today

In Luke 23:43 I believe the morphology of the verb esē is the key to understanding what Jesus said and meant when he spoke to one of the workers of maliciousness (Gk., kakourgōn) who was being staked with him.

Luke 23:43 (LIT/UBS4) And (kai) he enunciated (eipen) to him (autō), “Truly (amēn) I say (legō) to you (soi), today (sēmeron) you shall cause yourself to be (esē) with (met’) me (emou) in (en) the (tō) paradise (paradeisō).

In the context of the verse one worker of maliciousness appears to be mocking Jesus for claiming to be the Christ, since he through unbelief or disbelief has concluded that Jesus can't save them. The other worker of maliciousness appears to believe in Jesus Christ, and be repenting to God for his misdeeds he has done during his life, repenting now, on this, the last day of his life.

The verb esē is considered by some scholars to be a middle voice deponent verb. However, the application of the modern theory of deponent verbs, specifically overlaying it and imposing it upon the ancient Greek texts of the Bible, as if the author of the ancient texts, the holy Spirit, deliberately chose to use deponent verbs, is quite a stretch for me to accept. I believe that arbitrarily imposing a modern linguistic theory upon the two thousand year old ancient texts of the Bible is at the least an egomaniacal and hideous carte blanche attempt to accomplish a post-history revision of what the ancient writers wrote and meant, in an attempt to support a mortal-made theological theory invented in the 4th century.

From my own hands-on translation experience, from meticulously examining well over 12,000 unique Greek word morphologies in the ancient Greek texts of the Bible, as well as from paying particular attention to how those morphologies are used in their associated immediate, local and remote contexts, I believe what some scholars have determined are deponent verbs, are actually morphologies deliberately designed and used to show middle and passive voice causation, to make explicit the deliberate source and instigation for the action of a verb. I believe the deliberate use of middle and passive voice verbs in the ancient writings of God's Word is a phenomenal method used by the holy Spirit to make specific passages of His Word very explicit.

I believe that Jesus spoke to his fellow Judean on a stake near to him in recollection of the God the Father's great call to repentance to the sons of Israel, as recorded in Psalm 95:6-11, and other similar passages. God has made it well known that whatever day it is in a person's life, even the last day of a person's life, that it is never too late for one to repent, and turn to God in one's heart.

Psalm 95:6 (KJV) O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

Psalm 95:7 (KJV) For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice,

Psalm 95:8 (KJV) Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

Psalm 95:9 (KJV) When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

Psalm 95:10 (KJV) Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

Psalm 95:11 (KJV) Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

In Heb. 3:7 – 4:11 the writer (Apostle Paul?) elaborates on this Psalm of David.

For 40 years many of the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness with unrepentant, hardened hearts toward God, for so long that the generation which left Egypt fell in the wilderness, and their carcasses are still laying out there until this day, and that generation corporately never did reach the “promised” land, the “garden”, “paradise” flowing with milk and honey. During that period each day seemed to them like a day which brought them closer to the finality of their lives, instead of the promised land.

In the record in Luke 23:43, when Jesus is on the stake with the others, it was the last day in the life of a nameless worker of maliciousness, of one child of Israel, who, through belief in his heart reached out to Jesus, because his heart had not become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). For the sons of Israel in the wilderness of the exodus from Egypt, for the ones who did not believe God's Word, any one of those 365 days each year, of those 40 years, of those 14,600 days through which that generation wandered in the wilderness, dying, in God's heart's desire any day of those could have been a “today” day for them, to believe and repent in their hearts. Because God is compassionate, gracious, slow in becoming angry, and ready to forgive when He sees belief and repentance in anyone’s heart (Neh. 9:17; 1 John 1:9).

I believe that Jesus' deliberate and specific use of the middle voice verb esē in his response to the repentant worker of maliciousness was to indicate to him that he was answering God's call to the son's of Israel for their repentance, specifically to the Psalm 95:6-11 passage of the prophet David. Jesus indicated to him that his belief and repentance in his heart toward Jesus shall be accepted, "today", and he shall be forgiven, and he shall enter into God's rest, and subsequently be with Jesus Christ in paradise.

Apostle Paul, once a murderer of those who believed upon Jesus' name, uses a peculiar sentence structure to declare why he has been forgiven by God of his former deeds as Saul:

Acts 20:26 (LIT/UBS4) through that (dioti) I witness (marturomai) to you (humin) in (en) the (tē) day (hēmera), ‘Today’ (sēmeron), that (hoti) I am (eimi) cleansed (katharos) from (apo) the (tou) blood (haimatos) of all (pantōn),

Although apostle Paul's mind remained full of detailed remembrances of his persecutions of God's children, he finally reached a day when in spite of those haunting memories he believed he was forgiven of those horrible works. Can we determine through study of the holy writings when that day may have occured for Saul? Could it have been while Saul sat blind in the house of Ananias (Acts 9:10-19)? According to the Psalmist, God the heavenly Father hopes that the day of belief and repentance in a person's life will be "today", the sooner the better, whatever day that day may be, even if its the last day of a person's life!

Jesus, because of the joy which was set before him to become seated in the future at the right hand of His Father, the God, endured the staking unto death (Heb. 12:2)! Now Jesus, in this record in Luke 23:39-43, says to the worker of maliciousness that “today”, on the apparent last day of both of their lives, that he, before the day is over, shall cause himself to be with Jesus in paradise. Jesus sets this joy before him, the promise of future paradise, to help the former worker of maliciousness to endure as well, his own staking.

God’s “rest” remains to any of the people of God, the children of Israel or whomever, whomever chooses today to BELIEVE upon the name of JESUS can cease from their own works and enter into God’s “rest” (Heb. 3:7 - 4:11). I suggest everyone get their own “today” day while they are still available.

Brother Hal Dekker