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TextsTexts• I Thess. 4:13 (NIV):–“Brothers, we do not want you to

be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.”

• II Cor. 5:8 (NIV):–“We are confident, I say, and

willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

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Heaven As Substance & Earth As Shadow

Heaven As Substance & Earth As Shadow

• In his 17th Century classic Paradise Lost, John Milton described Eden as a garden full of aromatic flowers, delicious fruit, soft grass, and lushly watered.–He also connected the garden of

Eden with Heaven.

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–He portrayed Heaven as the source of earthly existence, depicting Heaven as a place of great pleasures, and the source of Earth’s pleasures.• In Milton’s story, the angel Raphael asked Adam, “What if Earth be but the shadow of heav’n, and things therein Each to other like more then on Earth is thought?” (Paradise Lost, Book 5, lines pp. 574-576).

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• This idea of the Earth as Heaven’s shadow is a concept that has biblical support. –For example, the temple in

Heaven is filled with smoke from the glory of God (Rev. 15:8).

–It appears that it is actual fire creating literal smoke in a real (heavenly) temple building.

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• We are told that there are scrolls in Heaven, elders who have faces, martyrs who wear clothes, and even people with “palm branches in their hands (Rev. 7:9).

–There are musical instruments in the Intermediate Heaven (Rev. 8:6).

–Horses come into and out of Heaven. (II Kings 2:11; Rev.. 19:14).

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–There are eagles flying overhead in Heaven (Rev. 8:13).

• Some commentators “spiritualize” verses such as the above, claiming that they should not be taken literally.

• However, Heb. 8:5 (NIV), speaking of the priests and their ministry says:

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–“They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’” (emphasis mine)

• That which was built after the pattern in heaven, was physical

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• This certainly suggests that the original sanctuary in heaven was also tangible or physical.–Hebrews infers that we should

see Earth as a derivative realm and Heaven as the source realm.

–If we accept this, we can abandon the wrong assumption that something in one realm cannot exist in the other.

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• In fact, it is highly probable that what exists in one realm exists in at least some form in the other.–I believe we should stop thinking

of Heaven and Earth as opposites and instead understand that they share certain commonalities.

• Howbeit, obviously, Heaven is without those things brought about by sin’s curse.

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–Again, “They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. . ’” (Heb. 8:5, NIV).

• The earthly Tabernacle was a copy or shadow of the heavenly sanctuary.–Since the earthly copy was

tangible, it suggests that the heavenly Tabernacle is also tangible (in its realm).

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• The New Jerusalem that is presently in the Intermediate Heaven will be brought down to Earth.–The New Jerusalem will be

physically on the New Earth.

–We also know that the New Jerusalem is currently in the intermediate Heaven.

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• This, then, infers that the New Jerusalem is currently physical (or tangible) in its own realm.–Why wouldn’t it be?

–Unless, that is, we start with an assumption that Heaven can’t be physical, then this shows that it must be physical.

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• Hebrews suggests that God created Earth in the image of Heaven, just as He created mankind in His image.

• C.S. Lewis proposed that: –“…the hills and valleys of Heaven

will be to those you now experience, not as a copy is to an original, nor as a substitute is to the genuine article, . . .

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–. . . but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal” (Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer, 1963, p.84).

• Our thinking is often backwards.–Why do we imagine that God

patterns Heaven’s holy city after an earthly city?

–Do we think that Heaven knows nothing of community and culture?

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–Do we suppose God has to get His ideas from us, His created beings?

• Isn’t it much more likely that earthly realities, including cities, are derived from their heavenly counterparts?–We make the mistake of starting

with the Earth and reasoning up toward Heaven.

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• Instead, we should start with Heaven and reason down toward Earth.–For example, it isn’t merely an

accommodation to our earthly familial structure that God calls Himself a father and us children.

–On the contrary, He created father/child relationships to display His relationship with us.

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–In the same way, He created human marriage to reveal the love relationship between Christ and His bride (see. Eph. 5:32).

• When we finally reach Heaven, this world will seem like a land of shadows; colorless and two-dimensional.–Heaven will be fresh and

resonating with color and beauty.

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Does ‘Paradise’ Suggest A Physical Place?

Does ‘Paradise’ Suggest A Physical Place?

• During the Crucifixion, when Jesus said to the thief on the Cross, “…Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43b), He was referring to the intermediate Heaven.–But why did He call it Paradise?

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–What did Jesus mean?

• The word “paradise” comes originally from the Persian word pairidaeza, meaning “a walled park” or an “enclosed garden.”–It was a word used to describe

the great walled gardens of the Persian King Cyrus’s royal palaces.

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• 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., Gen. 2:8; Ezek. 28:13).

–Later, because of the Jewish belief that God would restore Eden, paradise described the eternal state of the righteous, and the intermediate Heaven.

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• The word ‘paradise’ doesn’t refer to wild nature, but to nature under man-kind’s dominion.–The garden or park was not left to

grow entirely on its own.

–People brought their creativity to bear on managing, cultivating, and preserving the garden or park.

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• Gen. 2:15 says:–“And the LORD God took the

man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

• Oxford Professor Alister McGrath writes:–“The idea of a walled garden

enclosing a carefully cultivated area of exquisite plants and animals, . . .

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–. . . was the most powerful symbol of paradise available to the human imagination, mingling the images of nature with the orderliness of human construction.” (A Brief History of Heaven, 2003, p. 40).

• In the Judaism of the New Testament era, the site of a re-opened paradise is the Earth.

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• ‘Paradise’ was not generally understood as a mere allegory, with a metaphysical or spiritual meaning.–It was understood as an actual

place where God and His people lived together, surrounded by physical beauty and enjoying great pleasure and happiness.

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• Rev. 2:7b (NIV) says:–“To him who overcomes, I will give

the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

–The same (physical) Tree of Life that was in the Garden of Eden will one day be in the New Jerusalem on the New Earth (Rev. 22:2).

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• The Tree of Life is presently in the intermediate Heaven.–Shouldn’t we assume it has the

same physical properties it had in the Garden of Eden, and will have in the New Jerusalem?

• Gen. 3:24 (NASB) says that after the fall, God . . .–“…drove the man out; . . .

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–“. . . and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”

• It appears that Eden’s paradise, with the Tree of Life, retained its identity as a physical place, but was no longer accessible to mankind.

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• It was guarded by cherubim, who are residents of heaven, where God is “… enthroned between the cherubim.” (II Kings19:15). –Eden was not destroyed. What

was destroyed was mankind’s ability to live in Eden.

–There is no indication that Eden was stripped of its physicality and transformed into a “spiritual” entity.

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• It appears to have remained just as it was, a tangible, physical paradise removed to a realm we can’t gain access to.–It is most likely at the present,

intermediate Heaven, because we know for certain that is where the Tree of Life is now.

• Rev. 2:7 (NIV) says:

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–“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise.”

• God is not finished with Eden.–He is preserving it as a place that

one day man will occupy again.

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• We are told that the Tree of Life will be located in the New Jerusalem, on both sides of a great river (Rev. 22:2).

• It seems likely that the original Eden may be a great park at the center of the city of New Jerusalem.

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• Since we know that the tree that distinguished Eden will be there, why not Eden itself?

• This fits perfectly with the statement in Rev. 2:7 that the Tree of Life is presently in Paradise.–Both are to be understood as real,

tangible things.

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• Though the rest of the earth fell under human sin, Eden was treated differently.–Possibly, Eden originally came

from Heaven, God’s dwelling place, and was transplanted to the Earth.

–It was perfection, until Adam’s Fall.

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• We do know that God came to Eden to visit with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:8), which He could no longer do after Adam and Eve were banished from Eden after the Fall.–Clearly Eden was special to God,

and it remains special to Him.

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• The Tree of Life’s presence in the New Jerusalem establishes that elements of Eden (as physical as the original) will again be part of the human experience.–Again, the presence of the Tree of

Life in the intermediate Heaven suggests that Heaven too has tangible, physical properties.

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Do People Have Intermediate Bodies

In the Intermediate Heaven?

Do People Have Intermediate Bodies

In the Intermediate Heaven?• God and angels are in essence

spirits (John 4:24; Heb. 1:14).

–Humans are by nature both spiritual and physical.

• Gen. 2:7 (NIV) says:–“the LORD God formed the man

from the dust of the ground AND…

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–“…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

• We are composite spirit and human beings.–When God decided to create

mankind, he created a body and then breathed into it a spirit.

–Man’s spirit is housed in a body.

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–Neurophysiological research reveals an intimate connection between the body and what has historically been referred to as the “soul”.

• The soul includes the mind, the will, the emotions, intentions, and our capacity to worship.–Unlike God and the angels who

are essentially spirit, man is as much physical as spiritual.

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–We cannot be fully human without both a spirit and a body.

• Given the consistent physical descriptions of the intermediate Heaven and those who dwell there, I believe that we will have some sort of body between our death and the time we get our resurrected body.

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• I think it will be some tangible, physical form that will allow us to function as human beings while we are between our dead body and our resurrected body.

• II Cor. 5:2-4 (NIV) says:–‘Meanwhile we groan, longing to

be clothed with our heavenly dwelling [body], 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. . . .

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–“. . . 4For while we are in this tent, [body] we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

• I believe that at death we are clothed by a ‘heavenly dwelling,’ or a spiritual body, in which we will await our resurrection bodies.

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• There is evidence that this will be the case, since the martyrs are seen in heaven wearing clothes (robes), and to wear clothes, one must have a body (Rev. 6:9-11).

–In addition, it says that they “called out in a loud voice,” which also requires a mouth, larynx, lips, tongue, lungs and esophagus with which to cry out.

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–Thus implying that the martyrs, who were people who had died in service to God and gone to the intermediate Heaven, are given bodies of some sort in the intermediate Heaven.

–Disembodied spirits would have no need of clothes or voices.

• It appears the apostle John had a physical body when he visited Heaven.

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• John grasped things, held things, ate and tasted things there, e.g., Rev.10:9-10 (NIV) says:–“So I went to the angel and asked

him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’ . . .

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• If those in Heaven are given temporary forms, it in no way minimizes the absolute necessity or critical importance of our future bodily resurrection.–Paul emphatically establishes this

resurrection in I Cor. 15:12-32.–In fact, it would only be on the

basis of the certainty of that resurrection that temporary bodies might be given.

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In ConclusionIn Conclusion

• We don’t receive our resurrection bodies immediately after death.–Any intermediate body in the

intermediate heaven would not be our true bodies which have died.

–Any temporary bodies would be likely to be human-appearing bodies like the angels sometimes take on.

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In ConclusionIn Conclusion

• We don’t receive our resurrection bodies immediately after death.–What we will have is a temporary

form that will very likely appear to be human.

–It will be capable of wearing clothes and we will be able to see, hear, speak, taste and eat.

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• Any intermediate body in the intermediate heaven will not be our true, eternal resurrected bodies which have died.–The bodies we receive

immediately upon death are temporary.

–We will receive our eternal, imperishable, resurrected bodies at the time of the resurrection.

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• A fundamental Christian belief is that the resurrected Christ now dwells in (intermediate) Heaven.–His body on earth was physical,

and after His resurrection, He ascended to Heaven in that same body as the first resurrected man.

• Acts 1:11b (NIV) says:–“…This same Jesus, who has been

taken from you into heaven, ….

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–“. . . will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.“

• It is indisputable, therefore, that at least one physical body is at present in the intermediate Heaven.–Since Christ’s body has physical

properties in heaven, it makes sense that others in the intermediate Heaven have also.

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• It also makes sense that other aspects of the Intermediate Heaven would have physical properties as well.–It is my belief that they do.–I believe that in the intermediate

Heaven our loved ones who have passed on are enjoying a magnificent, wonderful new world now while they await the resurrection.

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