Apostle Paul’s vision of the third Heaven

In 2 Corinthians 12: 2-4, the Apostle Paul reveals he was transported to heaven:  “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—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.” In the ancient world, the first heaven consisted of the earth and its atmosphere. The second heaven was the region of the sun, moon, and stars. The third heaven was the dwelling place of God. 

The man to whom Paul alludes is the apostle himself. His vision of the third heaven was inexpressible, meaning that words were insufficient to describe what he experienced.  Paul experienced unsurpassable ecstasy in his nearness to God. He did not know whether his body and soul were caught up to the third heaven or whether his soul temporarily went out of his body, as he explains: “Whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know.” 

My granddaddy Powell once told me that he fainted while working outside in the hot sun, evidently from a heat stroke. During his swoon, Granddaddy said he went to a beautiful place like heaven. When I asked what he saw, Granddaddy said that words were inadequate to express what he experienced. Granddaddy’s journey may have been similar to Paul’s. Paul’s foretaste of life in heaven with Christ may have influenced him to write Philippians 1.21: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” 

Paul doesn’t state the reason for his trip to heaven.  It may be that God granted Paul this personal experience to steel him against the suffering he would experience on his missionary journeys. Paul was shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, stoned and left for dead, and in the end beheaded by the Roman Emperor Nero. Having glimpsed the ineffable beauty of heaven that awaited him, Paul was able to face the trials he suffered. 

The Bible discloses that both Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings: 2:11) were taken up bodily into heaven. Isaiah was not transported to heaven, but had this vision of heaven. “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.  Above the Lord stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two wings he covered his feet, and with two wings he flew…”  John the Revelator was carried away in the spirit to a high mountain. There he saw the Holy City whose streets were pure gold.  “I did not see a temple in the city,” wrote John, “because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” John continues: “The city does not need the sun or the moon, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb (Jesus) is its lamp.”

Even though we have not experienced heaven as Paul, we can claim the assurance of this scriptural promise: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).