‘And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your Kingly Rule.” And he said to him, “Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in Paradise.” '
And then he turned to Jesus. To his memory probably came back words that he had heard Him preach about the coming of the Kingly Rule of God, stirred by the mockery of the rulers. And something told him that here was One for Whom at least this was not the end. So wistfully, and probably almost hopelessly, he humbled himself and sought only that this Man would remember him when He entered in on that Kingly Rule that He had spoken about. Similar requests to be remembered are found on contemporary gravestones, a wistful hope rather than a confident pleas. It was a plea to be remembered, sinful though he was. He probably did not even himself understand fully what he was asking. Rather it was an expression of some inward faith caused by the presence of Jesus. And he probably little dreamed that he would receive a reply far above his expectations. But what he asked was enough, for it came from a true heart and was addressed to the right Person.
For Jesus turned His head towards him, and said those immortal words, “Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in Paradise.” It was the last ‘truly' that Jesus would say on earth, but it saved a human soul.
“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Behind these remarkable words, spoken in such dread circumstances, lie a host of significant truths. The first is the utter certainty of Jesus. He had no doubt that within a short while He would be enjoying the presence of God. There was not a single doubt in His mind in spite of what He had gone through and what He would still have to go through. The second is His certainty on behalf of this repentant evildoer. He knew without any shadow of doubt that this man would join Him there, because He had determined it. In this He expressed quite clearly His right to grant the forgiveness that brought eternal life, the power to bring this broken, sinful man into an eternal relationship with God. He did not say to him, ‘Look to God and you will be forgiven'. He did not say, ‘Pray, for you still have hope.' In that hour of outward darkness and despair He said, ‘I say to you'. Even while He was seemingly powerless in the hands of man, He was controlling a human destiny, with a certainty that clearly revealed who He was. These words alone demonstrate His supreme deity. No Messiah who accorded with the belief of the Jews could have spoken with such certainty. How could a man desiring to be remembered by another man have his forgiveness confirmed to him in this way? No godly man would have dared to be so presumptious. Only Jesus could have done it, because of Who He was.
What Jesus said was sufficient to bring rest to the man's soul. For He spoke in terms that the man could understand. There was no time here for an expansion of His words, no time for explanation, no time for subtle theology. He had to ask Himself, ‘How can I convey My thought in one sentence in words that will speak to this man as he is, so that he will understand? And He found the answer in the idea of ‘Paradise', which originally referred to the walled gardens of kings, was used in LXX to refer to the Garden of Eden, and which had come to mean the intermediate level of bliss for the righteous. And so He promised him Paradise. We must not try to build up theories from this reply, or seek explanations from it about life beyond the grave, fitting it into some complicated scheme. It was not a part of His schematic teaching. It was a word spoken to convey the idea of comfort and salvation to a dying man in terms that he would at that moment understand. Basically it promised him that in that very day he would be enjoying joy in the presence of God. It promised him all that his heart could desire.
But if we take His words literally then it indicated that that very day both of them would be consciously in the presence of God awaiting the resurrection (compare Philippians 1:21-23), a resurrection which He anticipated for Himself within a short while, and anticipated for the ex-evildoer at the general resurrection. So when Jesus ‘descended into Hades' we must see Him as ‘descending' into Paradise (descending because the body descended into the tomb). The descent merely speaks of His body going into the grave without reference to what happened to His spirit.
Here then was the firstfruit of the cross, a man who most would have considered a hopeless case, but who was now brought within the folds of His saving power. For he had met and submitted to the One Who had the power to give life to whom He willed (John 5:21), and he had passed from death to life (John 5:24).
An interesting parallel is found a hundred years later referring to Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion. When he was being burned to death as a martyr c 135 AD his executioner supposedly asked him if he would bring him to the life of the world to come if he stopped tormenting him. The Rabbi is said to have agreed with the consequence that the executioner joined him in the fire. Then a heavenly voice came which said, ‘Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion and the executioner are destined for life in the world to come'. But it should be noted in this case that the authoritative statement about his deliverance comes from Heaven and not from the Rabbi, confirming what we have said above. The Rabbi could express the pious hope, but it required the voice from Heaven to give certainty. It is also noteworthy that the executioner is seen to have earned his deliverance by his willingness to cease his torments and be a martyr. It was thus a very different case from the dying evildoer who received his deliverance totally undeservedly simply because he looked to Jesus, and it was probably rather intended to be a pious tale with a moral than to be taken literally.