When did Jesus go to heaven?

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Sir_Knight

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When Jesus was dying on the cross, He assured the thief on His right that he would be with Jesus that day in heaven.

Then, three days later when Jesus rose from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father.
 
When Jesus stepped back into time and it was three days later, He wasn’t with the good thief yet, was He?
 
Sir_Knight said:
When Jesus stepped back into time and it was three days later, He wasn’t with the good thief yet, was He?
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I think this is a danger in viewing a Heavenly “day” as 24 hours. In Genesis 1, some (particularly American Protestants) take “day” to be 24 hours, even though at first, there was no Earth revolving around a sun (so a 24 hour day would be arbitrary… I mean, what time zone does God fall in?). In any case, no one takes the use of the same word yom to mean a literal 24-day in the next chapter. Genesis 2:17 warns that if you eat of the forbidden fruit, “that day, you will surely die,” yet Genesis 5:3-5 makes clear that Adam lived a LONG time afterwards.

2 Peter 3:8-9 speaks directly to your concern:
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

So Jesus assured the thief that he wouldn’t have to descend into the limbus patrum to await the Messiah, since the Messiah was next to him: He *wasn’t *trying to say something about the chronology of Heaven, lying as it does outside of space-time.
 
Sir_Knight said:
When Jesus was dying on the cross, He assured the thief on His right that he would be with Jesus that day in heaven.

Then, three days later when Jesus rose from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father.
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This may help. Taken from the Haydocks Catholic Bible Commentary

Luke 23:43

Ver. 43. I say to thee: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise; i.e. in a place of rest with the souls of the just. The construction is not, I say to thee this day, &c., but, thou shalt be with me this day in the paradise. (Witham) — In paradise. That is, in the happy state of rest, joy and peace everlasting. Christ was pleased by a special privilege, to reward the faith and confession of the penitent thief with a full discharge of all his sins, both as to the guilt and punishment, and to introduce him, immediately after death, into the happy society of the saints, whose limbo (that is, the place of their confinement) was now made a paradise by our Lord’s going thither. (Challoner) — The soul of the good thief was that same day with Jesus Christ, in the felicity of the saints, in Abraham’s bosom, or in heaven, where Jesus was always present by his divinity. (St. Augustine) — St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, says he entered heaven before all the patriarchs and prophets. St. Chrysostom thinks that paradise was immediately open to him, and that he entered heaven the first mankind. (Tom. v. homil. 32.)
 
Sir_Knight said:
When Jesus was dying on the cross, He assured the thief on His right that he would be with Jesus that day in heaven.

Then, three days later when Jesus rose from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father.
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There are no punctuations in the Greek. Most translations are improperly punctuated in order to make it appear that Jesus would be in Paradise that day. Proper punctuation helps explain Luke 23:43. The comma should follow the word “today”, not placed before it: “Verily I say unto thee today, Thou shalt be with me in paradise.”

By using the word “today,” Jesus was stressing the time of His promise – not the time He would be in paradise (Yes, Jesus also said “paradise,” not heaven).
 
There was nothing (Original Sin or personal sin) to prevent Jesus’ soul from entering heaven directly the day he died. When he spoke to Mary Magdalene shortly after his resurrection about his not yet having ascended to heaven, Jesus was referring to ascending to heaven in his resurrected body.
 
Hmmmmm. Interesting observation. Let me reason this one out if for no-one but myself…

Surely Jesus, who is true God and true man, was in the act forgiving the thief his sins when he said this. Now in the general audience of October 7, 1987 John Paul II stated*** “This power belongs to God alone. If Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, has that power, it means that he is God”***

Now as we all know God has always and forever reigned in Heaven so the thief was being told that on this day he would be with God Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Heaven because he had repented of his sins.

When Jesus was speaking to Mary Magdelene, although as true God He was in Heaven, the physical body of Jesus i.e the true man, had not yet returned to Heaven. I have not yet ascended to my Father simply means that Jesus Christ corporealy had not yet entered heaven.

I think this particular mystery can be helped by understanding also the eschatological tension, the tension between the already and the not yet, that exists in the Sacred Host to this very day.

Now of course I could be way off here but it’s only my amateur logic at work:o
 
When His humanity ascended to the right hand of the Father. He didn’t want Mary Magdalene to cling to Him untill He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in her heart.:twocents:
 
Benadam said:
When His humanity ascended to the right hand of the Father. He didn’t want Mary Magdalene to cling to Him untill He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in her heart.:twocents:
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I am lost now, what does Mary Magdalene have to do with this? or did i miss something.
 
Todd_Easton said:
There was nothing (Original Sin or personal sin) to prevent Jesus’ soul from entering heaven directly the day he died. When he spoke to Mary Magdalene shortly after his resurrection about his not yet having ascended to heaven, Jesus was referring to ascending to heaven in his resurrected body.
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But, if that is the case, then why was Thomas allowed to touch Jesus before His body went to heaven?
 
Well, technically he was a bishop (which is also a priest) but he was also a sinner just like Mary Magdalene was. If Jesus would have been “stained” by touch from one, He would have been stained by the other. Yes? No?
 
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