How goes Luke 23,34 and John 20,17 together?

[BrunoMaria]

for weeks lately in MailCircle and even longer in several previous forums, we all ponder about

„how does Luke 23,43 and John 20,17 go together?“

In Luke 23,43 Jesus says to Dismas. YET TODAY YOU WILL BE TOGETHER WITH ME IN PARADISE - in some translations even TOGETHER WITH ME IN HEAVEN or IN MY FATHER’S.
In John 20,17 the risen Christ says to Mary of Magdala
NOLI ME TANGERE AS I HAVEN’T BEEN AT MY FATHER YET.

All my life I said countless times that no-one ever will ever be dead, for all who die, see ever since Jesus’ salvation; God the very same day.
This Salvation was done when the world heard the dying Jesus’ word IT IS DONE; and He returned His Spirit into the hands of The Father.

I (and many unknown with me) fight on two fronts. On our side the fight for "there is no death“ - on the other side the claim „there is no heaven“. Both is wrong with the restriction that St. Paul wrote in 1Cor 15,55, Death where is your sting?! But he writes in his next sentence: The sting of death is sin.
So; death is there and existent ever since sin came into the world by Satan’s temptation. Death however as a to stride death - never though to be dead. Death in anycase just as the door for eternal life - in the worse case as door to eternal life in hell. Conceivably as „apparent death“ for those, who because of disbelief will be awakened not before Last Judgement (which I don’t believe, because of the senseless problem of "interim storage“ of the lifeless souls).

Of course we find in the Catholic Encyclopedia (LThK) lots of hints, but all of them most unsatisfactory, as all of them are not absolute but relative; such as: It’s thought that…, Newer Theology speaks of…, It lays in an alignment line with…, etc.
Thankfully Pope Benedict spoke in absolute words instead of relativisms and so returned to the Church more safety in her teaching-assignment. I myself try to avoid as far as possible relativisms such as „most probably“ in cases where Jesus’ teaching seems not too clear and obvious.
Misinterpretation, misunderstanding and absolute incomprehension up to total refusal, we’ll always meet, for in Mt 13,10 we hear, that only he will understand whom understanding and conceiving is given by God’s grace. A hint for us, that it’s not all are allowed to understand and so never will, unless they return to belief. The restriction is clearly to be heard in John 3,16: For so much God loved the world, that He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Not those too who do not believe in Him!

Our Church teaches, together with St.Peter in 1Peter 3,19 and 4,6, that Christ freed between His death and resurrection the redeemed „Dead“ to the Father - accordingly even today are „spirits (souls) in prison“ so neither in heaven nor in hell - but in another place or state - they live far away from God - but LIVE and are not dead until last Judgement. Such in contrary to those who will not be judged - named in John 3,18 or Mt 7,1.
Thus he who lives in Christ, will recognize the truth, as Jesus is the truth Himself -as He announced to Pilate.
When St. Peter writes in 1Pet 3,16 that Christ teaches the death, it becomes clear that no-one ever is dead. Peter wrote under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration not "work of man“ as many claim, but God’s words and teaching.

Now, does Jesus’ word on the cross YET TODAY YOU WILL BE TOGETHER WITH ME IN PARADISE - with Me in heaven!
No, as Jesus on the resurrection-day tells Mary; NOLI ME TANGERE as I was not yet at My Father’s.
Yes, if Jesus together with Disman „just“ was in that heaven, where Abraham, Moses, Elijah and all the others were who had believed in God - in another heaven like those Paul mentions in 2Cor 12,4.

Still: When the dying Christ said "IN YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT“ - then it’s actually very clear that He went straight to the Father; - alone without Dismas, who stayed back in „Paradise“ until Christ opened heavens where The Father dwells.
All the same it’s clear, that Jesus did not go directly to the Father, as he said so to Mary.

What is the truth? Pontius Pilatus asked such, and Jesus revealed Himself as >THE TRUTH< - thought Pilate asked out of other motives.
But let’s hesitate and hold on here, and ponder if this question is probably too intimate to be put?
I dare to doubt, if the question as to where Jesus went first after His death, is at all salvation-relevant, or if it’s not far more so, that it’s one of these questions that forehand has nothing to do with us.
Answers we will receive in heaven - enough for all eternity.

We all enjoy the grace of late birth; - thus after Christ’s salvation through His Passion, death on the cross and resurrection. All born before - many of them lived much longer before Christ’s salvation, than we today after. Accordingly long was the time in God’s „waiting-rooms“ (other heavens or paradises); be it on "Abraham’s bosom“, Purgatorium, Paradise or whatever else existing bit ambiguous places or state of being.

Clear evidence that hat all of them were alive and not of them was „dead“, is the appearance of Moses and Elijah at Christ’s transfiguration, when they were obviously in conversation and thanked Jesus for the coming Passion with it’s atrocious brutality Christ went through voluntarily and out of love.

But back to the fundamental question
how does Luke 23,43 and John 20,17 go together?
Is there any answer at all?

Yours
Bruno

 

[Karen107]

Wow there is a lot to that question…

Think of our death as a transition, not a final place but where we change into our glorified version of ourselves by Jesus… Jesus changed after He died His physical death and manifested Himself to the disciples,… By Jesus… So the good thief did make it to heaven (paradise) that day, and we will too after we die as long as we do not lose our immortality.With God there is no time or space so heaven really is a mystery to us of a supernatural Kingdom though we can get glimpses of it through scripture and prayer.

These two scriptures may help…
1 Corinthians 15: 50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

At the time of the resurrection of the body we will be changed from a physical body to a spiritual ‘incorruptable’ body which is what happened to Jesus when He resurrected from the grave… And knowing that Jesus lived on and manifested Himself to the disciples teaches us about ourselves and that we too will have immortal bodies after we die.

Philippians 3: 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

The final judgment ‘will’ happen where Jesus will separate the sheep from the goats and there will be one final glorified body of Christ which will include those who have already died and are in heaven with those who are left on earth. And we begin our journey towards heaven through our baptism when we are ‘clothed’ in Christ… Symbolically that’s why we wear white when we are baptized as a reminder of our new life in Christ where our old self dies and we put on our new self in Christ.

Finally Our Lord tells us in…Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

That tells us that what we do in our bodies while we live on earth will matter in the afterlife so it’s not just about our souls we need to be concerned about, we must honor our Lord by our lives s so we will not lose our Immortality. Our bodies and our souls making us one person, individually and unique from everyone else.

I hope this helps clear some things up and this is what I came to believe so far …Others might have their thoughts on this. You’ve raised a very good question… God bless…

.

 

[adrift]

I believe one of the problems is the definition of paradise.

paradeisw
3857 paradeisos {par-ad’-i-sos} of Oriental origin cf 06508; TDNT - 5:765,777; n m 1) among the Persians a grand enclosure or preserve, hunting ground, park, shady and well watered, in which wild animals, were kept for the hunt; it was enclosed by walls and furnished with towers for the hunters 2) a garden, pleasure ground 2a) grove, park 3) the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise 4) the upper regions of the heavens. According to the early church Fathers, the paradise in which our first parents dwelt before the fall still exists, neither on the earth or in the heavens, but above and beyond the world 5) heaven

I believe that most people think Jesus was promising he would be in heaven but maybe not note the 3rd definition as being the abode of those before the resurrection which is what I believe Jesus meant and fits into the scripture that states Jesus preached to the spitits in prison 1 Peter 3:19

 

[Karen107]

Regarding the paradise definition above, there are three gardens…

The Garden of Eden, The Garden of Gethsemane, and the Garden in paradise/heaven…

Paradise is the third one and our final destination where we will eat of the tree of life. This is the eternal tree, and we will have access to it where Adam and Eve didn’t, so we will share in the knowledge of God in heaven when all things are revealed to us…

A day in paradise in the scripture of Luke is not relevant to 24 hours, it is a day with God in heaven when Jesus died and opened the gates (prison/purgatory) that was kept locked before so no one could enter paradise/heaven… Jesus now is the gate by which we have to go through to get to heaven.

John 10:9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

 

[BrunoMaria]

Sorry, all the time I had a typing mistake there, It’s Luke 23,43 and not Luke 23,34!

Actually the answer is very simple, when we know that Jesus of course went to the Father the moment He died and said in Luke 23:46: Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!”
He had left His Holy Body and went right to the Father, whilst His Body was taken to the grave, where Jesus the third day reunited with His Body and resurrected.

When Jesus then appeared to Mary of Magdala, He appeared right after His resurrection with His body, and in this physical body He had not yet been at His Father’s (though He had been with His Father when He, dying, returned His Spirit into the Hands of The Father - Christ as He Himself - His very being without His human body). Later, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, He was of course already at His Father’s in Christ’s human Body with the wound-stigmata - and ***now of course touchable for humans ***He later met Thomas and more than 500 others.

Yours
Bruno

 

[BrunoMaria]

with it of course goes, that Jesus Christ of course was at his Father together with Dismas the repentant sinner TODAY= the very day Jesus died and Dismas died. So the occasional translating “YET TODAY YOU WILL BE TOGETHER WITH ME AT MY FATHER’S” are truly right.

 

[mikekle]

John 10:9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

Thats interesting, why would someone choose to ‘go out’ of heaven to find pasture (which Im assuming sort of means, to find a nice place in which to reside or stay in).

 

[Karen107]

Thats interesting, why would someone choose to ‘go out’ of heaven to find pasture (which Im assuming sort of means, to find a nice place in which to reside or stay in).

It doesn’t say go out of heaven. It says come in and go out, and find pasture…Just think of a sheep who is let out through the gate and allowed to graze freely… The pasture is the garden/paradise/heaven… So when we die we meet Jesus who is the Gate who is also the Shepherd and we are the flock who will find eternal life in the pasture/the garden in heaven once we come through the ‘Gate’…

Our heavenly home is with the Father… and through Jesus is the way to the Father…

John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Here it is again…John 10:7 Therefore Jesus said again, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

 

[BrunoMaria]

of course not in and out of heaven.
He who lives in Jesus Wort, which is the Truth itself, does in all conditions and ups and downs of Life go in and out of this Door which is Christ and won’t ever let him.
Someone who knew that we lost our son in an unsolved case - assumably murder, told me this week: “I should have thought you had lost belief!”
I told the couple. NO! Never ever I’d loose belief - nor ever my wife. On the contrary, when he was dying both of us prayed that God takes him to Himself into His Kingdom.
These ups and downs in our probation-time here, which many think is ll there is and nothing will be after, is the “Door where we come in and go out, and find pasture”.
A truly full pasture that helps through any trouble in life. And remember who had most sorrors in life: The most Holy of all Holies; HOLY MARY who truly were a going in and out of that door. And Yes, there are the joys Holy Mary had too - we all got both too - but hardly in that extend.

The “seven sorrows” of Holy Mary, hardly any of us would have stood:
1. The Prophecy of Simeon over the Infant Jesus in Lk 2,34: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”
All of us would in Mary’s case have thought; how can this be, since my son is the Son of God?! He will rather smash all influenced by hell!

2. The Flight into Egypt of the Holy Family in Mt 2:13, and living there in a strange country unfriendly to Israel - 120km to protect this child from being murdered by Herod. They had been at least 2 years there, for King Herod died 4 BC. Then Jesus must have been approx. 4 or 6 years old. But as to WHEN we are not sure, not would it be important.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_era
This quarrels about times, don’t make any sense at all, for it’s used by atheists to “prove antitheses in the Bible” but there are none! Facts matter - not times.

3. The Loss of the Child Jesus for Three Days in Lk 2,43-49 at a time, when the occupying power ROME easily could take homeless as slaves (as done even today in many countries). And them the boy Jesus' answer: "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"

4. The Meeting of Jesus and Mary along the Way of the Cross in Lk 23,26 - an absolutely terrifying experience to be seen done with God! Mary never had thought it' would come that far. Isn't the temptation "this can't be God" overwhelming to all on this scene?!

5. The Crucifixion, where Mary stands at the foot of the cross in John 19,25: standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

It’s a hard to stand shock to see ones own child die. But to see ones Child being tortured to death is hell itself.

6. The Descent from the Cross, where Mary receives the dead body of Jesus in her arms in John 19,38-39: Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him leave. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who had at first come to him by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight.

A truly heart-rending experience to the Mother of God: Holy Mary.

7. The Burial of Jesus in John 19,40: They took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

 

[Karen107]

Praise be to God almighty who helps us even when we experience bad things in our life. Jesus will not let us down, Jesus will be there for us …