No he didn’t say heaven; he said Paradise.
Paradise was where all the souls of the faithful who had died were waiting for Jesus to be the first one into heaven.
Don’t you read the Gospels?
One of them talks about the souls who awoke from their graves and wandered about Jerusalem, visible only to the believers.......they wandered for three days while Christ was in the tomb.
Then on the third day, the Resurrection, Christ rose from the dead and opened heaven. At least that is what I have always been taught.
Then the people waiting in Paradise could also follow.
I don’t agree - paradise and heaven are one in the same -
“The story of the penitent thief has sometimes been considered the most surprising, the most suggestive, the most instructive incident in all the Gospel narrative. ... In the salvation of one of the thieves theology finds one of its finest demonstrations.
Sacrementalism was refuted, for the thief was saved without recourse to baptism, the Lord’s Supper, church, ceremony, or good works.
The dogma of purgatory was refuted, for this vile sinner was instantly transformed into a saint and made fit for paradise apart from his personal expiation of a single sin.
The teaching of universalism was refuted, for only one was saved of all who might have been saved. Jesus did not say, “Today shall ye be with me in paradise”, but “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
The notion of soul-sleep was refuted, for the clear implication of the entire incident is that the redeemed thief would be in conscious fellowship with his Saviour in paradise even while his body disintegrated in some grave.
Too, it is doubtful whether any other gospel incident presents the plan of salvation more clearly or simply.” —Dr. Charles R. Erdman)
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Then the people waiting in Paradise could also follow.
And when the gates were opened, they stayed opened..No one is this age will go to Paradise, but to Heaven...
Don't you ever read the bible??? Try it instead of relying on 'what you have been taught'...