Luke 23:43 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jesus said In answer to his prayer; Verily I say unto thee I, the Amen, the faithful Witness, give thee assurance, This day thou shalt be with me in paradise As if he had said, I will not only remember thee when I come into my kingdom, but this very day; and will confer upon thee more than thou hast asked. Christ here lets us know, 1st, That he was going, not only to αδης, the invisible world, but to that part of it termed paradise. His human soul was removing to the place of separate souls; not to the place of the damned, but to the place of the blessed. This was the beginning of the joy set before him, with the prospect of which he comforted himself. He went by the cross to the crown, and we must not think of going any other way, or of being perfected save by sufferings. 2d, That when penitent believers die, they go to be with him there. He was now as a priest, purchasing this happiness for them, and is ready, as a king, to confer it upon them. Observe, reader, how the state of happiness, prepared for holy souls after death, is set forth. 1st, It is being in paradise, a garden of pleasure, the paradise of God, Revelation 2:7, alluding to those gardens in which the eastern monarchs made their magnificent banquets, or rather to the garden of Eden, in which our first parents were placed, when they were innocent. It is termed Abraham's bosom, in the story of Lazarus, and was a common expression among the Jews, for the mansion of beatified souls in their separate state. In the second Adam we are restored to all we lost in the first Adam; and more, to a heavenly paradise instead of an earthly one. 2d, It is being with Christ there. It is the happiness of paradise and of heaven, to see Christ, to be with him, and to share in his glory. Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, &c., John 17:24. Thus St. Paul expected, when he departed, to be with Christ, Philippians 1:23; and the first Christians in general were confident, that when they were absent from the body, they should be present with the Lord. 3d, Holy souls enter this place, or state, immediately upon death. This day, that is, before six o'clock in the evening, when their day ended. “The souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are immediately in joy and felicity.” Observe, 1st, “That the word σημερον, to-day, is not to be connected with I say, as if the sense were this, I say to thee to-day; but with the words following, so as to contain a promise, that the thief [with respect to his soul] should even that day be in paradise, appears from the familiar phrase of the Jews, who say of the just man dying, To-day he shall sit in the bosom of Abraham. 2d, Christ doubtless spake in that sense in which the thief could, and in which Christ knew he would, understand him; now he, being a Jew, would surely understand him according to the received opinion of his nation concerning paradise, which was, that it was the place into which pious souls, separated from the body, were immediately received.”