[Gary Petty] In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the apostle Paul mentions the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:1-4). Now, people will write in and say, “What does Paul mean by ‘the third heaven’?” Now, he also calls it “paradise”. Well, you have to understand that the Bible actually talks about multiple heavens. Now, Paul’s the only one who mentions the third heaven. But if you go through the scripture, you’ll see that heaven sometimes means the atmosphere – you know, it’s where the birds are, it’s where the rain falls. So it’ll talk about the rain from heaven. Then you will see that sometimes heaven – and it’s plural, especially in the book of Genesis – you’ll see “heavens”. And many times that means the sort of what we call outer space where the planets are, where the stars are. And then you see Paul talk about the third heaven. Well, when you think about it, how many times you see in the scripture where it talks about God in the heaven, or God in the heavens, or the most high heavens. And the concept was that wherever God is, the realm that He is, where His throne is, is called the third heaven. Now this is why the apostle Paul calls it the third heaven or paradise. It’s the place of God’s throne.

This is very important when you look at certain scriptures, knowing which heaven it’s talking about. Now, Elijah was taken up into heaven, and many people believe, well, he went to the third heaven. But if you go back and you really look at that passage, he wasn’t taken to the third heaven, because people saw him go into the mountains. He never left the first heaven.

So this actually is a very important understanding of why Paul would say ‘the third heaven’, because there are – that word is used to mean three different things – our atmosphere, outer space, and the throne of God.

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