Evidently, Jesus had been in a place called Paradise. When Jesus was put to death, two thieves were crucified with Him. "And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, it is recorded, "saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee. Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Can there be any doubt that Jesus went at His death to the place called Paradise and abode there? But where is Paradise, or what kind of place is Paradise? {285} [Sidenote: The Gospel to the dead.] Where Paradise is we may not be able to determine; but what kind of place it is, it should not be difficult to discover. Teaching at Jerusalem one day, Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." But how could the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, unless He should minister also in the place of the dead? This undoubtedly is what Jesus meant; this, too, must be what He meant when He said to the malefactor, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise." And this is what the apostles learned to know to be the meaning of these sayings of Jesus. Peter, writing to the scattered churches, declared the truth in these words: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water." And again, in the same epistle, Peter said, "For, for this reason was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." This makes it clear to us, then, that Jesus's promise to the malefactor, meant that Jesus would meet him that day in the abode of spirits. For thither did Jesus go that the dead also might hear His voice. His mission to the living was accomplished; He had yet to minister to the dead. Only {286} when that ministry was finished could He return to His Father and report His labor accomplished. We may not know where Paradise is; but we know that the place called Paradise is the abode of the spirits of those who have lived in the flesh and have not yet been resurrected. [Sidenote: A plain explanation.]