01.05.06. Paradise, When and Where?
6. WHEN AND WHERE IS PARADISE?
Paradise is not the actual dwelling place of God, the house or temple in heaven. The meaning of the word will not allow this, for it describes the pleasure grounds of a great man, say a king. Thus Solomon using the word says, “I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and parks (paradises, LXX), and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-5). The parks were not the houses. The former, like the vineyards, might be at a distance from the palace. In the Septuagint (LXX) the word is used of the garden of Eden.
Paul says that he was “caught away into the paradise” (2 Corinthians 12:4), which, in view of the meaning of the word, does not mean the heaven of heavens where God has His own especial dwelling. The word “caught up” is not exact, for the Greek word harpazo does not in itself indicate the direction. Nor is it certain that by “the paradise” he means the “third heaven” to which he had been taken according to the verse preceding, because he had said (2 Corinthians 12:1) that he was about to speak of “visions,” not of only one vision, whereas he did not mention more than one, unless the two are separate events. But if the article “the paradise” points to one such region that is pre‑eminently Paradise, and if that is in the upper world, what follows? Nothing, as to our theme; certainly not that all saints go thither at death. Paul is using the experience as proof that he had exceptional tokens that he was an apostle, which requires that the experience itself be exceptional, not general. Moreover, that an unusual event happened to one Christian during life is no proof that it happens to all Christians at death. But the article “the paradise” does not require the sense of a region in the heavens, because Christ used it when he said to the thief, “To‑day shalt thou be with me in the paradise” (Luke 23:43), and it is beyond question, as we have seen, that Christ did not go to the heavenly regions that day, but to Hades, in “the lower parts of the earth.” Therefore the blissful region of Hades, “Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22) was paradise; and ought not we, the followers of the Lord, to feel that a region which was suitable to Him in the death state must be fully suitable for us? As far as the meaning of the word goes there may be many paradises, even as Solomon says, “I made me paradises”; and so it may be that “the Paradise of God,” where grows the tree of life of which saints that have conquered in the battles of life shall be privileged to eat, is heavenly in location (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:14); but in any case that is future, not present, as to our enjoyment of it, and does not touch the place and state of the dead. The Lord Jesus in His universal presence is not only in heaven; He is also in the midst of two or three living saints gathered to His name on earth. He is in Hades also: “He descended . . . He ascended, that He might fill all things” might occupy the universe (ta panta), might pervade it all with His presence, as the odour of the ointment did the house (John 12:3), where the same verb is used as in Ephesians 4:10 (pleeroo). Thus, without vacating His place at the right hand of God, He could present Himself personally and repeatedly to His imprisoned and hard‑pressed servant on earth (Acts 23:11; 2 Timothy 4:16-17), and can also communicate with the dead, as we shall see shortly. And the soul, freed from the trammels of this enfeebled, deranged body of our humiliation, can in consequence appreciate that presence more keenly and enjoy it more blessedly, and so Paul could rightly say that to depart and to be with Christ would be very far better than to be chained day and night to a rough pagan soldier, as was at that time his distressing lot (Php 1:23). It is however to be noted that the apostle does not here make any general statement that “to die is gain”; strictly his assertion is made of himself only. He had just stated his “earnest expectation and hope” that Christ should continue to be “magnified in his body, whether by life or by death.” Not every believer lives with this as his fixed and paramount intention. Not every Christian has so dedicated his body to Christ as to be as willing for death as for life. Then Paul adds: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Php 1:20-21). Doubtless this is true of each who lives to magnify Christ; but it is not said of believers who may not so live, as those, for example, who are cut off prematurely in their sins, as were Ananias and Sapphira and the evil living Christians in the Corinthian church (Acts 5:1; 1 Corinthians 11:30).