Acts 3.21: A difference between 'heaven' and 'paradise'?

[Michelle M.]

i'm not sure if this is in the right place, if not move it for me please...

I have a question that's been digging at me. I hope I can explain myself well enough that you can follow. I started a study with a friend in Acts and came across..

Acts 3:21: whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.

the "heaven must receive" part and what He said to the thief on the cross about spending time in paradise with Him right away. So this raises question number 1 and probably the main question I have...Are heaven and paradise two separate places? Another set of verses that go with this question...

Hebrews 9:24-28: For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

25nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own.

26Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

28so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

When I read this I'm not sure what it says. What I think it says is that He is holding our place for us until the Judgment?

[Chrissi]

Acts 3:21: whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.

the "heaven must receive" part and what He said to the thief on the cross about spending time in paradise with Him right away. So this raises question number 1 and probably the main question I have...Are heaven and paradise two separate places?



The thief said to Him "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.", and He spoke to the thief saying "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2023:39-43). The kingdom of heaven is paradise, and vice versa, paradise lies within the kingdom of heaven. The only other 'paradise' mentioned in the Bible is The Garden of Eden, which was/is very much intertwined with the kingdom of heaven. In Acts 3:21, Whom appears to refer to Christ Himself as it says in Acts 3:20 "And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:" (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=act%203:20-22;&version=9;)


Hebrews 9:24-28: For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

25nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own.

26Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

28so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

When I read this I'm not sure what it says. What I think it says is that He is holding our place for us until the Judgment?

I'm not sure if it's so much "holding a place for us". In line 27, for example, I (personally) read it to mean that all people will die in order to begin our real life in heaven with Him. Everyone is judged when they leave this world no matter who they are. There is plenty of space in heaven for everyone, there isn't a 'first in, best dressed' code to it, but we need to act in accordance with the teachings of the saints, The Scriptures, etc, in order to be able to attain a place in heaven.

I also read it as saying that Christ will not suffer every single time we sin, or he'd be in constant suffering, but that he came once to bear the sins of many, and he will come again to offer salvation to those who seek it at the Judgement.

That's what I have understood of these lines so far. I hope I have helped.

In Christ,
Christina

ps Here (http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/scripturesinthechurch.htm) is a section on the Bible (and various other topics of interest), in particular Question 5 is on how and why one should read the Bible, and Question 6 talks about before and after prayers when reading the Bible, to aid in a greater understanding of it.

[Chrissi]

I just found a passage in the book that I'm reading "An Orthodox Survival Guide for the 21st Century - Victor Mihailoff" that relates to the question about heaven and paradise and reiterates a bit of my previous post:

"In place of the fallen angels, Bishop Ignatius explains, "God created new intelligent creatures - men. He put them in Paradise, which was placed in the lowest heaven and had originally been governed by the fallen cherub [Lucifer] himself. But Paradise was now under the surveillance of the new creature, man. It is quite understandable that the new creature thereupon became the object of envy and hatred on the part of the fallen angel and his fallen companions. Led by their leader, the rejected spirits made the attempt to subvert the newly created human creatures and make them their partners in the fall. ... They succeeded in their purpose...""

In Christ,
Christina

[Trudy]

This is an interesting topic in light of the news article in my local paper, the Morning Call (www.mcall.com), where in a Mass being held today at the Vatican Pope Benedict will be rejecting the concept of "limbo" which has been a long held concept that infants who die unbaptized go to paradise (aka limbo), a place of happiness but not quite heaven.

The article states that "St. Augustine...theorized the existence of limbo in the 5th century, a time when entry to heaven was thought to be restricted to Christians who were baptized with water to cleanse the stian of original sin."

The Orthodox Church does not teach the concept of original sin being cleansed away in baptism, correct? But baptism is what identifies us with the Orthodox Church, and when we receive the Holy Spirit, along with chrismation correct? I'm still learning this and trying to get it to stick in my head!

It was a very interesting article.

Thank you, Athanasia

[Jennifer]

Michelle,

Heaven and Paradise

It seems that the "paradise" and "your kingdom" which are referred to in Luke 23:39-43 are the same as the "heaven" which is mentioned in Acts 3:21 because both of these seem to be referring to this present age - before the judgement and resurrection. I can see how this terminology about heaven can be confusing because I think that eventually heaven will be somewhat different from how it is now. Eventually, as I understand it, all the souls in heaven will have incorruptible bodies (I Corinthians 15:35-54). So, no matter what about heaven will remain the same, after the judgement and resurrection, it will be changed by the restoration of the people. By the way, Acts 3:21 also speaks of this restoration.

What is Jesus doing in Heaven?

In your post about Hebrews 9:24-28 you said,
When I read this I'm not sure what it says. What I think it says is that He is holding our place for us until the Judgment?

I think the verse that is causing confusion here might be verse 24 where it says
now to appear in the presence of God for us I think it is important not be hasty in deciding what "for us" means. It could mean that Jesus is in heaven in our place, but it could also mean that He is doing something there for our benefit.

I found three places in the Divine Liturgy that refer to Christ doing things for our benefit from his place in heaven. The first two are during the Anaphora, just before the choir sings the Thrice Holy Hymn. The priest makes a silent prayer in which he praises God with Christ and the Holy Spirit because He "didst not cease to do all things until Thou hadst brought us up to heaven, and hadst endowed us with Thy Kingdom which is to come." The priest also praises God "for all things of which we know and of which we know not, whether manifest or unseen." These two references make me think that Christ is continuing to minister to us from heaven, doing some things that we know about and also doing some things that we do not know about.

The thrid reference from the Divine Liturgy is shortly after the congregations says the Our Father and before the priest takes communion. In another silent prayer, the priest says:

"Attend, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, out of Thy holy dwelling-place, from the throne of glory of Thy Kingdom; and come to sanctify us, O Thou who sittest on high with the Father, and art here invisibly present with us; and by Thy mighty hand impart unto us Thy most pure Body and precious Blood, and through us to all the people."

This reference makes me think that Christ is actually serving us from heaven; I'm not sure how to explain it. I think this quote from the Liturgy actually goes very nicely with the book of Hebrews, which talks about Christ's being our High Priest, His altar being an heavenly altar, and his sacrifice being Himself. I think that the Divine Liturgy is at once an icon of how Christ serves us from Heaven and is an actual time when Christ serves from heaven.

So, in conclusion, I think that, where Hebrews 9:24 says that Christ is "in the presence of God for us", we should not interpret it to mean that Christ is there in our place, but that He is there serving us.

[Chrissi]

The Orthodox Church does not teach the concept of original sin being cleansed away in baptism, correct? But baptism is what identifies us with the Orthodox Church, and when we receive the Holy Spirit, along with chrismation correct? I'm still learning this and trying to get it to stick in my head!



When we are baptised we receive the Holy Spirit, and we are assigned a guardian angel (we are also assigned a demon who will follow us around always trying to get us to fall). When a convert is baptised and/or chrismated, their sins are forgiven as in confession. The Church does not teach the concept of the original sin being washed away as far as I know, because it is always with us.

This is how I understand it. Since I was baptised when I was 13 days old, I cannot say for certain about what the teaching is for converts about the original sin and baptism.

In Christ,
Christina

[Father David Moser]

The article states that "St. Augustine...theorized the existence of limbo in the 5th century, a time when entry to heaven was thought to be restricted to Christians who were baptized with water to cleanse the stian of original sin."

The Orthodox Church does not teach the concept of original sin being cleansed away in baptism, correct?


Weeellll - sort of. What you have to very careful about here is the terminology. "the stain of original sin" is a very specific term which carries the implication of guilt. The Roman Catholics, along with the other western Christian confessions teach that not only do we inherit the consequences of the Ancestral Sin, but we also inherit the "stain" of guilt. We are, according to them, *guilty* of Adam's sin. Therefore in the sacramental western confessions, baptism is means by which that guilt is removed. This is what the Orthodox Church does NOT teach.

What the Orthodox Church DOES teach is that we inherit the consequences of the Ancestral Sin - being clothed with "the garments of skin" and being infected with the disease of sin and death and being subject to the passions and inclined towards sin (so that we have to struggle against it). But we are NOT born with any guilt. What baptism does then is that it corrects the "spiritual birth defects" that make us subject to sin and restores us to the path of salvation. There is a very real spiritual effect of baptism on the soul - but it has nothing to do with "the stain of original sin".

On this topic, probably the best text available in English is "The Ancestral Sin" by Fr John Romanides. Its a bit complex to read - but it does address the differences between Orthodoxy and heterodoxy on this topic in great detail. One person who recommended the book to me originally suggested that if you read the last chapter first, then it makes the whole book easier to digest.

Fr David Moser