"I happen to believe the place where Jesus took the thief is the same where/when from which He reached out to write on Belshazzar's wall..."
Maybe the same place He took Enoch and Elijah? The same place they will step from and onto the temple mount during the AC's reign?
Great little sidebar you have going,would make a great thread.
As Bible-believing Christians we have to accept at face value that the words chosen in the Bible are purposeful. At the very least the words of God or Jesus are specific and with purpose.
That said Jesus didn’t say to the Thief you’ll be with me in Heaven. He said Paradise. It is safe to conclude that Heaven isn’t Paradise.
It is also safe to conclude that Hell/Gehenna isn’t Sheol. They’re just too different in description and implication.
Maybe Narses or NYer can expound a bit on the Catholic teachings regarding these verses. Do Catholics still believe in limbo, purgatory, etc.?
Finally, was the Thief baptized? Think on Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38, etc. What are the implications?
Curiously, a place of comforting would not be too comforable if from that place one could look over to the place where people are in torment, so I conclude that though the rich man could see Lazarus being comforted, Lazarus would not have seen the rich man being tormented.
The place of torment is so bad that the rich man asks to have Lazarus sent from thence to warn the rich man's kin so that they repent and not end up where he is! The Lord responds that even if one returned from the dead to testify, since for their lifetimes they had the witness of the law and the prophets they would not repent even for the witness of one returned from the dead to warn them ... and Jesus was only weeks away from returning from that place of comforting to witness to all of humankind that there is resurrection from death through Him. The New Testament relates to us that during the three days He was physically dead, Jesus witnessed to those in that place of comforting and that these He will bring with Him upon His return to claim His Church and the witnesses who will witness the marriage of the Lamb.
Addressing the notion that Jesus was not yet ascended into Heaven when He related to the thief on the cross next to Him, 'Today thou shalt be with me in paradise', when Jesus died His human soul and spirit were transported to the place Lazarus had been transported to. From thence the thief would be transported to Heaven when Jesus brings the souls of the saved with Him.
The thief was as saved as Lazarus the instant Jesus told him he would be with Him in Paradise. The thief had no baptism. The thief fulfilled no temple ordinances. The thief had no lifetime of striving to keep the commandments. BUT the thief did the thing Jesus tells us was required by God to obtain deliverance: the thief believed on Him WHom God sent as Soter, Deliverer. Believing on Him is the work God requires for salvation. And that day, the thief did the work that God requires.