Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
So you are saying (positive) Paradise isn't part of God's kingdom? There is part of that place that isn't under God's rule?
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Paradise is the good part (so to speak) of Hades, the abode of the dead. There is of course a not so pleasant part as I stated already. In that sense every place and all of Hades is part of the Kingdom of God as He rules the universe.
The "kingdom" spoken of by the thief refers specifically to the establishing of the kingdom established by Christ as the Messiah in Jerusalem which the Jews were waiting for and expecting. That is the millennial kingdom. Even the disciples contended with each other over the sitting arrangement in the kingdom. They of course were not thinking about the sitting arrangement in Paradise, nor the arrangement in heaven but of His kingdom established at Jerusalem.
I had heard somewhere, and I cannot remember exactly, that Paradise was transferred under the Throne according to the description in Revelation. More I cannot say about that because I do not remember where I read it and I do not know how it ties with the rest of scripture.