A correspondent, one of whose queries was answered last week, says:— “It has been suggested that 2 Cor. 12:2 teaches the idea that there is such a thing as a man existing out of the body; and that the body is, therefore, only the case or house in which the man proper lives. The teaching of the fourth verse seems to indicate that this man, which may exist out of the body, and who heard unspeakable words, was therefore conscious between death and the resurrection.” Suggestions are a poor foundation. We might suggest that the passage teaches transmigration of souls, or future probation, but it does not. Well, what does it teach? The texts read as follows:— “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth); such an one caught up to the third heaven.” “How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter.” 1. If the great apostle to the Gentiles did not know (admitting that he referred to the intermediate state of man) whether he was in the body or out, how can we tell? When this is the only case in which such a thing is mentioned, and when the individual connected with it did not know as to his condition, certainly a theory must be hard pushed for evidence which would depend upon a “whether” and “I cannot tell.” What God has not revealed, it is not becoming for us to explain. 2. Paul was not speaking of death or the intermediate state at all. He did know that a dead man “knows not anything,” that their very “thoughts” were “perished.” Eccl. 9:5; Ps. 146:4. The apostle’s subject was “visions and revelations of the Lord.” And in his view of the things of God, he did not know whether he saw them in mind only, as did Daniel and other prophets, or whether he was really caught up bodily to where God dwells. If it was but a mental view, it was just as real as though Paul had beheld it with the natural eye, so much so that he knew not how it was. 3. 1 Cor. 5:3 will give us a very clear idea of what Paul means by “in the body and out of the body”: “For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already.” The words were written at Philippi, 250 miles from Corinth, where Paul was, body and soul; but his thoughts were with those Corinthians. Yet Paul was alive. The only difference is, in the one case he was under the power of the Spirit of God, in the other, he had the control of his faculties. The passage in question has nothing to do with death or the separation of the soul and body. The only question is, Did Paul see the third heaven in a vision of the mind only, or with the natural eye? He did not know, neither do we. M. C. W.