To day shalt thou be with me in paradise

Luke 23:32-33
¶ And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. 33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Luke 23:39-43
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. 43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

It was the year 33 A.D. on the day of the Passover that Jesus was crucified on the cross by the Romans and the Jewish elders of Israel. The gospel story of the crucifixion reveals that Jesus the Christ was crucified with two other men who were criminals, and sinners, unlike Jesus, whom had done no sin, nor anything deserving of death.

Jesus was born with a purpose to fulfil for the sins of his people Israel.

Matthew 1:18-23
¶ Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. 20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. 22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

The name that the prophet would call Jesus was Immanuel which meant ‘God with us,’ born not from the conception of a man, but that of God and his Holy Spirit.

Jesus was born to become a holy sacrifice for God to atone the sins of Israel and the world.

30 years later as a grown young man, Jesus came forth out of obscurity to be baptized by John the baptizer and one who would announce the coming of the Messiah, or the Christ, or the anointed one of Israel prophesied by the prophets of Israel.

John 1:29
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

The ‘Lamb of God’ was a reference not only to Jesus, but that he was recognized as the lamb to be slain for Israel and her sins against God’s holy law and Covenant God made with the people of Israel which they broke and sinned greatly; for committing a transgression of the law, is to sin against God.

The ‘Lamb’ was a reference to the Passover of YHWH God of Israel which took place before the salvation, at the Red Sea with Moses, of the children of Israel roughly 1500 years before hand.

Exodus 12:21-23
¶ Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. 22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. 23 For YHWH will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, YHWH will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

The use of the Lamb was also prophesied of the Messiah in the words of God’s holy prophet Isaiah who ministered to Israel roughly 800 years from the first Passover and after the children of Israel had sinned greatly against God and his holy law and were punished by God, cast out of their land, and scattered as lost sheep among foreign lands.

Isaiah 53:3-8
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 ¶ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and YHWH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

The prophet describes a man of sorrows and as a lamb brought to a slaughter who would die for the sole reason that YHWH would lay the iniquity of the people of Israel upon the Messiah.

Roughly 700 years later, Jesus, before he was arrested by the Romans and Jews, held a Passover service in Israelite tradition keeping the Old Testament law of God, and proclaimed the New Testament, or New Covenant God made with Israel.

Matthew 26:26-28
¶ And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. 27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; 28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

The reference to the New Testament, or New Covenant, was prophesied by YHWH’s prophet Jeremiah who admonished and warned the Israelite peoples of Judah to repent of their sins to God roughly more than 55 years following Isaiah’s ministry to Israel.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Behold, the days come, saith YHWH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith YHWH: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith YHWH, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know YHWH: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith YHWH: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

700 years on, Jesus announces on that evening beginning the Passover of 33 A.D., that his blood was to be shed for the remission, or forgiveness, of sins of his people Israel and all others.

Jesus had to die a bloody death to fulfil for God his Father YHWH a sinless holy sacrifice for all men, all of Israel and all others who one day would bind themselves to the New Covenant YHWH made with Israel.

Jesus foretold his own death he was to die on the cross for the sins of his people and the world’s sins.

Mark 9:31
For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.

Mark 10:33-34
Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: 34 And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again.

This brings us back to the crucifixion of Jesus and the two criminals beside him.

Jesus was now hanging nailed on the cross, as a sinless sacrificial lamb for the sins of the world including the sins of all his people the twelve tribes of Israel and the strangers, or Gentiles, the nations, not of Israel who God promised his salvation to, and Messiah would be a light to.

Isaiah 49:6
And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Jesus bled and died on the cross as a substitutional atonement for the sins of Israel, who could not remit their own sins by their own will, or by their attempts to adhere to the Old Testament law of God; for all of Israel fell short of the holy standard God required of his law and so it required a special sacrifice and a holy offering acceptable to God.

This is Jesus the Son of God, and God in the flesh, who came to earth as an offering for sin.

All of man and all of Israel deserved the punishment of God and to die for their sins against God, but God through his grace, mercy, compassion, and love, sent his Son to die in their place, and he died in our place.

John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Therefore, like the two malefactors who were deserving of punishment for other crimes committed against the laws of Rome, we too are all deserving of our punishment and worthy of the wrath of a holy God for our sins committed against God who is holy, just, and righteous.

Like the two criminals on the crosses next to Jesus, before we come to know Jesus, we too are as they were, condemned to a death, a punishment, like the wrath of the cross, only the punishment of God is eternal separation from God in the eternal fire of God’s wrath.

John 3:18
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Ephesians 2:2-5
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 4 ¶ But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

Romans 5:6
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

But when we come to know Jesus, as one of the criminals on the cross did, we receive the promise of Jesus to salvation and everlasting life in paradise with God.

Read how the one criminal on the cross came to repent of his ways acknowledging his sins before God, before Jesus.

Luke 23:39-41
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

This man repented of his actions before Jesus and then in an act of faith says, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”

Luke 23:42
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

The man had come to Jesus and Jesus, God in the flesh, did not turn the man away for his shameful and sinful life but said:

Luke 23:43
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Both criminals represent two different kinds of men’s hearts toward God; one man was a hardened heart, unrepentant of his sins and did not believe in Jesus.

The other criminal represents a repentant heart towards God; a heart that God will in no way turn away despite all our failings and sins and our deserving of death and separation from God.

Psalm 34:18
YHWH is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

If we would only turn away from our sins, acknowledge them and repent to God for our failings and wrongs against him, turning to Jesus the Son of God, we too could be told, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

Like the criminal on the cross who turned toward Jesus and received salvation the same day, today you can turn to Jesus and be saved.

You can turn to Jesus today for he arose from the dead into glory and he lives! Jesus is today seated at the right hand of Almighty God and he is Lord of all, heaven and earth, and will come again! He will come again in triumphant glory and judge the living and the dead!

Today, you can repent to God of all your failings and sins committed against him and his holiness and righteousness.

Today, you can begin a new with Christ Jesus as your personal savior, because he died for you.

Won’t you come to Jesus today?

Do you know Jesus the Christ?

He truly died on the cross for your sins!

He is the Lamb who was slain and by his blood you are healed!

Are you covered by the blood of the Lamb of God today?

Will you repent of your sins to God today?

Will you in faith believe and be baptized in his saving name?

There is saving power in the holy name of Jesus