The placement of the comma after “you” and before “today” would certainly seem to indicate this. However, notice how an entirely different meaning is conveyed if the comma is placed after “today” rather than before: “Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise.” By placing a comma before “today” in Christ’s statement rather than after it, Jesus is portrayed as saying something He never intended.
The original texts of the Bible (Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew and some Aramaic for the Old Testament) used no punctuation, as Dr. E.W. Bullinger explains in The Companion Bible: “None of our modern marks of punctuation are found [in Bible texts] until the ninth century…The punctuation of all modern editions of the Greek text, and of all versions made from it, rests entirely on human authority, and has no weight whatever in determining or even influencing the interpretation of a single passage” (1990, Appendix 94, p. 136l).
The Bible clearly teaches Jesus did not go to paradise or heaven on the day He died, but was buried in a grave as the Apostle Paul explains: “…Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
Three days after Christ’s death, when He had been resurrected He told Mary He had not as yet ascended into heaven: “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father…” (John 20:17). Earlier He has also plainly stated He would lie in the grave for three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40). The body of Jesus Christ was never buried while His soul went elsewhere. He was in the grave. Therefore the dying criminal could not have been with Jesus in heaven that day, because Jesus Himself did not go to heaven.
Part of Christ’s reply, “Assuredly I say to you today” was a “common Hebrew idiom…which is constantly used for solemn emphasis” (The Companion Bible, Appendix 173, p. 192). Examples of this Hebrew phrase, worded very similarly to Christ’s statement, can be found in Deuteronomy 30:18 (“I announce to you today that you shall surely perish”) and Acts 20:26 (“Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men”—New International Version). Several Bible translations and reference works, among them the Rotherham Translation, The Emphatic Diaglott, The Concordant Literal New Testament and A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament, recognize the Hebrew idiom and correctly place the comma after “today” in Luke 23:43.
Notice also the specific wording of the thief’s request: The thief expressed no expectation of immediately going to heaven with Jesus at the moment they died, but asked: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). The paradise Christ referred to is the Kingdom of God, a literal kingdom which will be established on earth by the Messiah, which many Jews of that day understood. (See our free study guide: The Gospel Of The Kingdom)
Jesus alone is the firstborn from the dead (Romans 8:29; Acts 26:23; 1 Corinthians 15:23), and He was encouraging the thief by assuring him a time would come, in God’s future Kingdom on earth, when he would be resurrected and see Jesus again at His second coming (Revelation 21:2-3).
