THE THIEF ON THE CROSS by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 12, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 7

THE THIEF ON THE CROSS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

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

Here our opponents have found, as they think, a plain case favoring their view of going to Heaven at death. But we are convinced that the whole difficulty in this passage turns simply upon the punctuation. As it now stands punctuated, it makes the Saviour promise the thief that he should be with him in Paradise that day; but we believe this punctuation to be incorrect. Properly punctuated, it reads as follows: “Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”

Putting the comma after “to-day,” where it properly belongs, the adverb “to-day” qualifies the verb say; that is, “I say unto you to-day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” This makes sense of the passage. Now look a moment at the facts. Jesus was there, nailed to the cross, condemned to death. His enemies stood around his feet, cursing and reviling him. Everybody had forsaken him, and it looked as though God himself had abandoned him. Here the poor thief puts his trust in the Saviour. Under these circumstances, Christ is so touched with his faith that he says, Verily I promise you to-day, under these circumstances, as foreboding as they look, I here promise you that you shall be with me in Paradise, as you have requested.

It will be remembered that the art of punctuation was not introduced until some 250 years ago. Thus Quackenbos’ Rhetoric, p. 81, says, “The ancients originally wrote their manuscript without marks or divisions of any kind. Points were said to have been introduced about two hundred years before Christ by Tristophanes, a grammarian of Alexandria, but they did not come into general use for several centuries. The modern system of punctuation was invented by Manutius, a learned printer who flourished in Venice at the commencement of the sixteenth century.” So when Luke wrote his gospel, there was no mark of punctuation put into it. These marks were introduced into the Bible about two hundred years ago, and the translators punctuated it according to their ideas of theology. In this case they plainly made a mistake. The use of the comma sometimes entirely changes the meaning of a sentence.

We offer reasons why this passage should be interpreted as we maintain:—

1. Look at the request of the thief himself: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” Verse 42. This request shows that he never thought of reaching Heaven, or being saved, until the Lord should come into his kingdom. Hence Christ’s answer referred to the very time that the thief indicated, namely, when he should come into his kingdom.

2. Jesus said this man should be with him in Paradise. That Paradise is in Heaven, where God is, is plainly taught in the Bible, and generally admitted. Thus Paul says that in a certain vision which he had, he knew a man who was caught up to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2), and he immediately says that he was caught up into Paradise. Verse 4. From this we learn that Paradise is in the third heaven. Jesus says: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” Rev. 2:7. This is another nail in a sure place. Paradise is in the third heaven, and the tree of life is in the midst of Paradise. One more text will settle the question. “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life.” Rev. 22 : 1, 2.

3. The tree of life, then, stands before the throne of God, and this tree of life is in the midst of Paradise, and hence certainly Paradise is in Heaven, where God dwells. This is the place where Jesus promised to meet the thief. This promise was made on the day of crucifixion. Three days afterward, however, Jesus positively declared to Mary that he had not yet been to his Father. “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” John 20 : 17. Three days after the promise was made, he had not been to Heaven. Did he make a promise, and then break it so soon? No; that cannot be. Therefore we are obliged to adopt the interpretation which we have given, in order to avoid a plain contradiction in the Scriptures. To say the very least, we must all admit that this passage is capable of being explained in harmony with the sleep of the dead. It does not state what our opponents believe. They only infer their views from it; but we have shown that their inference is unnecessary.