You should never talk about another person:
- Come on! He's no longer good for anything!
Never! You don't know, maybe he will change at the last moment. And what can we say about the poor grandfather, when the robber was the first to enter heaven! He was ahead of the apostles and all of them. He even entered before the Most Holy Theotokos. A robber, a murderer, an evil and damned man - that’s what he was. He was not some successful man, he was not like modern robbers who go on television after robberies. He was a real and real robber: he killed, raped, stole, offended - he did everything. But in last minutes of his life on the cross he said only one thing: Remember me, Lord! - and went straight to the Kingdom of God.
The first person to go to heaven was a robber. And the first one to go to hell was the apostle of Christ. And the way it all happened is a great lesson for us. Therefore, a person should never despair or give up on another. Therefore we have no right to say:
“You know, my son, the way you are, you’re no good!” You are a lost man!
You can’t talk about someone else or yourself like this: “You commit so many sins every day, there is no salvation for you, there is no hope that you will be saved!” This is a sin, this is despair, this is a tragic mistake, this is the greatest sin that a person can commit.
And as they say in the prayers for Holy Communion, we do not despair of our salvation. Why? Not because I am something, not because I will ever do anything and be saved. No! And for the sake of God’s mercy and His all-surpassing love: after all, I, my God, really cannot do anything, but You are God, You are the Giver of Life and you can resurrect me and save me. You can save me! And therefore I rely not on myself, not on my deeds, but on God’s love, mercy, mercy. This is important.
And you know, the very fact that a person hopes, calls on the name of the Lord, sighs and says: “My God, save me!” – this alone is very significant. And he won't die. He will die only if he says: “It’s over! Everything is lost for me! I can't escape!" But, again, this cannot be said until the very last moment of your life.
Therefore, the Church does not allow even one second of a person’s life to be taken away. Let someone say: “Yes, these are the devices that support life in him, he’s all in tubes, the end has already come.” clinical death, his brain is already dead, so complete death will occur in five minutes.” Of course, in these five minutes you can take a bunch of organs from him and give life to another - but only after he dies!
This is a sensitive topic. He'll die in five minutes! Yes, but those five minutes could mean saving that person. Who are you to take these five minutes from him? Five seconds. One second... Do you have the right to do this? For this last second? A person can turn to God in his own way. We don’t know how a person feels and how everything functions for him at this time: the brain may not function, but the heart, being, soul?
Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol
To the question: Who was the first to enter heaven after the Fall? given by the author Nabster the best answer is No one has yet entered heaven.
All people will go to heaven or hell only after judgment day.
Answer from 22 answers[guru]
Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: Who was the first to enter heaven after the Fall.
Answer from Mikhail™[guru]
After the Fall, they kicked out from there, but no one came.
Answer from I-beam[guru]
In the Christian Greek Scriptures, the word "paradise" is translated from the Greek word paraʹdeisos. In the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, this word is used to describe the garden of Eden, which apparently was a garden or park protected on all sides. Elsewhere in the Bible, following the account of paradise in Genesis, references to paradise refer to 1) the Garden of Eden itself, 2) the whole earth when it eventually becomes like Eden, 3) the spiritual prosperity of God's earthly servants, or 4 ) to a spiritual paradise in the sky, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden.
Based on these definitions, Christ was the first to enter Paradise after his resurrection in heaven.
Answer from sprout[newbie]
no one, although there are two prophets in heaven, Jesus and one more
Answer from Adapt[guru]
Jesus was the first to enter, he opened the way for people when there was no longer the light of faith, only he continued to believe and taught this to people, to himself he said this: I am the light of the world - which means I am the light of the world, knowledge in general. It is possible that this will await us in the future, since faith is contrary to the fallen mind, since it puts itself in first place, the mind, having been in the darkness and not finding God there, returns and says - if I have not found God, then he does not exist, and that means I am god. This can be easily seen in atheistically minded people who go against their inner fear and put pride first, like me.
Answer from Yustam Musabekov[guru]
perhaps Lazarus. In any case, the Bible says that he went to heaven.
Answer from John of Christ[guru]
The first to enter heaven was the thief hanging with Christ on the cross. The one who repented and acknowledged Christ as Lord.
Answer from Milka[guru]
There is no heaven yet
Answer from Everything is just as tender...[guru]
“They led two evildoers with Him to death. And when they came to a place called Lobnoe, there they crucified Him and the evildoers, one on the right, and the other on the left...
One of the hanged villains slandered Him and said: “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”
The other, on the contrary, calmed him down and said: “Or are you not afraid of God, when you yourself are condemned to the same thing? and we are condemned justly, because we accepted what was worthy of our deeds, but He did nothing bad.” And he said to Jesus: remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom! And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” "
The repentant thief received the nickname “The Prudent” in the Christian tradition and, according to legend, was the first to enter heaven. His name was Dismas.
And yet, Rustam and Lazar confused me.
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Answer from Yatyana[guru]
The first to enter heavenly paradise was the good thief.
The example of this robber is an encouragement to the boldness of faith.
The cross is the altar on which the Lord Jesus Christ made his sacrifice, and opens Heaven to us. – All our happiness comes from the cross. “He is the key that opens the doors of heaven for us.” The cross will appear on the last day, carried by angels and archangels.
Christ opened paradise to us, which remained closed for five thousand years, because on this day, at this hour, God brought a thief there, meaning by this two things He accomplished: one, that he opened paradise, the other, that he brought in the thief. He returned to us the ancient fatherland, today he again brought us to our native city and gave an abode to all human nature. “Today,” he says, “you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The rest of the righteous Abel and others were in the bosom of Abraham. Luke 16:22 The beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom.
Elijah and Enoch were taken to heaven. And there are many floors in the sky.
2 Corinthians 12:2 I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I don’t know, or out of the body, I don’t know: God knows) was caught up to the third heaven.
(according to tradition on the right hand), repentant, believed in Christ, humbly expressed his desires before Him and received from Him the promise that “now” he would abide with Him in .
All four evangelists speak in more or less detail about two thieves crucified with Jesus Christ (, ,), the most complete story about this is given by the Evangelist Luke ().
The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus gives the names of the thieves crucified with Christ. The unrepentant robber, who was to the left of the Savior, was called Gestas. And the other, the prudent thief at the right hand of Christ, is called Dismas. In the medieval Byzantine ancient Russian tradition, a prudent robber is called Rakh.
For what crime was the Prudent Thief crucified?
Word robber, used in the Synodal Translation of the Holy Scriptures, also has the following meaning: rebel (terrorist). Considering that Judea was occupied by the Roman Empire at that time, a translation such as partisans.
In those days, theft was not punished by crucifixion, so it can be assumed that the robbers crucified next to Christ the Savior waged an armed struggle against the invaders, and did not trade in robbery.
On the meaning of the penitential feat of the Prudent Robber
Priest Afanasy Gumerov:
A great change took place in the soul of the robber. He turned out to be worthy of heaven. The grace of God healed him, but we should not belittle his personal merit. The converted robber accomplished three feats. First of all, feat of faith. The scribes and Pharisees, who knew all the prophecies about the Messiah and saw numerous miracles and signs performed by Jesus Christ, turned out to be blind and sentenced the Savior to death. The thief was able to see God incarnate in a man chained, like himself, to a cross and doomed to death. What an amazing power of faith. He did and feat of love. He died in suffering. When a person is tormented by unbearable pain, he is entirely focused on himself. The former thief, being in such a state, was able to show compassion for Jesus. When another robber slandered Him, he calmed him down and said: “He did nothing bad” (). Do we have so much love for Jesus Christ, who receive so many benefits from God? The prudent robber accomplished the third feat - feat of hope. Despite such a dark past, he did not despair of his salvation, although, it seemed, there was no longer time for correction and the fruits of repentance.
Legends about the meeting of the Prudent Thief with the Holy Family
There is a later popular legend that it was a prudent robber who saved the lives of the Mother of God and the Baby Jesus on the road to Egypt, when Herod’s servants were killing all the babies in Judea. On the road to the city of Misir, the Holy Family was attacked by robbers with the intention of profiting. But righteous Joseph had only a donkey on which he sat Holy Mother of God with son; the possible profit of the robbers was small. One of them had already grabbed the donkey, but when he saw the Infant Christ, he was surprised at the extraordinary beauty of the child and exclaimed: “If God had taken a human body for Himself, He would not have been more beautiful than this child!” And this robber ordered his companions to spare the travelers. And then the Blessed Virgin said to such a generous thief: “Know that this baby will reward you well for preserving him today.” This robber was Rakh.
Another legend conveys differently the meeting of the prudent robber with the Holy Family. E. Poselyanin describes it this way: “Seized by robbers, the travelers were brought to their den. There lay the sick wife of one of the robbers, who had an infant. The mother's illness had a hard impact on the child. He tried in vain to suck a drop of milk from her exhausted breast. The Mother of God saw the suffering of the child, the torment of the unfortunate mother. She walked up to her, took the baby into her arms and put him to her chest. And from the mysterious drop that penetrated the fading body, life instantly returned to the withered child. The cheeks became rosy, the eyes sparkled, and the half-corpse turned back into a cheerful, blooming boy. This was the effect of the mysterious drop. And in this boy there remained for the rest of his life the memory of the wonderful Woman, with whom he, dying, was healed. Life had not been kind to him; he followed the path of crime trodden by his parents, but spiritual thirst, the desire for the best never left this ruined life. (). Of course, this baby turned out to be Rakh.
The prudent thief in church hymnography
The prudent thief is remembered in the Good Friday chants when reading: “ You have vouchsafed the prudent thief in one hour to heaven, O Lord.", and his words on the cross became the beginning of the third antiphon ("Blessed") of the Liturgy and the Lenten succession of figurative ones: " Remember me, Lord, when you come into Your Kingdom».
Does Christ’s salvation of one of the thieves testify to the fact that salvation does not require effort and repentance is quite accessible just before the death of the body?
Metropolitan of Tashkent and Central Asia Vladimir (Ikim):
The story of the prudent thief turns despair away from us and gives us hope for God's forgiveness in our most serious sins, in our deepest falls. But in our pride and deceit we sometimes turn this sacred narrative into a source of temptation for ourselves.
“Let us live for our own pleasure while God tolerates our sins,” we say to ourselves, postponing saving repentance until old age or even the hour of death, slyly nodding to the example of the prudent thief. An insidious thought inspired by Satan! A crazy attempt to lie before the All-Seeing Lord! Which of us is capable of a feat of repentance, faith and love, similar to that shown on the cross by the pardoned thief? And if we find ourselves incapable of repentance in the prime of our strength and mind, then how will this accomplishment be possible for us in callous old age or among the horrors of death? “We must be careful that the weak person does not have weak repentance, and the dying person has dead repentance. You can go to hell with such repentance. Stop, you wretch! Not everything will be for you through God’s long-suffering,” says the saint.
“If the Lord forgave the robber, will he really not forgive us, who did not rob or kill anyone?” – with such thoughts we also indulge ourselves, not wanting to notice our own crimes. But we all commit robbery on the highways of life - if not the bodies, then we rob and kill the souls of our neighbors, and this is even worse than just robbery. Let us remember how many poisonous temptations we constantly sow along our path, how evil multiplies in the world from our sinful deeds and words - and where is repentance? For a prudent thief, the consciousness of his sins was more than torture on the cross - but we will not shed even a tear from our dry eyes or squeeze a sigh from our petrified hearts. And, in the words of the venerable one, “no one is as good and merciful as the Lord; but to him who does not repent, He does not forgive.”
The majestic and terrible picture of Golgotha is the image of all humanity. To the right of the All-Loving One, a prudent thief is crucified - repentant, believing, loving, awaiting the Kingdom of Heaven. To the left of the Just One, an insane robber is executed - unrepentant, blasphemous, hating, doomed to the hellish abyss. There is not a single sinner among people, we all bear robber crosses - but everyone chooses whether it will be the saving cross of repentance or the destructive cross of resistance to the love of the Lord.
The prudent thief, who acquired holiness through the feat of repentance, now accompanies us to the Chalice of Holy Communion; we pronounce these saving words before communion of the Terrible and Life-giving Mysteries of Christ. May the Lord grant us, not with an evil heart, but in the humility of repentant sinners, to partake of His Holiness, repeating: “ I will not tell your enemies the secret, nor give you a kiss like Judas, but like a thief I will confess to you: remember me, O Lord, in your kingdom».
See also: K. Borisov
About the Baptism of the Prudent Thief
«… the thief received the sprinkling of remission of sins through the sacrament of water and blood flowing from the side of Christ"(teacher, Creations, vol. 4, p. 434).
«… What was the robber’s justification? He entered heaven because he touched the cross with faith. What happened next? The thief was promised salvation by the Savior; Meanwhile, he did not have time and was not able to realize his faith and be enlightened (by baptism), but it was said: “whoever is not born of water and the Spirit cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (), There was neither chance nor opportunity, There was no time for the thief to be baptized, because he was then hanging on the cross. The Savior, however, found a way out of this hopeless situation. Since a man defiled by sins believed in the Savior and needed to be cleansed, Christ arranged it so that after suffering one of the soldiers pierced the side of the Lord with a spear and blood and water flowed out of him; from His side, says the evangelist, “immediately blood and water flowed out” (), confirming the truth of His death and prefiguring the sacraments. And blood and water came out - not just flowed out, but with a noise, so that it splashed onto the body of the robber; after all, when water comes out with noise, it produces splashes, and when it flows out slowly, it flows quietly and calmly. But from the rib blood and water came out with a noise, so that they splashed on the thief and with this sprinkling he was baptized, as the apostle says: we came to “Mount Zion and the Blood of sprinkling, which speaks better than Abel” (
day: “The thieves also who were crucified with Him reviled Him” (Matthew 27:44). And only the Gospel of Luke says: “One of the hanged villains slandered Him and said: if You are the Christ, save Yourself and us. The other, on the contrary, calmed him down and said: Or are you not afraid of God, when you yourself are condemned to the same thing? And we are condemned justly, because we accepted what was worthy of our deeds, but He did nothing bad. And he said to Jesus: remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom! And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:39-41). How would you comment on the “understatement” of such a fact in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John? After all, the thief’s coming to Faith in Christ on the cross and the forgiveness of his sins could not go unnoticed by his disciples.
Priest Afanasy Gumerov, resident of the Sretensky Monastery, answers:
We must immediately exclude any thought of “contradiction.” The Apostle Luke began writing the Gospel after thorough research as he himself testifies to this. He used narrations of events that are completely known among us, as those who from the very beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word conveyed to us” (1:1-2). As the closest companion and assistant of St. Apostle Paul, he undoubtedly knew all the apostles, including Matthew and Mark. St. Luke complements the narratives of the first two evangelists. Only he tells: about the Annunciation , birth of St. John the Baptist, about the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus Christ with myrrh (7:37-50), about the good Samaritan (10:29-37), about the lost sheep, about the lost coin, about the prodigal son, about the publican and the Pharisees, about the conversion of Zacchaeus . The story of the thief's repentance should also be seen as an important addition to the first two Gospels. How to reconcile the stories of sacred writers about the robber? The answer to this is contained in patristic exegesis. Saint John Chrysostom, blessed. Theophylact and others say that at first it was two robbers who slandered him. But then one of them on the cross “knew the goodness and divinity of Jesus from those words that He spoke for the crucifiers, saying: “Father, forgive them.” For these words are not only filled with perfect love for mankind, but also reveal a lot of their own power. Jesus did not say: Lord, I pray Thee, forgive them, but simply, as with authority: “Father, forgive them.” Enlightened by these words, the one who had previously slandered Jesus recognizes Him as the true King, stops the mouth of another thief and says to Jesus: remember me in your kingdom. What about the Lord? As a man, He is on the cross, and as God, He is everywhere, both there and in heaven, He fills everything, and there is no place where He is not” (Blessed Theophylact). Our Savior suffered on the Cross for about six hours. During this time, a saving change could have occurred in the soul of the robber. There are other examples in the Gospel of the miraculous conversion of a sinner. Zacchaeus was the chief of the tax collectors in Jericho. The word publican was a common noun among the Jews as a synonym for an extremely vicious and unclean person. The Savior’s appeal to him had a healing effect on Zacchaeus: “And he hastened down and received Him with joy” (Luke 19:6). From an inveterate sinner he in a short time became son of Abraham (19:9).
A great change also took place in the soul of the robber. He turned out to be worthy of heaven. The grace of God healed him, but we should not belittle his personal merit. The converted robber accomplished three feats. First of all, a feat of faith. The scribes and Pharisees, who knew all the prophecies about the Messiah and saw numerous miracles and signs performed by Jesus Christ, turned out to be blind and sentenced the Savior to death. The thief was able to see God incarnate in a man chained, like himself, to a cross and doomed to death. What an amazing power of faith. He also accomplished a feat of love. He died in suffering. When a person is tormented by unbearable pain, he is entirely focused on himself. The former thief, being in such a state, was able to show compassion for Jesus. When another thief slandered Him, he calmed him down and said, “He has done nothing wrong” (23:41). Do we have so much love for Jesus Christ, who receive so many benefits from God? The prudent robber accomplished the third feat - the feat of hope. Despite such a dark past, he did not despair of his salvation, although, it seemed, there was no longer time for correction and the fruits of repentance.
The Robber in Paradise is the apotheosis of Christianity as a religion of injustice. There is no justice in Christianity, because there are more important things than justice. This is Mercy and Love.
God is love. This must be accepted and remembered. What justice is there in coming, “taking on the form of a servant,” and the innocent dying for the guilty? Where is the justice here?
We are horrified by the injustice of the righteous God in relation to the disorderly robber - robber, rapist and murderer, because we are accustomed to the injustice of God towards Himself. We are no longer surprised or outraged by His unjust determination to die for us personally.
Do you know why?
Well, because, in principle, it’s not so bad that He died for us after all. If he died for us, then fine.
Now, if, say, for Hitler or for Stalin, then something is wrong. It's in vain. Well, then there will be variations. To some, His death for President “P” will seem excessive. Others - for some other president “P” or his dark-skinned colleague “O”. Yes, in principle, it wasn’t worth it for the smelly, always drunk homeless person in the crossing. And for the boorish boss. And for a thief official. And for the goat traffic cop.
Why? Yes, because it's unfair. Unfair and pathetic. I feel sorry for God. It wasn't worth dying for them.
Still, there are things more important than justice. And this is Mercy and Love.
Today, looking at the thief entering Paradise before the most righteous righteous, we see this.
God loves every creature. All kinds! This is impossible to put up with. It is monstrously unfair to love Hitler and Anne Frank, Stalin and Osip Mandelstam equally! It's unfair, but that's how it is.
Because there are things more important than justice. And this is Love and Mercy.
There is one more thing that is revealing itself to us today in all its mercilessness. In mercilessness to our pride and conceit.
Christianity is not about how to become a good man. This is not about how to become one of all the good ones and wipe your nose with all the bad ones. This is not even about the social and moral perfection of the world. This is not about the struggle between all that is good and all that is evil.
Christianity is about only one thing. It's about Christ.
About Christ, Who “is the Way, the Truth and the Life.” That is, He is the Purpose of our path. And the Path that we follow to the Goal. And the way in which we move towards this Goal along this Path.
This is who Christ is for us. And Christ loves every person, both good and evil. Just as the sun shines equally on both the good and the evil. Some simply shield themselves from the sun, others are drawn to it. That's the trick. And Christ loves everyone.
And everyone wants to “be saved and come to the understanding of truth.” He extends His hand to everyone and is ready to pull out every drowning person, even if only the tips of his fingers remain on the surface.
But here something important comes to the fore. And this thing is called “volition”. Arbitrariness, which, it seems to us, we fully control. However, experience shows that most often we do not own it at all. We think we are responsible for our desires, but our desires are actually corrupted by sin. And they constantly deviate towards anything, but not towards good.
And in this lack of understanding, failure to see our inability to desire good, is in general the entire root of our sinfulness, the entire basis of our damage by sin. We think we are choosing good, but in reality we are choosing evil. We are confident that it costs us nothing to always wish for good, but checking our desires with the Gospel commandments, our glance at the figure of Christ Himself, refutes this confidence.
“Convenience to evil” is what it’s called.
It is easier and more pleasant for us to wish evil than to wish good. And if we write “good” with a capital “D”, we will see that it is easier for us to desire evil, that is, not God, than to desire Good, that is, to desire God.
This cultivation of our desires, the cultivation of our will, is the main training; learning to choose God is the main task every second. This is why the fast was so long and difficult, it was to cultivate in oneself the desire for Good. And everyone who tried to solve this problem understands that nothing came of it along the way. No special results. Nothing works out - that's a fact. This is reality. And here we cannot do without God. This is, in fact, what we must come to. And for this, fasting was needed even more, in order to understand one’s helplessness without God.
So we need God's help to cultivate our desires.
To desire to fulfill God's commandments.
And to learn to see the impossibility of fulfilling them.
(Remember? “Grant me, Lord, to see my sins.” This is what we asked for, so that we could see what we really are).
So, we need the Lord to nurture our desires. Otherwise nothing will work. But why should we educate them? Really, to become good people?
We need God's help to cultivate our desire for Himself. This is the main desire. Here's the main choice. Learn to choose and desire God every moment of your life!
Do you know what this story with the robber is about?
God does not accept good or bad to Himself.
He only accepts those who want to.
This is the story about this.
There had to be a revolution. There had to be repentance, “metanoia”, a change of mind, a complete change of heart of this robber, so that at the last moment he would choose God instead of the non-God, and desire God. And this desire became enough to be with Him from now on always, now and ever and forever and ever.
This story is about how God accepts everyone who wants to. No limits.
And here is all the mercilessness, all the impossibility of this lack of limitations, this Divine limitlessness.
From " everyone who wants" to " only those who want."
Here we understand that when, echoing the Apostle Peter in his conversation with the Lord, who in response to the threefold question “Do you love Me?” confirms his love for Him three times, we understand how we ourselves want to, when the apostle answers for the third time, “You know everything, Lord, You know how I love You,” how we want to honestly add, “You know, Lord how few I love you". And in this honest recognition, perhaps, there is the most important turn of our minds and hearts, which will lead us to God.
The only thing that continues to concern me in this situation is whether, for example, we good people want to be in that Paradise with those bad ones - that’s the question.
Honestly, it’s terribly unpleasant to want this.
