By Dr. Anne Davis

Have you ever wondered how many heavens there are? Is there just one heaven where believers in Christ will go to be with God or are there more than one heaven in the Bible.

The Hebrew word for heaven is שָׁמַיִם (shamayim), and the eem ending makes it plural. Shamayim. In the creation account we read, “In the beginning God created the HEAVENS and the earth. “Heavens” is the plural Hebrew word shamayim.

You may have been taught that the phrase “heavens and earth” simply signifies the whole universe that God created, not a plural number of heavens. But have you ever wondered why the Apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, talks about a third heaven? And, if there is a third heaven, there must be a first heaven and a second heaven. Listen now to Paul.

I know a man in Christ….

The phrase “in Christ” refers to someone who is walking like Jesus Christ walked, which we call “walking by the Spirit” when we are in complete harmony with God. 

…who fourteen years ago– whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows.

Scholars and theologians agree that Paul is likely talking about his own personal experience, which must have been an extraordinary spiritual event in his life.

Such a man [concludes Paul] was caught up to the third heaven.
2 Corinthians 12:2

Paul uses the Greek verb ἁρπάζω (harpazo), which conveys a strong visual image of being suddenly seized by force and caught up to this “third heaven”. The same Greek word harpazo is used of the resurrection of the dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. However, this resurrection of the dead in Thessalonians does not speak of going to the third heaven, which must be where God resides, so could this resurrection be to the first heaven or the second heaven?

So we ask, “How many heavens are there?” And “where will we go when we are resurrected to new life?”

Let us look at Jewish tradition first, because that scholarly work emerges from the writings of ancient Jewish sages who have found supporting evidence in the Holy Writings. They have concluded that there are, in fact, three heavens.

We see the first heaven in the second day of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth. The first heaven contains the sun and the moon and the clouds, and this is where the birds fly in the sky. The Bible calls it a “firmament” (KJV) or “expanse” (NASB). The Hebrew is רָקִיעַ (raqiya), which simply means a great space above the earth. 

According to the Jewish sages the second heaven is farther out in space where God has placed the stars. The famous passage about this second heaven is when God tells Abraham to “look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And God then said to Abraham, “So shall your descendants be” (Genesis 15:5). Today we have telescopes so powerful that we can see millions of stars and thousands of solar systems that contain these stars. 

However, I think the most important heaven is the third heaven that God allowed Paul to see. Paul explained to the Corinthians that he was “caught up to the third heaven”. The prophet Isaiah had a similar experience. “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). 

Therefore, the third heaven is where God resides, which is beyond the vastness of the space that contains the stars and the solar systems. This third heaven is beyond the ability of us to see unless God allows us to experience a spiritual awareness of His dwelling place. And don’t be tempted to think these heavens are literal, physical spaces. The Hebraic worldview (and the authors of the NT were Jews) saw things both literally AND symbolically and metaphorically.

This concept of three heavens is mirrored by the pattern embedded in the Tabernacle and the Temple, which we can see. The Tabernacle and the Temple have an outer court for the people of God, a holy place where only the priests could enter, and the “holy of holies” that contained God’s presence. The third heaven is described in a similar way because it is called in Deuteronomy 10:14 the “heaven of heavens”. “To the Lord your God belong heaven [plural shamayim] and the heaven of heavens.” 

In Hebrew הַשָּׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי ha shamayim oo’sh’mei. 

Where, then, will God’s people go when the promise of eternal life becomes a reality? They will be caught up to the third heaven where they will come into the presence of God, which we can see in the Book of Revelation. 

This third heaven is also called “paradise” [παράδεισος paradeisos] in the New Testament  (Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 12:4; Revelation 2:7) and also in many passages in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. So, we can experience vicariously this third heaven by imagining the Paradise of the Garden of Eden where God placed Adam and Eve who “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the spirit [Hebrew ruach] of the day” (Genesis 3:8).

The third heaven will be the dwelling place of the righteous who will be in possession of everlasting life, “an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Yeshua calls it his “Father’s house” (John 14:20) and that is where you will be, in God’s presence, when you receive the promise of eternal life with God.

However, in my work on the remnant I have found that Yeshua and the Remnant will return to earth to wage a powerful battle against Satan and his forces of evil. Then follows the Millennial Kingdom on the earth when Satan will be chained. 

Yeshua will be both king and high priest of the Millennial Kingdom, and the remnant and their families will be there with him. The role of the remnant is to make it possible for all of God’s people to come into His holy presence, which will occur after the Millennial Kingdom, but that is another story.

So, the Bible speaks of three heavens, but the third heaven is where we desire to be with God for eternity.

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