Okay man. To see who hung beside Jesus who Jesus told today he would dwell with him in Paradise. I go to a different website so I can learn how to talk to people to witness. Now I believe everything Jesus says. I had pastors on there get mad cuz I would argue with them. They claim since Jesus was not in Paradise that day then there's no way that the thief went to heaven. Now the thief claimed he was worthy of his death because of his wrong which is a sign of repentance. He did not ask Christ to take him down off the cross and claim his innocence. He said Christ was innocent his claim more or less sorry about paraphrasing. Anyway lots of commentaries say on Bible hub that the thief did inherit Paradise. So it's hard to believe so many theologians and so many people out there say that the thief did go to heaven. I'm not trying to knock anybody. I've been argued with claiming that the thief had no life service to Christ. Sounds to me like some pastors have an issue with somebody getting saved at the last minute. I believe Jesus can save anybody at any point in their life. Any comments I'm open I'm not going to argue with you like I did on quora though.
This thief , was not condemned to death under Jewish law . The penalty for thievery was not death . Obviously , it must have been the Roman law that he had broken and been condemned under , not Jewish law . I think this is significant . The thief did not deserve death in the eyes of Jewish law so , could that also mean that the thief did not deserve death in God's eyes either ? God gave the Jews His laws for them to follow , doesn't this mean that those laws were a reflection of God's righteous judgement ? If so , the thief should not have been crucified . The Romans wanted him dead .
In Luke ch23 v 40 , the thief implies that he fears God even if the other condemned man doesn't .
In v 41 he confessed that he is a sinner but is he referring to his thievery ( that doesn't incur the death penalty ) or is he just talking about himself as a sinful human in general , the sinfulness that is in all of us . Next , he confesses that Jesus is completely innocent , sinless in fact .
In v 42 , he calls Jesus Lord and admits / confesses that he knows that Jesus is going to revieve a kingdom , he's not going to hell or to b left in the grave etc . Jesus is going to receive a kingdom ! How does he know all these things about Jesus ? He also asks to b remembered by Jesus in that day , implying that he knows there is a possibility that he himself , might actually have a chance at being there , with Jesus . It seems this thief must have either had a recent and direct revelation about who Jesus is or , at some point , he has heard and believed the gospel but , this has not been enough to avoid the sentence if death , already passed by the Romans . So , in many ways , the thief represents us as Christians . Even Christians have to die , even though they may not have broken a law that requires death ( under the Mosaic law ) , we r all under the same condemnation wether or not we have actually commited a sin that's worthy of the punishment of death or not , sin is still sin , it's all bad !
The only way to circumvent this condemnation is , to acknowledge our sinful nature , repent and ask God to forgive us , which is now possible for us to do because we have access to God through prayer , through our Sinless High Priest in heaven , Jesus Christ who did no sin and , willingly offered himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin . Any and all who believe in the work that he did , through God's Holy Spirit , can and will , and in fact already has , passed from death ( the living death of the atheist and idolater ) to eternal life in Christ . We r alive unto God forever , we live in and through Christ . Atheists and idolaters r spiritually dead . We have been washed clean by the blood of the lamb . We shall not only meet our Redeemer face to face but , we shall meet that man , he is as clean as any of us r

let's not call him thief , let's call him brother .