Luke 23:43

The dying robber prayed the Lord to remember him when He should come in His kingdom. Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." So He offers a blessing beyond and better than the one he asked for. To the renewed mind it is a dearer prize than any outward display, however glorious: the joy of being that very day with Christ Himself, where the Father delights to love and honour the Son.

The usual way of handling this text is to change the punctuation. They would have us read the words like this: "Truly I say to you today: you shall be with me in Paradise." They make it mean, "today, this day of my humiliation, I say to you." But the word order in the sentence is all against them... Besides this, the Lord is answering a prayer in which the thief named a time when he wished to be remembered... The Lord says in effect, "You shall not wait for that: today you shall be with Me."

A word on paradise. It is Greek, and said to be derived, whether rightly or not, from the Persian, and is used of an enclosed garden or pleasure park (Song 4:13; Neh. 2:8). In the New Testament it occurs as a description of the present place of the saints who are out of the body (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4), and also of their future place of bliss, in which the tree of life will be found (Rev. 2:7)... Paul clearly distinguishes it from the third heaven.

Paradise is identified with the third heaven by Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. In Revelation 2:7 the Tree of Life is there, a reminder of the earthly paradise, but filling the whole scene.

So we see how brightly grace shines in the salvation of the thief on the cross. There can be no possible mistake about him. Clearly he had no good works to trust in. He had done no deeds of charity. Of baptism and the Lord's Supper he knew nothing... For what could he do? Where could he turn? His hands and his feet were nailed fast to a criminal's cross.

The thief is an example, not of extraordinary faith, nor of an unusual way of saving sinners, but of the only way. I believe God has singled him out to give us an example, free of any later details. It shows us that the title to heaven and the fitness for heaven are both given the moment the sinner believes... There was no need of any preparation for Paradise beyond the preparation which divine grace gave him.

A similar truth appears later in the case of the converted thief. The point there is just the same — immediate blessedness, not just later, when the body is raised from the dead. That is what he looked for when he asked to be remembered at the coming of Jesus in His kingdom. But the Lord adds more — immediate blessedness now.

How did the saved thief enter heaven? With Christ, and in all His perfectness... He was not merely to be inside the door, but with Christ, wherever that might be. Oh, these blessed words "with me"! They settle and define everything about our heaven.

"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." Who is this, coming out with His "Amen" when He is about to die? Who is this whose eye could, before closing in death, turn on a poor sinner and send a ray of glory into his soul?