Jesus did not take the repentant thief to Paradise on the day of the crucifixion. Jesus was in the grave three days and three nights, and Scripture says He Himself was buried, not merely His body (I Corinthians 15:3-4; John 19:41-42). Acts 2:31 says His soul was not left in hades, which means the grave, not Paradise. Since Christ has preeminence in all things (Colossians 1:18), the thief could not have entered Paradise ahead of Him. Paradise is where God's throne and the tree of life are (II Corinthians 12:1-5; Revelation 2:7; 22:1-2), which is the New Jerusalem. That city is not yet finished and will not descend to earth until after the Millennium. The thief had asked to be remembered when Christ comes into His kingdom, and Christ has not yet come into it. Luke 23:43 is therefore a matter of punctuation. The original Greek had none, and the comma was added centuries later. It belongs after "today," so that Jesus is stressing the time of His promise: "Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in paradise." The thief remains dead and buried, but he will be resurrected and will enter the Paradise of God.

Luke 23:43, where Jesus tells the repentant criminal, "today you will be with Me in Paradise," is commonly taken as proof that believers go to heaven immediately at death, but it does not support that idea. Jesus' one sign of His identity was three days and three nights in the grave, so He could not have been in Paradise that day, and neither could the criminal. Paul says Christ was buried and rose the third day (I Corinthians 15:3-4), John places Jesus in the tomb (John 19:41-42), and Peter says His soul was left in Hades, the grave (Acts 2:31). Jesus Himself told Mary Magdalene after the resurrection that He had not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17). Paradise, a Greek word meaning park or garden, describes an Eden-like setting marking the presence of God's throne, as in II Corinthians 12:1-5 and Revelation 2:7. Revelation 21 and 22 show the Tree of Life and God's throne in the New Jerusalem descending to the new earth after the Millennium. That is the Paradise the repentant criminal will one day enter with Jesus Christ.

The thief on the cross did not go to heaven on the day he died, because no one ascends to heaven at death. John 3:13 says no one has ascended to heaven but the Son of Man, and Acts 2:29, 34 shows that King David is dead and buried, not in heaven. The Old Testament heroes of Hebrews 11 have not yet received the promise, since God planned for them to be made perfect together with New Testament believers (Hebrews 11:40). Perfection comes only at the resurrection, which Philippians 3 and I Corinthians 15:50-54 place at the last trumpet when Christ returns. Jesus Himself is the only exception, so the thief could not have been made perfect before Christ or ahead of all the saints. Jesus was Himself dead and buried that day, awaiting resurrection after three days and three nights, so He could not have been in Paradise with the thief. The common reading of Luke 23:43 depends on a comma placed after "you," but the ancient Greek manuscripts had no punctuation, and translators added it centuries later. Placing the comma after "today" resolves the contradiction: "Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise." The statement then marks the day the promise was spoken, not the day it would be fulfilled.

The criminal crucified beside Jesus could not have entered Paradise that day, because Jesus Himself lay in the grave for three days and three nights and did not ascend to the Father until after His resurrection (John 20:17). Luke 23:46, where Jesus commits His spirit to the Father, is often read through the assumption of an immortal soul, as though Jesus and the criminal were consciously with God that day. Scripture shows otherwise. The spirits of all people return to God at death (Ecclesiastes 3:21; 12:7), but the spirit is only a component of the person, essentially the mind, and it has no consciousness apart from a living body. Passages such as Psalm 6:5, Psalm 88:11-12, Psalm 115:17, Psalm 146:4, and Ecclesiastes 9:10 describe death as silence, forgetfulness, and the end of thought, work, and knowledge, comparable to sleep. If the dead were in God's presence, they would not be silent. John 3:13 confirms that no one has ever gone into heaven, and the spirit is restored to a body only at a resurrection (Luke 8:55). The belief in continued consciousness after death comes from paganism, not Scripture. Both Jesus' spirit and the criminal's spirit returned to the Father, but neither whole person was there, and neither was conscious.

Luke 23:43 should not be read as promising that Jesus and the criminal would both be in Paradise that very day. Critics who say so point to the sentence structure, arguing that Jesus' emphatic "Assuredly, I say to you" statements never include a time word, and that "today" would be redundant since "I say" is already present tense. This overlooks that "today" or "this day" is a common Hebrew idiom, used hundreds of times in both Testaments, that adds solemnity and gravity rather than marking a 24-hour period, as in Deuteronomy 4:26. Since Jesus is the same Person who used this idiom with ancient Israel, the comma is misplaced and belongs after "today": "Assuredly, I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise." Jesus is solemnly assuring the criminal that at some point he will be with Him in His Kingdom on earth. This fits Luke's emphasis on Christ as the universal Man and Savior of all mankind, who does not brush aside a common thug. Jesus recognizes the criminal's rudimentary faith in the coming Kingdom and in Christ's resurrection. The criminal, knowing he would be dead, understood that Christ's remembrance of him must begin with his own resurrection. The emphatic idiom also extends this encouragement to all who have not turned away.