*** sl 131-4 8 A Spiritual Paradise on a Polluted Earth ***
4 Writing near the middle of the first century, about the year 55 C.E., he said to this congregation of fellow believers: “I have to boast. It is not beneficial; but I shall pass on to supernatural visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in union with Christ who, fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught away as such to the third heaven. Yes, I know such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, God knows—that he was caught away into paradise and heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. Over such a man I will boast, but I will not boast over myself.”—2 Corinthians 12:1-5.

5 The apostle Paul was here talking, not about some other man, but about himself. However, he speaks of himself, when having the above-described unique experience, as a man specially favored of God; and about the man that he was when in that highly favored position he can rightly boast. But of himself as an ordinary man minus such rare privileges from God he cannot properly boast. His experience was so realistic that it was as if he were right there in his physical body, but reasonably his physical body stayed on the earth and what he experienced was a trance and what he heard was when he was in this trance. If this experience occurred fourteen years before he wrote his second letter to the Corinthian congregation, then it occurred about the year 41 C.E., which was before his first missionary trip with Barnabas, which was about 47/48 C.E. Whether what he heard was in Hebrew or Greek, languages known to him, or in some foreign language that cannot be translated in known human languages, the apostle Paul does not specify.

6 In being caught away to the third heaven, Paul was not caught up and carried down the stream of time to the third of a series of heavens that followed one another in succession. He was caught up and borne vertically, and, as the number three or third is used in the Bible as a mark of intensity or emphasis, the “third heaven” would indicate the height of his elevation, the exalted quality of it. It did not acquaint him with the things in the heavens of spirit persons in the sense that Jesus Christ, who came down from heaven and returned to the spirit heavens, is acquainted with the invisible heavenly things. Figuratively, Paul was already seated with fellow Christians on earth “in the heavenly places in union with Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6) So his being caught away to the “third heaven” would indicate a spiritually exalted elevating of Paul above the spiritual position of his fellow Christians. It doubtless gave him insight such as he had not had before, and this would evidence itself in how he spoke and wrote.

7 As for his being caught away to “paradise,” this is here associated with the “third heaven.” This would suggest something spiritual. But this would not indicate that the paradise to which Paul was caught away was the one referred to in the message sent by the glorified Jesus Christ to the congregation in Ephesus, Asia Minor: “Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: To him that conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” (Revelation 2:7) This “paradise of God” is a figurative one in the invisible spirit heavens, into which flesh and blood cannot enter and into which fleshly eye cannot see. (1 Corinthians 15:50) Nor is there any intimation that the apostle Paul saw symbols of things that are in the invisible spirit heavens in the way that the apostle John saw such, of which John gives us a description in Revelation, chapter four. So it is very unlikely that the apostle Paul was caught away to the “paradise of God” to see its “tree of life.”

8 As far as the original earthly paradise, the “garden of Eden,” is concerned, there is nothing mysterious to human creatures about such a paradise. It is nothing beyond human experience, and the restoration of it to earth under God’s Messianic kingdom has long been understood according to the Bible prophecies. (Genesis 3:8-24) Hence, the apostle Paul would not have to receive “supernatural visions and revelations of the Lord” in order to learn and know that.—2 Corinthians 12:1.

9 There is, however, another paradise that the Holy Scriptures picture prophetically, even giving us a historic prototype of this, in the land of Judah after the Babylonian exile of the Jews. This paradise is the spiritual one in our day, nineteen centuries after the apostle Paul was caught away to the “third heaven” and to “paradise” in a supernatural vision. What Paul heard during that realistic experience, the “unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak,” were about this then future spiritual paradise. This blessed estate of Christ’s true disciples would come into existence during his “presence” or parousia at the “conclusion of the system of things.”—Matthew 24:3.

10 Paul was inspired to foretell the religious “apostasy” that would befall the Christian congregation before the “presence of our Lord Jesus Christ,” but it was not lawful for him as a man to speak about this spiritual paradise, about which he heard in “unutterable words.” To do so would have meant for him to interpret the Bible prophecies that have to do with this spiritual paradise.—2 Thessalonians 2:1-3; 2 Corinthians 12:1-4.