The Present Heaven

~ The Present (Intermediate) Heaven ~

"The present Heaven is normally invisible to those living on Earth. For those who have trouble accepting the reality of an unseen realm, consider the perspective of cutting-edge researchers who embrace string theory. Scientists at Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, among others, postulate that there are ten unobservable dimensions and likely an infinite number of imperceptible universes.52 If this is what leading scientists believe, why should anyone feel self-conscious about believing in one unobservable dimension, a realm containing angels and Heaven and Hell?"

"Plato, the Greek philosopher, believed that material things, including the human body and the earth, are evil, while immaterial things such as the soul and Heaven are good. This view is called Platonism. The Christian church, highly influenced by Platonism through the teachings of Philo (ca. 20 BC–AD 50) and Origen (AD 185–254), among others, came to embrace the “spiritual” view that human spirits are better off without bodies and that Heaven is a disembodied state. They rejected the notion of Heaven as a physical realm and spiritualized or entirely neglected the biblical teaching of resurrected people inhabiting a resurrected Earth."

The Present Heaven: Paradise. "The word paradise comes from the Persian word pairidaeza, meaning “a walled park” or “enclosed garden.” It was used to describe the great walled gardens of the Persian king Cyrus’s royal palaces. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Greek word for paradise is used to describe the Garden of Eden (e.g., Genesis 2:8; Ezekiel 28:13). Later, because of the Jewish belief that God would restore Eden, paradise became the word to describe the eternal state of the righteous, and to a lesser extent, the present Heaven... Paradise was not generally understood as mere allegory, with a metaphorical or spiritual meaning, but as an actual physical place where God and his people lived together, surrounded by physical beauty, enjoying great pleasures and happiness."

"Eden was not destroyed. What was destroyed was mankind’s ability to live in Eden. There’s no indication that Eden was stripped of its physicality and transformed into a “spiritual” entity. It appears to have remained just as it was, a physical paradise removed to a realm we can’t gain access to—most likely the present Heaven, because we know for certain that’s where the tree of life now is (Revelation 2:7)... God is not done with Eden. He preserved it not as a museum piece but as a place that mankind will one day occupy again—and to a certain extent may now occupy in the present Heaven. Because we’re told that the tree of life will be located in the New Jerusalem, on both sides of a great river (Revelation 22:2), it seems likely that the original Eden may be a great park at the center of the city. If we know the tree that distinguished Eden will be there, why not Eden itself? This would fit perfectly with the statement in Revelation 2:7 that the tree of life is presently in Paradise."