What Is The Third Heaven?

Bible Gems 279

Question: What is the third heaven mentioned by the apostle Paul?

Here is the reference:

2Cor. 12:2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know— God knows.

There are surprisingly several clues within the context of Paul’s mention of this “third heaven” that shed some light on the subject.

First, Paul uses the term without explanation, as if it were quite familiar to his contemporaries. This is because the “third heaven” was a familiar concept in Jewish circles, made popular by the book of 2 Enoch. While not Scripture, many of the concepts and terms were recognized as accurate and used by such New Testament authorities as Paul, Peter and Jude.

Second, “the third heaven” is experienced in this life through the portal of  “visions and revelations” (v. 1). “Visions and revelations” is a very general expression, and Paul does not specify which of the two was the vehicle for his own experience, and he may not have been sure himself. God reveals Himself in many ways, and “visions” are just one form of such revelations (Heb. 1:1). Twice in the book of Revelation, the apostle John described how his own experience sometimes seemed to engage his physical senses:

         Rev. 19:10  At this I fell at his feet to worship him.

         Rev. 22:8   I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me.

Third, the “third heaven” is identical to “paradise” (v. 4). “Paradise” is the biblical term describing where those who die in a righteous relationship with God enjoy life in His presence prior to their bodily resurrection at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (1Thess. 4:14-17; 1Cor. 15:52). Jesus promised the thief on the cross next to Him who professed his faith in Jesus as the Son of God that he would wake up in Paradise (the “third heaven”) that very day and see Jesus there (Lk. 23:43).

The “third heaven” could be experienced in both the physical and spiritual realm, even though Paul was not certain whether his own experience was “in the body or out of the body.” The book of Revelation supports this:

         Rev. 2:7  Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Likewise, in Luke 16:19-31, Jesus describes Paradise as a beautiful place whose residents, like Lazarus, are fully conscious that they have entered God’s presence after death, and they are aware of those who await Judgment Day in Hades (not Hell, yet) after death. Lazarus and the crucified thief both represent those who Paul describes as having “fallen asleep in” Jesus (1Thes. 4:14, 15).

Why Doesn’t God Show Himself?

Biblegems #239

Question: Jesus was God and became man. So why doesn't God continue to present Himself in a more visual, physical, and tangible way?

Jesus once posed a similar question. Luke 16:19-31 describes a man who died and went to eternal torment in Hades, and another man who died and went to “Abraham’s bosom” for the righteous dead. The man in Hades begged Abraham to send someone from the dead back to his family on earth to warn them. Abraham replied: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Lk. 16:31).

Jesus is telling us that those who deny God, despite the evidence, are not going to change their minds just because God shows up in human form. The problem lies with a person’s unwillingness to believe, not with the evidence of God’s existence.

This is the human condition described in Romans. God has advertised Himself throughout creation, but people ignore the evidence:

         Rom. 1:19-20; 28  …since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

When this refusal to know God through creation is repeated, man’s ability to recognize God through creation is depleted!

Rom. 1:28 …Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

The word “depraved” means “worthless,” rejected,” and “castaway.” It pictures the brain as having become dysfunctional through misuse, like a hotel key card’s magnetic strip rendered useless by a cell phone’s powerful magnet.

As the question above points out, God has already revealed Himself in a visual, physical, tangible way:

         John 1:14   The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And Jesus repeatedly demonstrated his divine nature. He publicly stilled raging storms:

Matt. 8:27   … “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

He healed diseased bodies:

Matt. 4:24 …and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.

And, the most convincing evidence of all, He:

Rom. 1:4  …was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Even so, the longing of the human heart to see God in a consistently visible, tangible, physical way will one day be realized by those who love and serve His Son Jesus:

         1John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Release From Hell?

Biblegems #215

Question: Won't God forgive people in hell too, eventually, and bring all with Him?

Scripture describes Hell as a “lake of fire” into which those whose names are not written in the “book of life” are “thrown” (Rev. 20:14-15). This one-time event takes place at the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15; Matt. 5:22). Up until this Day of Judgment, “death” is the condition of those whose names are not in the book of life, and ‘Hades” (Sheol, in the OT) is the place where the dead reside, awaiting Judgment Day.

The good news is that no one is in Hell yet. The bad news is that once a person has died without having been rescued from Hell there is no further possibility of escape:

         Heb. 9:27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…

Is This Fair?

Scientifically, matter is, practically speaking, impossible to annihilate. You can alter it, like burning a flower to ash, yet the fundamental atoms continue to exist—rearranged in a different form. Theoretically, matter could even be turned completely into energy, yet it would still continue to exist in that new form.

The same principle is true of at least two life forms created by God: angels and human beings. Both were created as eternally existing beings. Satan and his angel cohort rebelled against God (Is. 14:12-14; Rev. 12:9), and also dragged Adam and Eve into his rebellion. In so doing he introduced sin, entropy and death into God’s perfect creation (Rom. 5:12).

Hell provides a permanent end to the rebellion of Satan and the devastating effects of sin he brought upon all creation. And because Satan and the angels are eternal beings, Hell also needed to be an eternal solution. Imagine Satan and his angels imprisoned within the heart of a sun, never able to escape and never again able to exercise any influence upon God’s renewed and perfect creation.

The Human Predicament

Mankind is trapped in the vortex of Satan’s rebellion—and of his future, eternal demise:

         1John 3:8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.     

Sin is not only any act of disobedience against God, it is a fatal condition we are born into—like babies born with a deadly addiction from their parents. The fact that death exists at all is a constant reminder of our altered reality:

         Rom. 5:12 … sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…

Like a planet being sucked into a black hole, humanity has been dragged into Satan’s sin and its eternal, fatal consequences. We are condemned before we are born, with no way of escape. No matter how good or religious we try to be, it is utterly beyond our ability to completely separate ourselves from every sinful thought and action (Rom. 8:3).

But what we cannot do for ourselves, God in His great love and mercy has done through Jesus Christ. The opportunity for rescue from Hell, therefore, is now, in this earthly life. God has thrown out the lifeline, His sinless Son, Jesus Christ, who took our condemnation upon himself, granting us forgiveness and release from sin’s power and consequences. Refusing Jesus is to refuse eternal life.

         John 3:17-18 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Hell—Literal Or Figurative?

Biblegems #177

Question: Is hell literal or figurative? If it is literal, is it really eternal?

Our word “hell” comes from the New Testament Greek ge÷enna (pronounced “gehenna”). Jesus taught about hell as a very real place:

         Matt. 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

To be “destroyed” in hell does not mean the person ceases to exist. “Destroyed” in the New Testament Greek means “ruined” or “lost.” God created human beings for eternal existence both physically and spiritually. “Death” is the temporary separation of the body from the soul caused by sin:

         Rom. 5:12  …sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men…

But eventually every human being will be physically and spiritually raised from death:

         John 5:28-29  Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.        

Hell is the final destination of those who die without having been rescued (saved) by Jesus Christ (Lk. 19:10). Jesus described this fearful place of physical as well as spiritual torment:

Matt. 5:30 …It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

         Mark 9:43 …It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

Unfortunately, translators have sometimes supplied the word “hell” in our English Bibles inappropriately. When Peter writes about certain angels already in “hell” (2Pet. 2:4), he’s actually referring to a place called “Tartarus” (tartarw¿saß) where these angels are imprisoned until the Final Judgment.

The same is true of Jesus’ story of Lazarus and the rich man, where “hell” should be translated “hades” (Gk. aˆ‚dhØ), referring to the realm of the dead who are awaiting the Final Judgment (Lk. 16:23).

Hell was designed for Satan and the angels who rebelled with Him against God (Matt. 25:41). Nevertheless, through Adam and Eve humanity fell into that same rebellion. Sin has contaminated the human race ever since, locking all of us into both the contamination of sin and sinful behavior:

         Ps. 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

God—because He is just, holy and all-powerful—cannot abide sinfulness and rebellion in His creation forever. Evil will be purged one day at the Final Judgment, and all sin and unrepentant sinners rendered powerless in hell. As sinful human beings then, our condition is hopeless, except for the way out provided by God alone:

         John 11:25-26  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”