Smells Like heaven, Must be Heaven

After our house church meeting a few weeks ago, I was inspired to review places in scripture referencing the afterlife and its characteristics. All of us have asked the question, "What is Heaven like?" Other questions we ask get very specific, like "Where do we go when we die?" Is heaven and paradise the same place? How many heavens are there? Are there different levels in heaven? These are but a few questions that we humans ask about the place God has prepared for those whose names are written in the book of life.

This post will look at where "Heaven" is and try to investigate how this question helps answer other questions about "Heaven." I'll try to focus on other aspects of the afterlife in the (hopeful) conclusion to this topic in the coming weeks.

Lets start with the beginning.

Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Now I've historically just assumed that "heavens" or "heaven" usually meant mostly where God is, or Heaven as in "streets of gold", etc. I couldn't have been more wrong. When looking at other examples of the plural "Heavens" in Genesis, it is easier to see out of the 22 times the singular or plural form of the word is mentioned, when looking in context, for the majority the word refers to the creation of earth and its created surroundings, for instance the sky, and the stars (space). Only a few times is it referring to the "spiritual" heaven.

Read Genesis 1 and then refer to Genesis 2:4, which sums up God's work of creating the "heavens and the earth":

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
      When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-

No mention in the whole chapter of Genesis 1 about how God created the "spiritual place of heaven", only the creation of sky, the stars and space.

Now there's no reason to speculate when the spiritual heaven was made, because we just don't know. But hey, I'll take a shot anyway. I'm only human. Heaven is where God is, as I've said earlier. His presence makes Heaven "Heaven". That's the reward. Heaven didn't cease being Heaven when God sent his Son to live with us and then die for us. He was both there in the person of Jesus and present in Heaven. How close we are to God in our relationship with him will offer greater reward.

THE SUN GODS?

Exodus 20:4-5ff - You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God...

Here we see an example of that which is made by men's hands or what is naturally in God's creation, for instance the worship of the sun by the Egyptians as well as the sky or stars and moon by countless other ancient civilizations. Moses is referring to not that which is in Heaven (God himself), but that which people can see and idolize to worship within the realm of the created.

heaven or HEAVEN?

Deuteronomy 26:15 - Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Genesis 28:12-13 (Jacob's Dream) - 12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.

Genesis 21:17-18- 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation."

In these samples in Genesis chapter 21 and 28, we see a conflict where heaven can have a dual meaning that is consistent throughout the bible. Sometimes physical heaven, the sky is associated as where God or an angel is coming from or speaking from. Is this significant? I think on a footnote level, yes. Obviously popping up from the ground would be a bit ungraceful, the sky has always been a location from where God in some form or extension has descended from. More studies on Judaeo culture and historical beliefs associated with how heaven or the afterlife is viewed may provide more of a foundation for why such observations were made by Moses and Paul without ignoring the facts we have before us in scripture.

Perhaps the the sky and the presence of God is inter-mingled or contiguous or maybe proximate somehow? It seems simplistic or narrow-minded to suggest such given the traditional sarcasm or popular portrayal of heaven as "just right above the clouds", yet scripture seems to lean towards the sky at least (on a more serious note) as a spiritually enabled or spiritually utilized gateway to earth and humanity that God employs for whatever reason. An obvious reason may be the sky and for that matter, beyond it, space is holy in its own lesser right; The sky/space is the last frontier and provides endless mystery for all generations. How appropriate for God to reveal himself in epiphany. However you want to slice it, you can't ignore the attention to detail the writers of scripture gave to such subjects: It happened for a reason.

Now, this may seem like a snore talking about the sky and space being defined as "The Heavens", but this language is important when investigating how Paul uses the phrase "third heaven" when referring to a spiritual experience he heard second-hand from a fellow believer.

EXCUSE ME WHILE I KISS THE SKY

Now let's take a look at our target text, the notorious 2 Corinthians 12:1-3 passage.

1 ...Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 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. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

This text has been torn to pieces and used in ridiculous ways by many people over the years. Its easy to stay away from this one; if taken at face value, this could be deemed a mysterious, cryptic picture into the "hierarchy" of God's realm. Sort of like a Lord of the Rings excerpt. I guess that's an accurate reflection of what I used to think about the passage at some point.

Given some of the context, we can see that "Heavens" is often an amalgamation or related to the sky, stars/space, and the Holy Place of God. I believe that the third heaven that Paul is referring to is obviously the place "where God is." Paul specifically uses third to describe what biblical language has often left vague. This man didn't fly up to the clouds. He didn't arrive consciously in the blackness of space. This man had a vision or revelation much like that described by John in the Book of Revelation ("...whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows..."). Paul uses the word "third" to note a different kind of heaven. This is a typification of this literary period, and we see much of the same paradigmatic expressions in Revelation.

Deuteronomy also describes God's reign over all creation with different degrees of "heavens." We're not just talking about the sky or the atmosphere here.

Deuteronomy 10:14 - To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.

The first type of heaven, Paul's audience would understand as being the first layer, or the sky or atmosphere. The second then would be what is beyond: Space, the stars, the "highest heavens". The first two "Heavens" being the creation of God that human beings experience; there is no other excuse for what the third heaven could be--that which is beyond the reach of man without the help of the Almighty--utterly yet simply, the Realm of God.

Comments

[Jacynda Lynch]

Very insightful hubby, I like how it made me think.

[Chad Dodson]

For a long time now I have felt that we needed more concrete definition on "heaven" or "the heavens". Linguistically, the Bible can be very complex. Therefore, we often need help in understanding how Biblical audiences would have understood certain concepts. The words "heaven" and "heavens" are often terribly confused and distorted because of poor definition on our end of thinking. Thank you Josh for providing something here that is an excellent resource to help everyone understand how these concepts are presented in the Bible.