VII. Third, the thief is admitted into paradise before the ascension of Christ according to his promise, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). Nor should it be said here that “today” must be construed with the preceding verb (“I say”) and not with what follows (“shalt thou be with me”) so that the meaning is “today I say unto thee, thou shalt be with me in paradise” (to wit, at the last judgment) because the construction will not suffer this. In vain would this be added because no one speaks except in the present time and it is clear that Christ refers to the words of the thief, “Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (v. 42). Nor should it be said that paradise is limbo (as Maldonatus holds), because it appears from Scripture that paradise is located in heaven as a place of delight and of eternal happiness (2 Cor. 12:2, 4; Rev. 2:7). Nor should it be said that the thief requested only this—that Christ should remember him in paradise—because it is not absurd to say that Christ gave more to him than he asked, as the most kind Father is accustomed to do above what we seek. Nor is this a privilege peculiar to the thief and not common to others since faith and repentance (to whom this is given by Christ) is common to all true believers. Hence Bellarmine rightly proves from this passage that the saints immediately after death enjoy the vision of God (“De Sanctorum Beatitudine,” 1.7 Opera [1857], 2:437–38).
VIII. Fourth, Enoch and Elijah were translated to heaven (Heb. 11:5; 2 K. 2:11). For although this was peculiar to them that they were bodily whirled into heaven, it was not singular that they were spiritually admitted into it; yea, they were the solemn pledges to the pious of the heavenly glory to be at length obtained. Nor if the letter said to have been written from Elijah to Jehoram (2 Ch. 21:12) was handed to the king only after Elijah’s death, does it follow that it was written after his translation. It is one thing for it to have been written after his translation; another to have been given only then. The emptiness of the figment concerning the translation of Enoch and Elijah to a terrestrial paradise, also concerning their return to war against Antichrist has been elsewhere exposed (Volume I, Topic VIII, Question 7, Section 9).
IX. Fifth, the ancient believers waited for a heavenly city (Heb. 11:10) and had a great consolation and certain hope of glory in death (which would not have been the case if they had as yet to be hurled into hell). How could Jacob have testified that he waited with such earnestness the salvation of the Lord (Gen. 49:18) and David that he committed his spirit into the hand of the Lord (Ps. 31:5), if they should still be far off from the face of God and were to be glorified only after many ages? Nor can it be said that David thus commended to God the perfection of life because the words can bear no other meaning according to the style of Scripture than to deliver the soul to God (as is evident from the example of Stephen, Acts 7:59).
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 12.11.7–9;, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 2 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–97), 259–60.
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