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Luke 23:43: Where Does the Comma Go? Was the Thief in Paradise That Day?
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Home » Uncategorized » Luke 23:43: Where Does the Comma Go? Was the Thief in Paradise That Day? “Verily, I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise,” as in the KJV, or “Verily I say unto thee to day, Thou shalt be with me in paradise,” as the Watchtower Society, Seventh Day Adventism, and other annihilationists teach?
Yesterday, one of the members at my church asked about where the punctuation in the NT & OT came from. The verse that prompted the question was Rom 1:2. Do the parentheses (and other punctuation) appear in original language texts?
Chris Long
Dear Chris,
We don't know whether the New Testament originally had punctuation or not. However, matters like commas and parentheses are often discernible by contextual features. Certain Greek New Testament manuscripts have punctuation and certain do not. God promised to preserve every word and letter (Matthew 5:18), but there is no promise of this kind for New Testament punctuation.
I believe that the Hebrew accents were originally part of the text written by Moses, Isaiah, etc. because the accents influence the vowels, and the vowels were inspired. We know the vowels were inspired for the reasons explained here:
http://faithsaves.net/bibliology/
In the essays:
The Debate over the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points
Evidences for the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points
The Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowels, and Accents, John Gill
The Hebrew accents function at times in the ways that modern commas, periods, etc. do, so in a certain sense one could say that the Old Testament has inspired punctuation.
Thanks for the comment.
Tom,
Wondering about the Psalm headings. Are they part of the inspired text or do they just serve as notes. Your thoughts on that, please.
By the way, I want to clarify, in relation to my comment above, that Luke 23:43 is an instance where syntax emphatically DOES make it clear where a pause in the sentence goes, and thus, where a comma is required. The parallel passages make it crystal clear that a comma is required after “unto thee,” and NOT after “Today.” Moving the comma, as annihilationist cults like the Watchtower Society and Seventh Day Adventists do, is nothing but imposing their theology upon the text of Scripture in utter contradiction of the requirements of the Greek syntax of Luke 23:43.
Annihilationists who are reading this and who care about what the Bible says more than what their religion teaches them, and who are willing to listen to the Bible if it comes in conflict with their religion, should go to:
http://faithsaves.net/different-religions/
and read the articles at the link:
“Do the Lost Suffer Forever in Hell? Annihilationism Examined.”
One more note—I received information from someone who read this post who argued that “paradise” is heaven in 2 Cor 12:3 and Rev 2:7, and the Lord Jesus did not ascend to heaven until 3 days later, and, therefore, one cannot conclude that the thief and the Lord were in paradise that day, despite what the other 69 passages with the Greek syntax of Luke 23:43 affirm (an analysis this particular reader of the post regrettably called “tedious,” when it is actually loving God and His Word enough to study it carefully and get doctrine from what it actually teaches, rather than imposing our ideas on the text.) However, the Bible teaches that Sheol/Hades was divided into two compartments until the resurrection of Christ (hence, e. g., references in the OT to the people of God being saved from the “lowest hell/sheol,” Ps 86:13; Deut 32:22, the place of torment), and that the righteous dead went to the Paradise section of Hades/Sheol until the resurrection of Christ, at which time the Lord Jesus took them with Him into heaven, so that from the time of the resurrection onward the saved dead are in heaven with the Lord Jesus, absent from the body, and present with the Lord, 2 Cor 5:8. Thus, Christ and the thief were in the Paradise section of Hades (Ac 2:27, 31) for three days, after which Christ took the thief to heaven with Himself (cf. Eph 4:8-10). The saved dead, the “spirits of just men made perfect,” are currently a “great cloud of witnesses” who can view the contentions of men on earth for the faith (Heb 11:1-12:1; 12:23).
Thus, there is nothing whatsoever in the use of the word “paradise” in Luke 23:43 that proves annihilationism or refutes the conscious existence of believers immediately upon death. The plain evidence of the 70 uses of “Verily I say unto you” in the NT stands—the thief and the Lord Jesus were conscious in Paradise the very day that they died.
The reader who argued for annihilationism in Lu 23:43 also believed that the Biblical doctrine of conscious existence after physical death was an error of pagan philosophy. However, consider the testimony of Papias, who “appears to have been a contemporary of Polycarp . . . ca. A.D. 70 to 155–160 . . . [and who] provides some of the very earliest testimony about the early church’s stance” (pg. 556, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, Michael William Holmes, Updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999). Papias explicitly said that the teaching of the apostles and their immediate disciples was that the saved dead are immediately in conscious bliss in paradise before the future resurrection:
Where then was the first man placed? In paradise, obviously, as it is written: “And God planted paradise eastward in Eden, and there he placed the man whom he had formed.” And from there he was expelled into this world, because of his disobedience. Therefore the elders, disciples of the apostles, also say that those who were translated were translated there (for paradise was prepared for righteous and inspired men; the apostle Paul was also carried there, and heard words unspeakable to us at least in this present life), and that those who are translated will remain there until the end of all things, as a prelude to immortality. (Trad 2:1)
Thus, the very earliest testimony we have from early Christianity, a testimony about the beliefs of those who walked, talked, ate with, and learned from the Apostles themselves, is that the righteous dead enter Paradise in conscious bliss immediately after death. Sorry, that belief is not a pagan error that somehow snuck into true churches that were supposedly all members of the Watchtower Society or Seventh-Day Adventists. It was the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, preserved pure by Baptist churches from the time of Jesus Christ, their Founder, until the present day.
Dear Billy,
I think there are good reasons to conclude the Psalm headings are indeed inspired. For example, in the Hebrew text they are simply the first verse of each of the Psalms.
Hi Josh,
Because of the external links your comment was deleted. You can make your argument here, though, if you like. I understand that you think the tone of the post is bad. I don't agree with you on that, but that is not a very good argument. Perhaps you can start with dealing with the actual content of the post. Why aren't there any other instances where "Verily I say unto thee/you" doesn't have the comma right afterwards?