Jesus and the repentant thief

[Curious11]

The Apostle’s creed, which I’ve just now read for the first time ever, says Jesus went to hell for 3 days and then rose from the dead. How is it then that he told the repentant thief: “I promise you, today you shall be in paradise with me”? Did he mean the thief would go to the Father while Jesus went to hell for 3 days?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The actual words say “He descended into Hell; on the third day He rose again from the dead”.

It doesn’t say he spent the whole time He was dead in Hell, and indeed He did not.

Before Jesus died, nobody who had died previously, ever, could go to Heaven. Good people were sent to a place which we call “Hell” but which wasn’t the same as the “Hell” where sinners go with fire and everything. I believe the original word for the “Hell” to which all the dead went before Jesus was “Sheol” and it was basically a place where good people were comfortable but they could not be in the presence of God. So all these souls were down there waiting for Jesus to be born and live out his human life and die for all of our sins.

When Jesus died, he, and presumably the Good Thief who also died, went down to Sheol. At that point, Jesus opened up the gates of Heaven for all the good souls who had been sitting around in Sheol, and they all went to Heaven with Jesus. Jesus did this ASAP after He died; also remember that after death, you’re on God’s time, which is not the same as our human time. So this likely could have happened in a really short span of human time the minute Jesus died, because certainly Jesus, being God, was going to Heaven and he would not have been letting the good souls in Sheol wait a long time especially since his own earthly father St. Joseph was one of the deceased good souls waiting around down there.

So Jesus was correct in his words to the Good Thief, they all went to Paradise right after death, after Jesus made a quick visit to Sheol.

Jesus probably spent the rest of his time being “dead” up in Paradise and then returned to earth for the Resurrection.

Here’s the Catechism section on this.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a5p1.htm

 

[Curious11]

Well explained. Thank you!!

 

[Curious11]

Interesting, hadn’t thought of that

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The latter would make sense if the Good Thief had to go to Purgatory first before entering Heaven.

However, considering that the Good Thief was suffering through a horrible crucifixion, maybe Jesus figured that was purgatory enough, especially since we don’t know all the circumstances of what the guy stole or why he stole it or if his punishment was truly just, etc.

 

[Gorgias]

Jesus probably spent the rest of his time being “dead” up in Paradise and then returned to earth for the Resurrection.

And remember, too, @Curious11, that ‘death’ is “death of the body”, not a death of the soul. So, Christ died in His body (and therefore, was dead until the third day).

You could say that, and some Christian sects actually do say that, as a means of denying that anyone’s in heaven until the parousia.

However, as a matter of semantics – or perhaps, pragmatics – it doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny. What in the world would “I say to you today, …” mean? I mean, as opposed to “I say to you yesterday” or “I say to you tomorror”? Nah… this one’s a red herring: the only interpretation that makes sense is “I say to you, today…”

 

[Gorgias]

My point is that, since He’s using a present tense verb, it doesn’t make any sense for “today” to modify “I am telling”. The present continuous tense already sufficiently makes that point.

 

[Hebrews12]

This sort of question falls into the same category for me as Genesis and God creating everything in six days. What does six days mean to God? What does “today” mean to God? Time, at least as we understand it in physical terms, only exists in the material universe. Even in our material universe, the passage of time is relative based on the relative speeds of objects. In human terms, even the concept of a day is based on the speed the Earth spins about its axis, but the Earth has spun at different speeds all throughout its history and is currently slowing down, making days longer.

We can barely figure out what time even is in our realm; we have no means of measuring time in Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell. We have faith that time, or some concept of time, does pass in those realms of existence, but no idea how slowly or how fast, or if a comparison to time on Earth is even possible in any meaningful or measurable way.

And then, on top of all that, should we even take Genesis, or the story of the repentant thief, so literally anyway, or is there a deeper truth that matters a lot more than precise timings of events?

Personally, I just shrug, and leave such things up to God to know, and simply try to find what truth I can in those stories.

 

[sonofbarry]

Yes, I’ve read that, too.
In one interpretation, it refers to the time of making the promise: “I tell you this day…” In other words, “I’m telling you now that you will be in heaven in the future.”

The other interpretation refers to the time the promise will be carried out (i.e. very soon): “I tell you, this day…”. In other words, “I tell you: on this very day, you will be in heaven.”

Vastly different meanings.

My problem with the first: why would you need to add “this day” to the statement? Of course you’re telling him this day. It’s not any other day.

Problem with the second: well, not really a problem, just an issue with time. The bible has terribly vague and often figurative notions of time (creation in 6 days; one day as a thousand years; forty days in the desert). In the case of Calvary, they were going to die quite soon and they knew it. To the thief, heaven would have been the next moment of consciousness. Figuratively, that’s kind of like the same day, even though millennia might have passed in the world. To him, waking, it’s the same day.
(It will be the same for all who wake in the resurrection – as Donne wrote “One short sleep past, we wake eternally.”)