he is standing behind the throne with all the other Angels.

The reason Jesus told the man that "today" he would be in paradise, is because when you die you are not laying in some hole in the ground like some Churches teach;
no, to be absent from the flesh is to be present with the Lord.
The man upon death immediately went to be with the Lord - God the Father and the Host; Christ was meantime completing his mission as written of over and over in the old testament. He went to present salvation to all those who died before, then presented himself to Mary to send message to his Disciples, and then went to the Father to claim his rightful place and throne.
Remember that Christ was fulfilling scripture and so the stone rolled away from the tomb would have been presented to us in the 3 days as written. I'm sure Christ spent some time with those across the gulph because remember all those who would have been there, since salvation had not been accomplished yet: that means Moses, Aaron, Paul, Amos, Ezekiel, Daniel,
David, Solomon, Isaiah, Malachi, Noah, and the list goes on and on.....
All of them were up to this point without salvation, get it? So I'm quite sure there was time taken for Christ to commune with all these along with some celebration, I have no doubt.

Answer 4

Jesus ascended into Heaven,and whenever He want to go out to the earth or to the hell,He could to do it. Jesus said, I'm the truth way and the life,nobody couldn't come to Father without Me.

Answer 5

Wow! What long answers! Does anyone read the whole thing?

Jesus went to hell which is the common grave for 3 days as he was dead. Afterwards, he was resurrected to life as a spirit creature by his Father.

"Today you will be with me" does not mean a literal day. He was kind of busy dying and all, as sacrificing his life as a ransom for mankind. When the time came for Jesus to do so is when Jesus would resurrect that man.

Answer 6

Its all in the printing..
Jesus said to the criminal dying beside him....
I tell you today........
........................................you will be with me in paradise.

Jesus was telling the man that very day, the day they were dying.
When Jesus died, he became 'asleep in death'.
And he remained like that for three days.
Then his Father in heaven, Jehovah God, resurrected him back to fleshly life.
Jesus was still on the earth.
And he spent the next forty days ON the earth, even eating and drinking with his disciple.
(Luke 24:41-43) But while they were still not believing for sheer joy and were wondering, he said to them: “Do YOU have something there to eat?” 42 And they handed him a piece of broiled fish; 43 and he took it and ate it before their eyes.

Only at the end of the forty days was Jesus taken up to heaven.
And because flesh and blood cannot exist in a spiritual place, The body that Jesus had during this time was disposed of by his Father. How we do not know.
From this we learn that Jesus did not go immediately that day to paradise.
And the paradise that was in store for the criminal is actually on the earth.
Because, not being a true follower of Jesus at the time he died, the criminal qualifies only to be resurrected. Rev. 20; 12,13
True followers of Jesus , after 3 1/2 years of his preaching, numbered only 120 persons.
(Acts 1:15) Now during these days Peter rose up in the midst of the brothers and said (the crowd of persons was all together about one hundred and twenty):

(Acts 2:1-4) Now while the day of the [festival of] Pentecost was in progress they were all together at the same place, 2 and suddenly there occurred from heaven a noise just like that of a rushing stiff breeze, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting. 3 And tongues as if of fire became visible to them and were distributed about, and one sat upon each one of them, 4 and they all became filled with holy spirit and started to speak with different tongues, just as the spirit was granting them to make utterance.
This shows that the Holy spirit cannot be a person or a third of God, but is God's power.

FILLED WITH HOLY SPIRIT.

Answer 7

Your quote from Ephesians 4:9 in the NLT says, "Notice that it says 'he ascended.' This means that Christ first came down to the lowly world in which we live." He descended to be with us. It does say in 1 Peter 3:19-20a, "So He (Jesus) went and preached to the spirits in prison -- those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat." This speaks about going to hell or Hades to preach. But then He went to heaven, and the thief went with Him later that same day ("today"). So, He went to hell, and followed that with heaven. When believers die, we go to be with Him in heaven.

Answer 8

I have detailed information prepared that explains it with scriptures and other proof. If you are interested, contact me.
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However, simply stated, go to wikipedia and search for the word 'codex.' You'll find some that show old Greek of Hebrew scrolls or manuscripts.

These manuscripts our scholars used to translate to us the Bible. What is noticeable is that these old codex are without any punctuation and are written in what seems capital letters throughout.

Thus the sentence as it is punctuated by the scholars was done without considering the scriptural teachings of the Bible. In fact, the scripture should read.

Diaglott: 43And said to him the Jesus: Indeed I say to thee to-day, with me thou shalt be in the Paradise.
----
Not
----
KJV: 43And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

This is correct and harmonizes with the rest of the scriptures, and it does not affect the original codex because the punctuation is added by the translator.

Answer 9

as quickly as Jesus Christ returns and removes all wickedness from the earth at Armageddon, the righteous ones workout faith in him and doing the will of God will stay to tell the story Armageddon with risk-free practices from God, they're going to stay on earth perpetually, God is giving the earth to the meek ones as an inheritance. for the time of Christ's millennial reign, all those of their memorial tombs will come out on the resurrection, the righteous will acquire existence, the unrighteous acquire judgment on what they do for the time of his reign. in the event that they learn and settle for Jesus as their savior and do the will of God, they to will acquire existence. Then while devil is released from the abyss for the superb try, all who bypass that try to proceed to be on God's area would be blessed with eternal existence on a restored paradise earth. That has continually been God's objective for mankind and the earth and it has no longer replaced. The Scriptures say that no longer a be conscious uttered forth from God's mouth will return to him without consequences.

Answer 10

Actually it was I say to you Today,I will see you in paradise. Commas were added long afterthe words were written and some of the commas are simply in the wrong place