Please explain Luke 23:43. Did the thief go to Paradise on that day? B. The scripture reads as follows: “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” First of all note the request of the thief, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom;” not when You die, not when You ascend to the Father, but “when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” The wild, roving robber had doubtless been in the crowds where Jesus had preached, and where He had preached of His coming kingdom in this earth. See Luke 19, for instance, and other discourses of our Lord. His heart had doubtless been touched on those occasions, and he had longed for the time to come when the oppressor would no more be found among God’s children, and when there would be peace and happiness; and now when he saw how Jesus had met patiently in His mock trial all the contumely, buffeting, and cruelty, the repentant robber was convinced that Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Saviour of men; that He was there dying for men, and that He would come again to take His kingdom. Hence his prayer, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Did Jesus answer that question?—He certainly did. His answer was, “Verily I say unto thee to-day,”—this day, when My own nation have rejected Me and are putting Me to death through the hated Roman power; this day, when to all seeming purposes I Myself have no power at all; this day, when I am dying as a malefactor upon the cross; this day of seemingly utter defeat, I promise thee that thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. What lends this more force is the fact that the thief in all probability did not die that day. It was common for criminals to linger upon the cross two or three days; and when the soldiers came near at the set of sun to take the thieves down, lest they might escape, their legs were broken, and they were left to suffer and die, crushed and bruised in that way. Jesus Himself died,—the spear thrust proved that,—but He did not then ascend into heaven. We read in John 20:17 that when Mary came to worship Him He told her to touch Him not, for He had not yet ascended unto God. Shortly after this evidently He ascended to the Father, because He allowed His disciples to embrace Him. He must first ascend, after His resurrection, to the Throne of Heaven, and be accepted of the Father in behalf of the work that He had done for fallen man. Inasmuch as He had not ascended to His Father, He certainly had not ascended to Paradise, because Paradise is in the third heaven, where God dwells. See 2 Cor. 12:2-4; Rev. 2:7; 22:1, 2, by which texts it will be seen that the Tree of Life is in the midst of the Paradise of God, and hard by the Tree of Life is God’s throne. Consequently Jesus did not go to Paradise on that day. Therefore the only conclusion we can draw from His words is that He said to the thief that day, that that repentant soul would in the future, when He came into His kingdom, be with Him in Paradise. Sometimes this is objected to by the form of the expression “shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” It is simply an old form of placing a part of the verb before its subject, but just as truly in the indicative mode as “thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” It is simply an old English form of which there are many in the Scriptures. The text could just as well read, “Verily I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” Rotherham renders: “Verily I say unto thee this day: With Me shalt thou be, in Paradise.” The Syriac, “Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” “With Me thou shalt be in the Paradise” is the literal word-for-word rendering.