DEATH AND BEYOND

understanding that these booklets have presented, and compare that meaning with the rest of the Bible and the rest of the account. This understanding is to read the verse as ‘verily I say to thee today, Thou shalt be with me in paradise.’
‘Today’ is the time when the words were spoken, not the time they would be in paradise together. Jesus, Himself, was not in paradise on the day that He died which was ‘Good Friday’,

the preparation day. On that day He was lying in the grave. He then rose on Sunday, the first day of the week, but when He was met by Mary, He asked her not to touch Him as He had not yet ascended to His Father. John 20:17. Jesus clearly stated that He had not been to heaven yet. Therefore the thief would not yet be in paradise with Jesus. The thief will receive his reward when Christ comes the second time and calls the sleeping dead to awake. This is in harmony with the rest of the Bible.
But what about the word ‘Today’? The placing of the word ‘today’ is to give emphasis to the fact that Jesus was making a promise that would be kept. ‘I say unto thee this day, “Thou shalt be with Me in paradise”.’ The actual placing of the Greek words is as follows. ‘Verily thee I tell today with me thou wilt be in paradise.’ There is no punctuation to tell us how to read it, but scripture must be compared with scripture to give a true Bible understanding and to see how it should be read.

2 Corinthians 5:1-9. ‘For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him.’

This extended passage of Scripture is frequently used to show that, when we die, we leave this body and go to be with the Lord. Please explain.

First of all it must be stressed that an entire doctrine cannot be built on one passage of Scripture. It must be compared with other verses and dealt with thoughtfully. This group of verses is often used to prove that death is the transition point between one life and another – the soul of the saint leaving the fleshly body and going on to continue life in the presence of the Lord. In this argument, death is not death but only the door to another form of life. It is contended that life is unbroken and death is merely an interruption. The disembodied souls are seen to wait with the Lord in heavenly bliss, until the time of the resurrection when they will be reunited with the body. Paul writes in detail about death and the resurrection and these verses are found in 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. These are both extended passages. They are clear. They do not contain parables or illustrations. Complex verses should always be compared with those that are unambiguous.

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