In discoursing upon the subject, the Prophet Joseph Smith observed: “I will say something about the spirits in prison. There has been much said by modern divines about the words of Jesus (when on the cross) to the thief, saying, ’This day shalt thou be with me in paradise. ’King James’ translators make it out to say paradise. But what is paradise?
It is a modern word: it does not answer at all to the original word that Jesus made use of… . There is nothing in the original word in Greek from which this was taken that signifies paradise; but it was-This day thou shalt be with me in the world of spirits.” In confirming these truths, the Prophet said: “Hades, the Greek or Sheol, the Hebrew, these two significations mean a world of spirits. Hades, Sheol, paradise, spirits in prison, are all one: it is a world of spirits.” (Teachings, pp. 309, 310, italics added.)
Not discounting in any way, therefore, any feelings of contrition that may have existed in the heart of the thief on the cross, Parley P. Pratt thus explained that this man went into the world of spirits “in a state of ignorance, and sin, being uncultivated, unimproved, and unprepared for salvation. He went there to be taught, and to complete that repentance, which in a dying moment he commenced on earth.” (JD 1:9.)