The third heaven

The reason given why a New Heaven and a New Earth are introduced is “because the Former Heaven and the Former Earth had passed away”. The Millennial Constitution of the World, as may be perceived from Isa. 65, is not perfect. It will be a great advance upon both the old Mosaic, and the Times of the Gentiles; but it will fall far short of the constitution and order of things beyond the Thousand Years.

We learn this from Paul in his reference to the visions and revelations granted to him, as it would seem, for his own exclusive benefit, for he would not, could not, or might not, communicate what he had seen and heard to others (2 Cor. 12:1). Speaking of himself, he says, “I have known a man in Christ fourteen years ago (whether in body, I know not; or without the body, I know not: the Deity knew), such an one suddenly transported unto a THIRD HEAVEN. I have known such a man, that had been transported in the PARADISE and had heard secret things, which it is not lawful for the man to utter”. This third heaven, or paradise in full manifestation, is John’s New Heaven and New Earth, in which “there is no more sea”. In the “Former Earth” which passes away, there is sin, and generation, and death; and because of the existence of sin, and flesh and blood, and death, there are mediatorship, and priesthood, and ruling with an iron rod, in the “Former Heaven”. These things are not to continue permanently. Sin, which is the transgression of law, must be wholly and finally suppressed; flesh and blood must be exterminated from the earth; disease and death, which are “the wages of sin,” abolished; mediatorship, and priesthood, necessary in the offering to the Deity of gifts and sacrifices for the sins of the erring and the ignorant (Heb. 5:1,2) “delivered up to the Father;” and religion, which is a Divinely appointed remedy for an existing breach between the creature and the Creator, superseded, as having answered its purpose, and being therefore no longer necessary. All these things pertaining to the former, or Millennial, Heaven and Earth, John saw had “passed away”. In the final annihilation of the Devil by the judicial fire of the Deity in the destruction of the postmillennial Gog and Magog rebellion against the government of the Saints, the bruising of the Serpent’s Head by the Woman’s Seed, is consummated. Henceforth, the earth, not burnt up, but perfected, and rendered the paradisaic arena of all the unutterable joys and beauties and ecstatic things beheld and heard of Paul, becomes a fitting habitation of Deity in unmediatorial intimacy with the humblest of mankind; for then the Father will be “the all things in all men”.