In the rare occasion that you encounter the messiah I suppose exceptions can be made.

That is a good question. Since so few do go to heaven. First, what does the Bible sat that they who go to heaven will do? Revelation 20:6 says, “ but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years". Obviously, this criminal who was put to death with Jesus hardly qualifies to serve as a king or a priest, but what did Jesus mean? Jesus said at (Luke 23:42, 43) AS HE was hanging on the execution stake, dying in agony, the criminal begged the man alongside him: “Jesus, remember me when you get into your kingdom.” Jesus, even though he too was dying in excruciating pain, replied: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.” This man is still dead, awaiting the future resurrection when Jesus will call, and he will be with Jesus on a paradise Earth as Jesus rules God’s Kingdom from his throne in heaven.

You do not have to be baptized to get into heaven. My bible says "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2:8) That means NOT OF YOURSELVES! there is nothing you can do on your own! it is the gift of God! Baptism,church attendance,confessing your sins to the priest,eating a wafer,being good,working for salvation,paying money ect... will not get you to heaven ! ONLY JESUS WILL! stop making it so hard when it is easy. Place your trust in Christ Alone and you will be Saved! The theif knew the Jesus was the Messiah and Jesus knew his heart. He trusted in him for salvation in that moment and Christ said "Today you will be with me in paradise" . Not some day, Today! in heaven! "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:9)- Look! it does not say " if you get baptized or work for your salvation then you will get saved" People take the bible and make a mess out of it from lack of understanding and ignorance. (This was intended for the person who first answered your question wrong) Bob-you are not worth my time because you will not come to the truth in Christ.All you do is keep spreading heresy and if you do not base your beliefs on the bible alone we have nothing to talk about! i can look to the bible and see that thanks! Hemiman-actually, never is there a case where baptism will save you and some times not.that would be a contradiction and my bible is perfect.it is the very word of God!

Baptism is a dedication of a child or oneself to serve God thru Jesus Christ. Not a ticket to Paradise. Should an unbaptised person accept the lord as savior, then the answer in the bible is YES! You cannont wash away sin with the water of baptism, no matter who blesses it. The way to Paradise or Heaven is to Confess That Jesus is Lord.

An add to barjacob. I agree the sacraments/ordinances are essential to worship, it was jesus' command to "'do this in rememberence of me"' the earlier church, among other reasons, were persecuted under that edict. This we, as christians/catholics do with the solomn knowledge that we eat and drink judgement upon ourselves. Without confession, the sacrament of communion is empty. No baptism means no privledge of communion. The roll of faith is ours, not God's. God judges. He judges on our faith.

Faulty major premise. God binds us to baptism, but He doesn't bind Himself. This passage is the proof of that.

Executive privilege? In any case, I find it interesting that there is so much disagreement among Christians about what is seemingly the most important question any individual should face.

We know nothing of the man condemned at Jesus' side. We do not even know if the man was baptized or not. We know that Jesus was the Son of God (or, at best for nonbelievers, not an insurrectionist of what he was condemned) and he was falsely accused to death. Therefore, how could we, as imperfect people, know the man wasn't innocent like the King of Kings condemned to die next to him? The Savior of the world is the Judge. He had just paid for that very man's sins! He knew them as well as He knew him! "Judge not that ye be not judged." Matthew 7:1 (KJV)

THE THEIF KNEW EXACTLY WHO JESUS IS AND THE THEIF PUT HIS FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST HANDS

READ JOHN 3:16

YOU HAVE TO BE BORN AGAIN INTO THE SPIRIT OF GOD THROUGH HIS RESURRECTED SON JESUS CHRIST

What?! You think the son of God can't give out a few back stage passes!

Here is your answer. Paradise and Heaven are not the same place. Read this quote taken from Jeff Lindsay's website. I suggest going to this page for any other questions regaurding the LDS faith: http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/index.html READ THE WHOLE THING "Does that story really show that salvation can come instantly without conditions, without effort, without covenants, without baptism, without knowledge of the Gospel and without striving to obey Christ? Look at what the Bible actually says. To a thief also being crucified who asked the dying Lord to remember him, Christ said, "Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). But two days after this, when Christ was resurrected and had taken up a glorious, tangible body, he appeared to Mary and told her, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17 - one of many passages, by the way, showing that God the Father and Christ are separate Beings). If Christ had been in paradise but had not yet ascended to heaven where the Father dwells, then what is paradise? It is obviously some other place besides heaven. See also 2 Cor. 12:2-4, where Paul speaks of someone being caught up to the third heaven and of someone being caught up to paradise, as if they were different places. Paradise appears to be a place where the spirits of the dead await the time of resurrection. I don't know what Aramaic word Christ may have used, but according to my non-LDS Greek Bible Lexicon, the Greek word for paradise can mean "the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise." This agrees well with what Joseph Smith said that Christ meant: "This day thou shalt be with me in the world of spirits: then I will teach you all about it and answer your inquiries" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.309). Indeed, Peter explained that when Christ was dead, he went as a spirit to preach the Gospel to those who had died (1 Peter 3:18-20; I Peter 4:6). Christ was not offering instant salvation to the thief, who knew little of the Gospel and had not covenanted through baptism to follow Christ. He was simply telling him that they would be in the same place that day, in the world of spirits. There, the thief could learn of the Gospel of Christ and accept it. He would still need to accept baptism, which the early Christians and modern Latter-day Saints offer vicariously to the deceased via the sacred ordinance of baptism for the dead. So many people have misunderstood the story of the thief on the cross, thinking that it shows deathbed repentance is all it takes for a terrible sinner to get into heaven without baptism or anything else. Remember, though, that Christ did not offer instant salvation or heaven to the thief, only that they would be in paradise that day. It would be at least two days after that before Christ ascended to heaven. (And do we know that the thief was a terrible sinner? The Romans executed him for allegedly being a thief - but that tells us nothing of his real spiritual state. A sinner, certainly, but perhaps he was a penitent soul seeking the truth.) A related concept is the Biblical teaching that Christ ministered to the dead souls in the spirit world while he was in the grave for three days. Peter writes of this in the New Testament, where in 1 Peter 3:18-22, he speaks of Christ going to preach to the dead while He was physically dead, and further explains 1 Peter 4:6 that the Gospel was preached to the dead in order to offer them life, not torment as some anti-LDS critics have argued. The theme of Christ rescuing the souls of the dead by descending into Hades is ancient and widespread in Christianity, one that persisted into the Middle Ages but seems to have been more fully lost since the Reformation. Christ's mission of rescuing souls in hell is sometimes called the Descensus or the "Harrowing of Hell." According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, "Most Christian theologians believe that it [the Descensus] refers to the visit of the Lord after His death to the realm of existence, which is neither heaven nor hell in the ultimate sense, but a place or state where the souls of pre-Christian people waited for the message of the Gospel, and whither the penitent thief passed after his death on the cross (Lk. 23.43)." [F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 395, as cited by Daniel C. Peterson, FARMS Review of Books, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1997, p. 137.] There you have respected non-LDS scholars discussing the ancient Christian concept of the Descensus, the descent of Christ to rescue the dead in a place where the thief went, a place which was not heaven. These truths were not invented by Joseph Smith - they've been restored. Now quit wasting time and start digging in! (In response to the above comments, one reader argued that this crucial story would be meaningless unless Christ was offering salvation to the penitent man. But is the story really meaningless unless there was instant assurance of salvation? Jesus was offering the man hope. He would be in paradise, and so would Christ. It appears that the thief was going to have the opportunity to hear the Gospel. But paradise - a word that refers to the waiting place of deceased souls prior to the resurrection - isn't heaven and isn't a final state of salvation, even though some will insist that it is, in spite of Christ not yet having ascended to His Father in heaven three days later.)

You don't need to be baptized to enter heaven. As long as you believe in Jesus Christ and accept Him into your life, you're saved. Baptism is only a public proclamation of your faith, not a ticket to heaven.

Do you understand that entering everlasting life in heaven is impossible for anyone who has sinned? But that includes all of us. This creates a dilemma for God, who still loves us although He hates sin. So He provided a way to both hate the sin and forgive the sinner. He allowed His Son to take the punishment on himself and allow the benefit of everlasting life to come to us. But we say "It can't possibly be that easy." So God added another condition--one that is completely passive, being baptized. (You can't baptize yourself.) If God can't set aside this arbitrary condition, then Jesus contradicted himself, is mistaken, is capable of error, is therefore not the Son of God so we might as well go out and play basketball and forget his religious teachings.

What Jesus said was....I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise. Jesus was telling the thief that very day, the day they were being killed. Where the comma is placed puts a whole new meaning on the statement. What Jesus meant was that in Almighty God's new system, the thief would be resurrected [ Revelation 20; 12,13] and would be given the opportunity to live again on the earth. [ Psalms 37; 9,11,29,34]

When Jesus was personally on the earth, he had the power to pronounce forgiveness of sins. He did this on other occasions, such as the time when the paralytic man was lowered through the roof into the house where Jesus was (Mark 2). When one of the thieves being crucified with him asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom, Jesus told that thief that he would be with Jesus that day in paradise. Paradise, in context, has to refer to the place where the souls of both Jesus and the thief went when they died. Jesus is not present on earth since he ascended back to heaven (Acts 1). He left us with the message of Scripture which teaches us to be baptized "for the forgiveness of sins" (Acts 2:38) or to "wash away sins" (Acts 22:16).

Nowhere in the Bible does it say one must be baptized in order to receive salvation. Believing that Jesus died for our sins, and confessing our sins is how we receiving our salvation. This and ONLY this is how we get to heaven. Any teaching otherwise is false prophecy. If we repent of our sin, then confess and trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be saved from our sins! "For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13 "...if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:9,10 New Christians DO like to be baptized because Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. However, we do not HAVE to be baptisted, sprinkled or otherwise have water on our bodies in any way to enter heaven.

Once more: There is nowhere in the Bible where Jesus Christ said anyone had to be baptised to enter heaven! His words to the thief on the cross should be ample proof. Baptism in itself has absolutely NO saving grace; it is the public acknowledgement of having accepted him as Savior.

Wow a whole lotta folks were certainly verbose in avoiding answering that question.

Well, because he is the boss, he can get you a free pass to heaven.

Baptism doesn't save you. Baptism is an outward demonstration of the work that has already been done in you. The holy spirit endwells you once you are saved. We are baptized into the body of Christ. -Galations 3:27,28 "for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" Your old ways are gone. Water baptism is symbolic. Your old life and ways are buried. We are resurrected as new creations in Jesus Christ(when you come out of the water). We are made alive in Him. It is a very beautiful illustration of the work of God. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."- Romans 6:4

You have to be baptized to enter heaven. (there is more to that, but we need not go in to that now.) You do not have to be baptized to enter paradise. That was where Jesus went while his body was in the tomb. And that is where the thief went.

No one enters the state of "heaven" without having earned it. Baptism is simply a beginning. The word of God is all that is needed for acknowledgment of bliss. When the theif admitted that his actions were wrong and he was truly sorry, that act alone of acknowledging the wrong done and willingness to go forward without doing it ever again, puts one back in the state of grace. Jesus acknowledged this as a way of showing us all the "way". If one is baptized and goes out and commits a sin they are in no way better off that somone who has never undergone the sacrement but is without sin.

I'm thinking that if Jesus Christ himself gives you a pass, the usual rules don't apply.

It's not a requirement, it's a sign of "Obedience" to the will of God.

Paradise isnt the same as heaven right? Im thinking it just means the spirit world.

First, baptism is a sign, and an act of obedience. It's not actually necessary for salvation. But many religions recognize baptism of water, of blood, and of desire. Although he didn't die for his faith, he DID desire it. That was enough.

...You dont have to be baptised to enter heaven. ............................

Why all the angst regarding this question? Baptism in and of itself has absolutely NO saving ability. Baptism is ONLY the outward public expression of OBEDIENCE to and acceptance of Jesus Christ. If it were otherwise, the thief would not have gone to heaven. Jesus never said, "Believe on me and be baptised and you will be saved."