PARADISE-WHERE IS IT?

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 17, 1859

PARADISE—WHERE IS IT?

SAID Jesus to the dying thief, "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Those who believe in the conscious state of the dead, regard this as one of the strong proofs of their position. But a difficulty meets them on the very threshold of this scripture; for the Saviour said, three days after he had made the above promise to the thief, that he had not yet ascended to his Father. John xx, 17. In harmony with this declaration the passage first quoted must of course be understood. In other words, Paradise must be located somewhere away from the presence of the Father, if it still be true that the spirits of Jesus and the thief went there on the very identical day on which they died. Paradise is therefore made to mean a place for disembodied spirits; simply a state of separate existence for souls, where they are kept till the resurrection. What argument they have for this position, other than a law of necessity or convenience, we are not scripturally informed.

But Paradise is definitely located in the word of God; and when we hear the Scripture writers speaking of Paradise, we may know with the utmost certainty to what place they refer. To point out this location of Paradise is the object of these lines.

First, Paul says, [2 Cor. xii, 2,] "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." In verse 4, he tells us that he was caught up to Paradise. This testimony settles one fact; namely, that Paradise is located in the third heaven.

Again, we read in Revelation ii, 7, in the promise of the Saviour to the overcomers in the Ephesus church, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." Another nail in a sure place. Paradise, then, we have found to be in the third heaven, and in Paradise is the tree of life. One more inquiry concerning the location of this tree of life, will definitively settle this question.

In Rev. xxi and xxii, we have a description of the New Jerusalem, the holy city which is above. In chap. xxii, 1, 2, we read: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it [the city] and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life which bear twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month." By this testimony we learn that the tree of life, which grows in the midst of the Paradise of God, is in the holy city, fast by the river of life, which proceeds from the throne of God. Nothing could be more explicit than this. We have now found the Paradise of the New Testament. It is in the third heaven where God maintains his residence and his throne.

Apply this fact to the testimony of Luke xxiii, 43, and John xx, 17. The declaration of the Saviour that he had not yet ascended to his Father, the third day after his crucifixion, is as plain and positive a declaration as could be made that he had not yet been to Paradise.

And what does this prove? Does it prove that the declaration of the Saviour failed? Not by any means. It only shows that the words, "This day," in the expression, "This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise," do not refer to that day on which the Saviour died; and that they err egregiously who make Paradise some convenient separate apartment, some accommodating "ante-chamber" for the reception of that creature of their imagination—the conscious disembodied spirit.