“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise” (2 Corinthians 12:2-3 ESV).
In the climax of Paul’s “boastings,” he spoke of himself in the third person as a man who was “caught up to the third heaven.” Perhaps he felt it too immodest to speak of himself in the first person as one who had been entrusted with such a heavenly experience. Yet, he shared it with the Corinthians as a part of his apostolic resume to refute those who had challenged his authority.
Some have misunderstood Paul’s reference to the “third heaven,” imagining three levels of spiritual elevation. A simpler explanation is to understand it as the Jews of that day did. In their view, the first heaven was the blue sky at day, the second, the night sky with its starry host, and the third, the unseen heaven, where God and His heavenly host dwell. Paul clarifies this by calling the third heaven, “paradise.”
The word “paradise” is only found in the Bible three times (Luke 23:43, 2 Cor. 12:3, Rev. 2:7). It has the original meaning of a beautiful garden and was used in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) to describe the “garden” of Eden. In Luke’s gospel, Christ promised the thief on the cross, “Today, you shall be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). So “Paradise” may be taken to be another name for the Present Heaven, where the saints who have passed from this life dwell with the Lord until the Day of Christ’s return.
Paul did not go into detail about what he had experienced, only saying that he heard “things that cannot be told.” He apparently experienced first hand what Isaiah had prophesied and what he had written about in his first letter to the Corinthians, that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (Isa. 64:4; 1 Cor. 2:9).
PRAYER: Dear Father, we may not know the details, but we know the promise that we will be with You in Paradise. We know and believe that wherever Christ is, we are and will always be. Therefore, help us to live with our hearts and minds set on things above. In Jesus’ name, amen.