Paradise: The Present Heaven

Paradise: The Present Heaven

Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

— Luke 23:43

Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us from this place and sets us free from the snares of the world, and restores us to paradise and the kingdom. Anyone who has been in foreign lands longs to return to his own native land. . . . We regard paradise as our native land.^a

— CYPRIAN

While he was hanging from the cross in agony, Jesus reassured a thief who begged him to remember him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Jesus was referring to the intermediate Heaven, where both he and the thief would go after they died. But why did he call it paradise? In what sense is the present Heaven paradise?

The word paradise comes from the Persian pairidaeza, meaning “a walled park” or “an enclosed garden.” It was used to describe the great walled gardens of the Persian king Cyrus’s royal palaces. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word is used to describe the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8; Ezekiel 28:13). Later, because of the Jewish belief that God would restore Eden, paradise became the word to describe the eternal state of the righteous and, to a lesser extent, the intermediate Heaven.^b

Paradise does not refer to wild nature but to nature under mankind’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 presenting the garden or park. According to Oxford professor Alister McGrath, “The idea of a walled garden, enclosing a carefully cultivated area of exquisite plants and animals, was the most powerful symbol of paradise available to the human imagination, mingling the images of the beauty of nature with the orderliness of human construction. . . . The whole of human history is thus enfolded in the subtle interplay of sorrow over a lost paradise, and the hope of its final restoration.”^c

Historically, paradise was not generally understood as mere allegory, with a “spiritual meaning,” but as an actual physical place where God and his people lived together, surrounded by physical beauty, enjoying great pleasures and happiness.

God says, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). 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 (Revelation 22:2). For the time being, it is (present tense) 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? If it doesn’t, could it rightly be called the tree of life?

After the Fall, God “drove the man out; 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” (Genesis 3:24, NASB). 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. It was guarded by cherubim, who are residents of Heaven, where God is “enthroned between the cherubim” (2 Kings 19:15).

Eden was not destroyed. What was destroyed was mankind’s ability to live in Eden. There’s no indication that Eden was stripped of its physicality and transformed into a spiritual entity. It appears to have remained just as it was, a physical paradise removed to a realm we can’t gain access to—most likely the present Heaven, because we know for certain that’s where the tree of life now is (Revelation 2:7).

God is not done with Eden. He preserved it not as a museum piece, but as a place that mankind will one day occupy again—and to a certain extent may now occupy in the intermediate Heaven. Because we’re told that the tree of life will be located in the New Jerusalem, on both sides of a great river (Revelation 22:2), it seems likely that the original Eden may be a great park at the center of the city. If the tree that distinguished Eden will be there, why not Eden itself? This would fit perfectly with the statement in Revelation 2:7 that the tree of life is presently in paradise.

When the rest of the earth fell under human sin, Eden was for some reason treated differently. Perhaps it had come from Heaven, God’s dwelling place, and was transplanted to Earth. We don’t know. But we do know this: Before the Fall, God came to Eden to visit with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8). After the Fall, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, so God could no longer visit them there. Whether or not Eden was created along with the rest of the earth, clearly it was special to God, and it remains special to him. The presence of the tree of life in the New Jerusalem establishes that elements of Eden will again be part of the human experience. The presence of the tree of life in the intermediate Heaven suggests that Heaven, too, has physical properties and is capable of containing physical objects. So the notion of paradise, which was so physical and visible in Eden, is not restricted to a “spiritual” or “invisible” presence in Heaven.

I remember the first time I went snorkeling. I saw countless fish of every shape, size, and color. And just when I thought I’d seen the most beautiful one of all, along came another one even more striking. Etched in my memory is a certain sound—the sound of a gasp going through my rubber snorkel as my eyes were opened to that breathtaking under water world.

I imagine that our first glimpse of Heaven will likewise cause us to gasp in amazement and delight. That first gasp will likely be followed by many more as we continually encounter new sights in that endlessly wonderful place. And that will be just the beginning, because we will not see our real eternal home—the New Earth—until after our resurrection.

Doesn’t paradise sound good to you right now?

Father, you made Eden a true paradise, bursting with life and colors and vibrancy. When people call Tahiti or Hawaii or the Bahamas “paradise,” they are recognizing the true beauty that you created, but it is beauty that has faded under the ravages of the Curse. What will it be like to see true and undiminished beauty? What will it be like to be in your presence and behold stunning works of art you’ve created? If human art and music have so moved us, how much more will we be moved by your direct creation of art and music? If a universe under the Curse has so wowed us, how much more will we be amazed at a universe untouched by sin and suffering and death and corruption and disease? We can hardly wait, Lord. Fill us each day with anticipation. Use the longing within our hearts to help empower us to live in a way that brings you pleasure—you who are the source of all pleasure and delight.