I would agree with this but not with your next paragraph. The souls and spirits of the righteous dead (the justified ones) would be in Sheol/Hades until the resurrection of Christ. So Christ Himself (His soul and spirit) went to Hades (called "hell" in the KJB, which is very misleading), and so did the soul and spirit of the saved thief.
After three days and three nights, Christ took all the righteous dead (the OT saints) with Him to Heaven (more specifically the New Jerusalem in Heaven). Since Paradise is indeed in the New Jerusalem, that thief was in Paradise as promised by Christ. But within a matter of three days. And those righteous dead are called "the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb 12:23).
Your assertion that immediately following his resurrection our Lord took all the righteous dead (along with the thief) up to heaven completely contradicts the divine testimony.
First of all we have the Lord's positive declaration that "
no man has ascended up to heaven save he who came down from heaven..." (
John 3:13)
Not then, and not now.
Nor did our Lord ascend into heaven immediately following his resurrection for the testimony of the scriptures is that following his resurrection he first appeared to Mary (she at first believing him to be the gardener), but when she finally realized it was him she attempted to embraced him, but was told, “
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.’ ”
John 20:17
We know that his ascension did not take place for another 40 days.
“…to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during
forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” (
Acts 1:3- 11)
With just these few facts we have established that the Lord did not mean to say that the thief would be with him
that very day in paradise.
Now it’s possible due to the widespread and repeated preaching’s of our Lord and the disciples that this thief, knew of his coming kingdom, however it’s highly doubtful that he understood there would be two phases of that kingdom, a heavenly and an earthly phase, this was hard enough for the disciples themselves to comprehend.
Therefore it is most probable that when the thief asks the Lord to remember him when he came into his kingdom, that he was referring to the earthly kingdom as was promised to the fathers.
Take special note of what the thief asked, he did not ask Jesus to remember him on the day they were crucified, but rather to remember him
at a future time—"
WHEN you come into your kingdom"
In teaching His disciples to pray, "
Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," Jesus was showing that His kingdom was still
future.
Our Lord’s reply to the thief was,
‘I’m telling you today, you will be with me in paradise (that is when I come into my kingdom)’.
The word
paradise, meaning
garden, is used in the Bible to refer to:
(
A) The Garden of Eden, "
the garden of God" (
Gen 2:8- 15; Ezek 28:13), i.e., the perfect abode of Adam and Eve while sinless;
(
B) God’s abode, in heaven (
Rev 2:7);
(
C) The earth after the kingdom has been set up, as and after its curse of sin and death is increasingly removed (
Rev 22:1- 3, compare Gen 2:9, 10; 1 Cor 15:26), and it becomes increasingly (
Dan 2:35) "
like the garden of Eden" (
Ezek 36:35), i.e.,
Paradise Lost becomes Paradise Regained, which new earth was seen in vision and prophesized together with the third, the new heaven- the spiritual control of Christ (
2 Cor 12:1- 4; 2 Peter 3:6, 7, 12, 13; Rev 21:1- 3)- that will supplant the spiritual control of Satan, "
the god of this world" (
2 Cor 4:4; Gal 1:4; Eph 2:2)
Of the three Biblically- mentioned
paradises,
(
A) Was destroyed long before Jesus’ death, and
(
C) Is
still future; hence
(
B) Alone existed when Jesus died; but on the third day thereafter as stated He had not yet gone there, nor did He go there until 40 days later.
Therefore the comma should have been placed
after the word "
today" in
Luke 23:43, and
NOT before it, as is done in many Bible translations
Placing the comma before the word "
today" (thus: "
I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise") would
make Jesus a liar, for it would mean that He had promised the thief that he would be with Him in paradise on the same day they were crucified, when in fact He knew very well from the Scriptures that He was not going there that day, but on that day was to pour out His soul unto death (
Isa 53:10, 12) and His soul was to descend into
hell (hades-
the death state-
Acts 2:30- 32), from which He would not be raised until the third day (
Luke 18:31- 33).
Placing the comma after the word "
today" (thus: "
I say unto thee today, Thou shalt be with me in paradise") creates no such difficulties, furthermore it shows that Jesus merely made the promise to the thief on that day, though the promise would not be fulfilled until Jesus would come into His kingdom?
Jesus appreciated the dying thief’s manifestation of reverence for God and true repentance for sins committed (
Luke 23:40, 41), and therefore on that dark day graciously granted his request and gave him the comforting assurance that he would be with Him in paradise-
the earthly phase of His kingdom-
when it is established, for it is evident that the thief’s repentance, So close to the time of his death, did not give him time to be properly prepared for a place in the heavenly, spiritual phase of the kingdom?
God never promised that any would be rewarded immediately at death; rather, He showed that they would sleep in death (
1 Kings 2:10; Dan 12:2; John 11:11- 14, 44; 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 20; 1 Thess 4:13- 17) and get their rewards at the time of Jesus’ Second Advent, in the resurrection awakening (
John 14:3; Matt 16:27; Luke 14:14; 2 Tim 4:8; 1 Peter 1:7, 13)