Luke 23:43 — “Today you will be with me in paradise”: where does the comma go?

“And Jesus said to him: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Luke 23:43

Context: a conversation between two dying men

The sentence is spoken at a place of execution. Luke reports that two criminals were crucified with Jesus, one on his right and one on his left (23:33). The one mocks him: “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” The other rebukes him — they were suffering justly, but this man had done nothing wrong — and then turns to Jesus. The verse is therefore not a doctrinal statement about the condition of the dead, but the answer to a request that one dying man addresses to another.

This request is decisive for understanding the verse, for an answer must always be read in the light of its question. The man crucified alongside him says: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (v. 42). He asks neither for immediate admission, nor for a place, nor for a date, but for remembrance at a future event — the coming of Jesus in his royal rule. He thereby shares the expectation that is met elsewhere in the New Testament as well: that the Messiah will establish his kingdom and then take his own to himself.

The literary position of the verse is remarkable. Luke has just described the mockery, and immediately afterwards he adds the darkness, the tearing of the curtain, and the death of Jesus (23:44-46). The promise to the criminal is thus the last assurance that the earthly Jesus gives to any individual person. Luke shapes it as the summit of his Gospel of turning towards the lost: whoever has nothing to show but a confession in the hour of death does not go away empty-handed.

Finally, the state of the text itself must be considered. The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament are written in scriptio continua — without spaces between words, without accents, without punctuation. A comma between “I say to you” and “today,” or between “today” and “you will be,” is transmitted in no manuscript of the first millennium, because there are no commas there at all. Wherever a punctuation mark stands in our Bibles, an interpretive decision by later editors stands there.

The Socinian core thesis: the promise stands firm, the date does not stand in the text

The Socinian reading disputes nothing about the promise itself. The man crucified alongside will be with Christ; his confession in the hour of death is sufficient, and the promise is unconditional. What is disputed is solely that this sentence contains a statement about the condition of the soul between death and resurrection. The verse is traditionally cited as the chief proof for the natural immortality of the soul — and it is built too narrowly to carry that load.

The first reason is philological. Amēn légo soi sēmeron can just as well be read as “Truly, I say to you today: You will be with me in paradise.” This word order is not artificial in biblical usage but familiar: “I declare to you today that you shall surely perish” (Deuteronomy 30:18); “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today” (Deuteronomy 4:26); “Today I declare that I will restore to you double” (Zechariah 9:12). In all these cases the “today” is the solemn asseveration of the one speaking, not the date given for what is promised.

The second reason is christological and carries greater weight, because it is entirely independent of the placing of the comma. If “today” states the point in time of the fellowship, then Christ would have had to be in paradise on that very Good Friday. He was not. He lay in the tomb; Peter preaches at Pentecost that God did “not abandon his soul to Hades” (Acts 2:31) — so it was there. And on Easter morning, two days later, the risen one says to Mary: “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father” (John 20:17). Whoever takes both sentences in their plain sense must concede that on Good Friday Jesus was not where the promise points.

The third reason lies in the word paradise itself. In the New Testament it occurs only three times, and twice of these unmistakably in an eschatological sense: to the one who conquers it is promised that he will eat from the tree of life, “which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7), and the same tree stands in the city of consummation (Revelation 22:2). Paradise is the restored garden, the goal of history — not a waiting room for disembodied souls. The promise to the criminal therefore aims at precisely what he had asked for: at the coming of the kingdom.

The fourth reason is anthropological and leads to the core of the Socinian position. According to the Racovian Catechism, man is not immortal by nature but was created mortal from the beginning; immortality is no dowry of creation but a gift of God, and according to 1 Corinthians 15:52-54 it is “put on” at the resurrection. Whoever thinks in this way about human nature can find in Luke 23:43 no statement about a continued life of the soul, because this capacity for continued life does not exist as a natural property. What carries man beyond death is not his constitution but God’s promise.

Exegesis: key terms and semantic field

sēmeron — “today”

In the Greek the word stands between “I say to you” and “you will be” and can grammatically belong to either. The manuscripts are of no further help: they know no punctuation. The earliest witnesses that allow any decision to be discerned at all are translations — and the Old Syriac tradition in the Codex Curetonianus expressly joins “today” to the saying: “Amen, I say to you today that you will be with me in the garden of Eden.”

Against this assignment it is objected that Luke elsewhere joins sēmeron to what follows (4:21; 19:9). That is correct and must be taken seriously; but it is an argument from custom, not from grammar. And it touches the Socinian reading only by half, for that reading does not hang on the placing of the comma: even if one reads “today you will be,” the question remains open where Christ was on that day and what “paradise” denotes in Scripture.

parádeisos — “paradise”

The word is of Persian origin and denotes an enclosed park. The Septuagint uses it for the garden in Eden (Genesis 2:8) and for the promised restoration (Isaiah 51:3: “he makes her wilderness like Eden”). The basic resonance is therefore not “the beyond” but “restored creation” — a garden with trees, not a place for departed spirits.

In the New Testament this finding is confirmed. In Revelation 2:7 the tree of life stands “in the paradise of God,” and the promise is given to the one who conquers, that is, at the goal; in Revelation 22:2 the same tree stands in the descending city. The third passage, 2 Corinthians 12:4, reports a rapture in which Paul expressly leaves open whether it happened “in the body or out of the body” — it is thus precisely not a proof of a dwelling place of the dead.

met’ emoû — “with me”

The emphasis of the promise lies on the fellowship, not on the place. This is exactly how the New Testament otherwise speaks of hope: “that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3); “and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17) — and there expressly only after the raising of those who have fallen asleep. The formula describes a person with whom one will be, not a space into which one moves.

With this the verse moves close to what the man crucified alongside had asked for. He did not want to go to a place, but into the memory of his king. The answer surpasses the request: not merely remembrance, but fellowship — “with me.”

hótan élthēs eis tēn basileían sou — “when you come into your kingdom”

The request in v. 42 stands in the aorist subjunctive with hótan — a form used for a future event whose date is undetermined. The dying man therefore does not expect Jesus to enter upon his kingdom that same afternoon, but reckons with a later coming. Part of the manuscript tradition reads en tēi basileíai sou, “in your kingdom”; this reading too points to the coming of the kingdom, not to Good Friday.

An answer that does justice to this request speaks of the kingdom — and that is exactly what Jesus does when he promises paradise. Whoever turns the “today” into a date makes Jesus answer something other than what was asked: the dying man would have asked about the coming of the kingdom and received a piece of information about the afternoon.

amēn légo soi — the formula of asseveration

In the Gospels the formula opens a solemn promise. It is fixed in form, and it is therefore held against the Socinian reading that nowhere else is it expanded by a time reference. The objection has weight — only, the formula is also nowhere else addressed to a dying man whom the speaker is keeping company in death on that very day.

Moreover, “today” is not arbitrary here. It is the day of the crucifixion, the day on which both are dying — a day on which an asseveration draws its weight precisely from the date. “I say to you today” then means: on this day, under these circumstances, out of my own dying, I give you this word.

Comparison of the interpretations

Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism on the condition of the dead

Whoever wishes to understand why the Polish Brethren saw in Luke 23:43 no proof of the immortal soul must begin with their doctrine of man. The Racovian Catechism treats the question of why man is subject to death, and gives an answer that departs from the majority tradition: it was not sin that first made man mortal; he was created mortal from the beginning.

“The first is that man was created mortal from the beginning, that is, as one who not only could die according to his nature, but who, if he were left to his nature, inevitably had to die, although he could be continually preserved in life by divine grace.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The Mortality of Man’

The reasons the Catechism adds are strikingly sober: man was formed from earth, he at once required food, he was destined to beget descendants — and the tree of life would have had no meaning if life had been inalienable anyway. Whoever thinks in this way cannot conceive immortality as an endowment of nature. It is a gift, and indeed one that is still outstanding: according to 1 Corinthians 15:53 this perishable must first “put on” the imperishable, and that at the last trumpet.

This anthropology is anchored in the doctrine of God. When Scripture calls God “alone immortal” (1 Timothy 6:16), then according to the Catechism this is no rhetorical exuberance but a statement about the source of all life:

“For this very reason, because he alone has dominion of himself and is wholly the head, while all the rest depend only on him and owe their dominion to his goodness; in which sense he is also called alone wise, alone immortal, and none is good except that One.”

Racovian Catechism, ‘The Nature of God — God’s Existence and Unity’

What is remarkable now is how reserved Sozzini himself becomes as soon as the intermediate state is at issue. In his commentary on the First Letter of John he examines the appeal of the Roman theologians to Matthew 12:32 — the mention of the “age to come” was there meant to support purgatory. Sozzini first disputes that this expression refers to the condition of the recently deceased at all:

“But in truth one will scarcely find a passage in the sacred writers where the age to come designates the condition of those who have departed from this life, as soon as they have departed from it.”

Fausto Sozzini, “Commentary on the First Letter of John”, ‘Forgiveness and Punishment in This Age and in the Age to Come’

And then follows the sentence that renders the Socinian attitude most precisely. Sozzini does not declare dogmatically that the soul sleeps or is extinguished; he declares that we do not know:

“But since about the souls that continue to exist after the death of each person, and in particular in such a way that they either enjoy goods or are tormented by evils, we know nothing certain…”

Fausto Sozzini, “Commentary on the First Letter of John”, ‘Forgiveness and Punishment in This Age and in the Age to Come’

This is no evasion but a methodological decision: what Scripture does not clearly teach is not elevated into a doctrine. It is precisely this reserve that forbids deriving an entire anthropology from a single sentence spoken to a dying man — and one whose sense hangs on a punctuation mark that is not transmitted at all. The burden of proof lies with whoever wishes to derive from Luke 23:43 a doctrine of the soul’s survival.

About the man crucified alongside, Sozzini treated the matter expressly in another place, namely in his notes on the doctrine of justification. There it had been claimed that the criminal was the example of a man who had had no opportunity at all to prove his faith — saved, therefore, by mere assent. Sozzini contradicts this:

“It seems here to be tacitly asserted that that robber had no opportunity to show his faith; yet the opposite is the case, so that it may rightly be said that he even proved his faith excellently, as will become manifest to anyone who considers, even superficially, the words he addressed to the other robber and to Christ.”

Fausto Sozzini, “On Justification”, note on ‘Ut latro’

The observation is exegetically fine and theologically consequential. In a few sentences the dying man does three things: he rebukes the mockery of his companion, he confesses his own guilt and the innocence of Jesus, and he entrusts himself to one who is being executed beside him and who outwardly has nothing about him that would justify such trust. For Sozzini this is not the borderline case of a workless faith but a model instance of proven faith — and it shows that the verse draws its power not from a statement about the soul, but from the confession of a man at the end of his possibilities.

Logical arguments

From Luke 23:43 and its context the following arguments emerge:

1. Argument from the absence of punctuation. The ancient manuscripts are written without punctuation marks. The comma before or after “today” is a decision of modern editors. A doctrine that hangs on a mark the text does not contain cannot count as a clear scriptural proof.
2. Argument from Christ’s whereabouts. On that day Jesus was in the tomb, and Peter says that God did “not abandon his soul to Hades” (Acts 2:31) — so it was there. If the one making the promise was not himself in paradise, then “today” cannot designate the day of their joint arrival there.
3. Argument from John 20:17. On the third day the risen one says: “I have not yet ascended to my Father.” What is still outstanding on Easter Sunday had not already happened on Good Friday. Both statements taken together exclude an arrival in paradise on the day of the crucifixion.
4. Argument from the usage of paradise. The two other New Testament occurrences connect paradise with the tree of life and with consummation (Revelation 2:7; 22:2). The term designates restored creation, not a place of sojourn between death and resurrection.
5. Argument from the petitioner’s question. What is asked for is remembrance, “when you come into your kingdom” (v. 42). A meaningful answer relates to what was asked. The promise therefore concerns the coming of the kingdom, not the afternoon of Good Friday.
6. Argument from the Hebrew style of asseveration. “I call to witness against you today” and “I declare to you today” are familiar formulas (Deuteronomy 4:26; 8:19; 30:18; Zechariah 9:12). The joining of “today” to the act of speaking is therefore no exegetical contrivance but biblical usage.
7. Argument from the mortality of man. According to the Racovian Catechism, man was created mortal from the beginning; only God is called “alone immortal” (1 Timothy 6:16). Where immortality is not nature but gift, no verse can attest a natural continuance of the soul.
8. Argument from the hope of resurrection. Paul comforts the Thessalonians not with the condition of those who have fallen asleep, but with their being raised at the return (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17), and dates the putting on of imperishability to the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:52-54). If blessedness were present immediately at death, this comfort would be strangely roundabout.
9. Argument from the burden of proof. A single passage that is ambiguously punctuated cannot annul the series of clear statements about the condition of the dead (Ecclesiastes 9:5,10; Psalm 146:4; Psalm 6:5; Job 14:12). The obscure passage is to be interpreted by the clear one, not the other way round.
10. Argument from the undiminished promise. The Socinian reading takes nothing away from the verse’s comfort. The man crucified alongside will be with Christ — unconditionally and without any prior achievement. What is disputed is not the promise, but only the doctrine that one wishes to derive from a punctuation mark.

Biblical cross-references

John 20:17 — “I have not yet ascended”

On Easter morning the risen one wards off being touched and gives as his reason that he has not yet ascended to the Father. This is said two days after Good Friday. Whoever refers the “today” of Luke 23:43 to the day of the crucifixion must explain how Jesus is supposed to have been there already when here he is not yet.

Acts 2:29-31 — David died and was buried

In his Pentecost sermon Peter states that David died, was buried, and that his tomb is “with us to this day.” Of Christ, by contrast, he says that his soul was not left in Hades. Both together show: death is meant seriously, and the turning point lies in the raising, not in a continued life of the soul.

1 Corinthians 15:52-54 — the putting on of imperishability

Paul dates the transformation expressly: at the last trumpet, when the dead are raised. Only then does this perishable put on the imperishable. Immortality is thus an event with a point in time — and that point does not lie in the hour of the individual’s death.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 — comfort from the resurrection

The congregation mourns its dead, and Paul comforts them not with their present blessedness but with the return of Christ, at which “the dead in Christ will rise first.” Only afterwards does it say: “and so we will always be with the Lord.” The “being with him” is bound to the raising.

Ecclesiastes 9:5,10 — the dead know nothing

“The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing,” and in the realm of the dead there is “neither work nor thought nor knowledge nor wisdom.” These statements are unambiguous and require no decision about punctuation. They form the background against which Luke 23:43 asks to be read.

Psalm 146:4 — on that day his plans perish

When the breath of man departs, he returns to the earth, “and on that very day his plans perish.” The psalm describes death as the end of intentions and thoughts, not as a transition into another state of consciousness.

Revelation 2:7 — the tree of life in the paradise of God

To the one who conquers it is promised that he will eat from the tree of life, which stands in the paradise of God. The promise holds at the goal, not in the interim. The same conception recurs in 22:2 in the descending city — the paradise of the Bible lies at the end of history.

Deuteronomy 30:18 — “I declare to you today”

Moses asseverates: “I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.” Here the “today” unambiguously belongs to the declaring, not to the perishing. The expression shows that the Socinian reading of Luke 23:43 is no invention but follows a familiar pattern.

2 Corinthians 12:2-4 — “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know”

Paul reports a rapture as far as paradise and expressly leaves open whether it happened bodily. Whoever wishes to derive from this passage a doctrine about disembodied souls says more than the apostle claims to know — and misses precisely the reserve that Sozzini demands in this question.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “Luke otherwise always joins ‘today’ to what follows.”

This is the strongest objection the traditional interpretation brings forward, and it deserves an honest answer: yes, Lukan usage speaks rather in favour of the customary placing of the comma. But an argument from custom is not an argument from grammar. Both assignments are syntactically possible, and the text itself does not decide, because it knows no punctuation marks. It is at least remarkable that the Old Syriac tradition in the Codex Curetonianus — a witness from a time when Greek was still a living church language — expressly reads “I say to you today.”

Above all, however, it must be seen that the Socinian reading does not depend on this question at all. Even one who reads “today you will be with me in paradise” must answer where Christ was on that day — and the answer of Acts is: in the realm of the dead, in which God did not leave him (2:31). Whoever has won the placing of the comma has not thereby won the case.

In addition there is the burden of proof. A doctrine about the constitution of man and about his destiny after death is a chief article of faith; it needs clear foundations. A verse whose sense depends on an editorial decision of the sixteenth century is no such foundation — regardless of which decision one holds to be the more probable.

Objection 2: “Christ was in paradise according to his divinity, while his body lay in the tomb.”

This answer solves the problem only if one presupposes what the verse is supposed to prove. It presupposes a doctrine of two natures that would first have to be derived from Scripture itself, and it employs that doctrine to remove a difficulty that would not arise without it. An argument that already carries its result in its premise does not carry.

It moreover comes into conflict with the wording. Jesus does not say “my divinity” but “with me.” If the “I” of the one making the promise lies in the tomb while something else about him is in paradise, then the sentence no longer says what it says. And John 20:17 likewise speaks of the “I”: not a part of Christ, but he himself has not yet ascended.

Finally, the answer is also inconsistent within the tradition itself. Some interpreters have understood the time between cross and resurrection as a descent into hell, others as a sojourn in paradise, and a third group has tried to combine both. This diversity shows that the passage does not carry the load imposed upon it. The Socinian reading does not need these auxiliary constructions.

Objection 3: “The comfort of the dying is destroyed if he sees Christ only at the end of time.”

The objection assumes that waiting time is experienced time. For the dying man it is precisely not that. Whoever knows nothing after death, as Ecclesiastes 9:5 says, experiences no interval; the next thing after the last breath is the voice of the one who calls. Between Good Friday and the resurrection there lie, for the one concerned, not centuries but nothing at all.

Moreover, it is the New Testament itself that sets the comfort in this way. Paul comforts the mourners in Thessalonica not with the present state of their dead but with the raising at the return (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17) — and evidently holds this to be sufficiently comforting. Whoever makes immediacy the condition of comfort measures Scripture by a standard it does not apply to itself.

And the promise remains untouched in any case. Jesus promises the man crucified alongside fellowship with himself — without condition, without reservation, without proof of pious achievement. Sozzini even emphasises that this man proved his faith “excellently.” What is promised to him will be granted to him; what is uncertain is not the whether, but only the date, which the text does not give.

Objection 4: “Other passages surely teach a conscious existence after death.”

On Philippians 1:23 it must be said that there Paul compares two states, not three: to remain, or to depart and be with Christ. About the way in between he says nothing — and for one who perceives nothing after death, the being-with-Christ follows immediately upon the departing, without any conscious intermediate state being necessary. The same apostle places the transformation, in the same breath, at the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:52).

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable, and parables do not depict the cosmology from which they take their images. It works with conceptions that were familiar to its hearers and aims at a point that is expressly formulated: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (16:31). Whoever derives doctrine from the imagery must also take Abraham’s bosom and the conversation across the chasm literally.

The souls under the altar in Revelation 6 stand in a book full of images — seals, trumpets, bowls, a lamb with seven horns. That blood “cries out” for justice is moreover biblical idiom ever since Genesis 4:10, where Abel’s blood cries out without anyone inferring from it a continued existence. And finally Sozzini’s methodological answer remains decisive: about the souls of the deceased we know “nothing certain.” Doctrines are not made out of images.

Objection 5: “If the soul is not immortal, who then is raised?”

The objection presupposes that identity must hang on an uninterrupted bearer. Biblically it hangs on God. It is he who calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17), and who knows and has retained the names of his own; the memory of God is the place in which the deceased is preserved — and that is exactly what the man crucified alongside asks for: “Remember me.”

Scripture itself does not think of man as a soul with a body, but as an ensouled body. In Genesis 2:7 man becomes a living soul; he does not have one, he is one. The Racovian Catechism draws from this the sober conclusion that man was “created mortal from the beginning” and that God is called “alone immortal.” What comes afterwards is therefore not continuation but a new creation by the one who also wrought the first creation.

This conception fits exactly the biblical way of speaking of death as sleep. Jesus says of Lazarus: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” and then explains expressly: “Lazarus has died” (John 11:11-14). The sleeper is the same one who wakes — not because he experienced something during the sleep, but because the same one wakes him who knows him. The resurrection is thus no replacement but the actual saving event on which everything depends.

Dogmatic consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen, or contrast with the interpretation presented here:

• Ecclesiastes 9:5 — “the dead know nothing”: the clearest Old Testament statement about the condition of the deceased.
• Psalm 146:4 — with the last breath “his plans perish”: no continuance of thoughts.
• Psalm 6:5 — “in death there is no remembrance of you”: praise falls silent because man falls silent.
• Genesis 2:7 — man becomes a living soul; he does not have it as an addition.
• Ezekiel 18:4 — “the soul who sins shall die”: the soul is mortal.
• 1 Timothy 6:16 — God alone has immortality: the foundation of the whole argument.
• John 11:11-14 — death as sleep, explained by Jesus himself: “Lazarus has died.”
• Acts 2:29 — David died, was buried, and his tomb is still there: no ascent into heaven.
• Daniel 12:2 — those who sleep in the dust will awake: the point in time of hope is the resurrection.
• John 20:17 — “I have not yet ascended to my Father”: the counter-evidence to the “today.”
• Matthew 10:28 — God can destroy body and soul: the soul too is perishable.

Summary

Luke 23:43 is the last promise of the earthly Jesus to an individual person, and it is unconditional: whoever entrusts himself to him in the hour of death will be with him. What the verse does not accomplish, by contrast, is the proof of an immortal soul. It hangs on a comma that stands in no manuscript of the first millennium; it answers a request that expressly has the future coming of the kingdom in view; and with “paradise” it uses a word that Scripture otherwise employs for the restored garden at the goal of history.

Decisive is an objection that remains independent of the question of the comma: Christ himself was not on that day where the promise points. He lay in the tomb, his soul in the realm of the dead (Acts 2:31), and on the third day he says of himself that he has “not yet ascended” (John 20:17). Behind this stands the Socinian doctrine of man: according to the Racovian Catechism he was “created mortal from the beginning,” and God alone is “called alone immortal.” Immortality is a gift, not an endowment — and according to 1 Corinthians 15 it is conferred at the last trumpet.

Sozzini’s own attitude is in this remarkably unpolemical. He does not claim that the soul is extinguished, but holds fast to the fact that we know “nothing certain” about the deceased — and that where Scripture is silent, no doctrine may be built. About the man crucified alongside he said the best that can be said of him: that he proved his faith “even excellently.” What is promised to this man stands firm; uncertain is only the date, and the text does not name it. The comfort of the verse lies not in a piece of information about the afternoon of Good Friday, but in the faithfulness of the one who said: with me.