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Salvation - do we receive it immediately after death?
Luke 23:43 “And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.†With this text, it is important to understand the historical development of the Bible, because the meaning is actually influenced by the position of the comma. The original text throughout the Bible was in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek and contained no punctuation marks. There were also no verses as we know them. Genesis 1 for example comprised seven paragraphs – one for each day of creation. In the 16th century, William Tyndale was very actively involved in translating the Bible. It is estimated that up to 75% of the Old Testament in the King James Version is Tyndale’s wording. In 1611 the King James Version followed and today verses and punctuation marks are part of the Bible and one can systematically read and study it. Below may be found another example pertaining to the importance of the position of the comma. “Usually, punctuation differences are inconsequential, but sometimes they affect meaning as noted in Acts 27:18, that also has a word difference and an italic difference: • 18 And being exceedingly tossed with a tempest the next day, they lightened the ship: • 18 And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship.†It is interesting that there were already changes with respect to punctuation marks from between 1611 to 1612 in die different editions of the King James Version. The current edition has more than 1000 changes in punctuation marks with definite differences in meaning. The true meaning of a portion of Scripture must be in harmony with the rest of the Bible and in the case of Luke 23:43, the translators who made the decision about the position of the comma definitely believed in the doctrine of “die and immediately receive your reward.†The Bible however is very consistent about what happens after we die and this does not agree with the position of this comma. By merely moving the comma this same sentence reads as follows: “Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise.†With the comma as it currently appears in the Bible, it means that Jesus and the thief would be together in heaven on that Friday. The variation above shows that Jesus merely gave him the assurance on that Friday that he would be saved. Is there another verse to arbitrate the matter? John 20:17 “ Jesus said to her, Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.†Here Jesus clearly states that on the Sunday after His crucifixion, He had still not gone to heaven to confirm whether His sacrifice had been acceptable. His own testimony, therefore, supports the idea that the current placement of the comma is incorrect. The dead do not go straight to heaven as some understand it. See the following website for more information: https://www.itiswritten.com/search-for-certainty-lesson-16-the-real-truth-about-death/