Post by Lee on Mar 9, 2014 20:41:04 GMT
CAUGHT UP INTO PARADISE
“How is Paul’s statement (2 Cor. 12:2, 4) that he was caught up into the third heavens—to Paradise—to be harmonised with the fact that Paradise is to be in the Holy Land?”—(A. W.)
ANSWER.—By the fact that Paradise in the Holy Land will be the third heaven. Paul was speaking of “visions and revelations” (see verses 1 and 7). “Visions and revelations” are exhibitions of coming realities, and not of contemporary facts, as may be discerned in the contemplation of Rev. 1:1, Acts 12:9, and Ezek: 40:2. As for “up,” there is no preposition in the original. What Paul wrote in verse 2 was harpagenta, and in verse 4, heerpagee—the passive participle and the third person singular aorist respectively, of the verb harpazo to seize or snatch away — fairly rendered in the Diaglott “conveyed away.” It is the idea expressed by John when he said, “He carried me away in the Spirit” (Rev. 17:3; 21:10). Paul was conveyed forward in vision to Paradise, which is the third heaven-political—1, Antediluvian; 2, Mosaic; 3, Millennial. This is one of the things in Paul’s letters to which Peter refers as being “hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest” (2 Pet. 3:16). It is possible to understand them, however, by a right division of the word of truth.
1892 Christadelphian p260.
“How is Paul’s statement (2 Cor. 12:2, 4) that he was caught up into the third heavens—to Paradise—to be harmonised with the fact that Paradise is to be in the Holy Land?”—(A. W.)
ANSWER.—By the fact that Paradise in the Holy Land will be the third heaven. Paul was speaking of “visions and revelations” (see verses 1 and 7). “Visions and revelations” are exhibitions of coming realities, and not of contemporary facts, as may be discerned in the contemplation of Rev. 1:1, Acts 12:9, and Ezek: 40:2. As for “up,” there is no preposition in the original. What Paul wrote in verse 2 was harpagenta, and in verse 4, heerpagee—the passive participle and the third person singular aorist respectively, of the verb harpazo to seize or snatch away — fairly rendered in the Diaglott “conveyed away.” It is the idea expressed by John when he said, “He carried me away in the Spirit” (Rev. 17:3; 21:10). Paul was conveyed forward in vision to Paradise, which is the third heaven-political—1, Antediluvian; 2, Mosaic; 3, Millennial. This is one of the things in Paul’s letters to which Peter refers as being “hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest” (2 Pet. 3:16). It is possible to understand them, however, by a right division of the word of truth.
1892 Christadelphian p260.