As a young Christian during my Sunday School days, I was intrigued by the story of Elijah 'ascending up into heaven by a whirlwind' as recorded in 2 Kings 2:11.How then do we reconcile the statement as spoken by the Lord Jesus in John 3:13, 'No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of man who is in heaven' recorded some 900 years after Elijah's era?
In order to do that we need to understand which heaven Elijah was transported to, as there are three heavens recorded in scriptures. The third heaven is where God the Father dwells and our Lord Jesus Christ is now 'seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens' (Hebrews 8:1). The third heaven is 'God's holy habitation' (Deut 26:15). The second heaven is where the planets, sun and stars are located as David described in Psalm 8:3. Also, in Genesis 26:4, God promised Isaac that his descendants will multiply as the 'stars of heaven'. The first heaven is the atmosphere surrounding the earth - Genesis 7:11-12 describes the 'windows of heaven were opened' that rain for forty days and forty nights during the Great Flood of Noah's days, and Job 35:11 speaks of the 'birds of heaven' that fly overhead.
A careful study of the passage in the context reveals that it was in the first heaven that Elijah was transported to. God told Elijah to look for a successor as he will be taken away (1 Kings 19:16; 2 Kings 2:9). When God took him away, the fifty disciples of the prophet knew that he was merely transported to somewhere as they were determined to search for him, but in vain (2 Kings 2:17).
Some years later, Elijah wrote a letter to wicked king Jehoram, the son of righteous king Jehoshaphat, warning him of a disease that will strike him as a judgment from God (2 Chronicles 21:12-15). Since Jesus said no one has been to heaven and mortal man cannot survive unaided in space, Elijah must be still on planet earth when he was taken away. Besides, heavenly beings do not write letters to mortal beings on earth! Elijah, like all the men of faith died and are still 'sleeping awaiting the resurrection', since they all have yet to receive the promise of eternal life (Hebrews 11:39) but are waiting for the fullness of the church age saints to come in (Heb 11:40).
Another common misunderstanding arise from the passage in Luke 23:43, when Jesus said to the thief that was crucified beside Him, 'Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise'. The word, 'Paradise' is used only in two other instances in the bible - 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 where Paul shared that he was caught up in a vision of Paradise and Revelation 2:7 tells us that 'the tree of life is in the midst of the Paradise' which will be in the New Jerusalem (Rev 22:2) where 'God will come to dwell with men there' (Rev 21:1-3). Hence, this 'Paradise' the Lord was talking about is something of the future - in the age to come.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 tells us that 'Christ died for our sins...and that He rose again on the THIRD DAY according to the scriptures'. Notice that Jesus Himself told Mary in John 20:17, 'Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father'. This shows that Jesus Himself was not even in Paradise three days after He died, as He has yet to ascend into heaven. So how can the thief be in heaven before Him!
So what was the Lord Jesus talking about? The thief was repentant and said to Jesus, 'Lord remember me when You come into Your kingdom' - meaning he understood that the Lord Jesus Christ will return some day to establish His kingdom on earth as the King of kings and Lord of lords. As the thief was not baptised and never receive the gift of God's Spirit, he will probably be resurrected in the second resurrection after the close of the millennila age. By then,planet earth would have been a Paradise with the New Jerusalem coming down from Heaven with God dwelling among His creation (Rev 21:1-3). Since the original Bible comes with no punctuation, it was centuries later that translators added in the punctuation marks. A more probable translation would have been, 'Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise'. What Christ was telling him was that a day will come in the future age, when he will be resurrected to see the Kingdom of God on Paradise earth!
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