Today, most people think of paradise and heaven as one and the same. But originally they referred to two completely different places. How different? In the original languages of the Bible, heaven (or “the heavens”) referred to the atmosphere and everything above it. So we have the “birds of the heavens”(Gen. 1:26, etc.),* “the stars of the heavens” (Gen. 26:4, etc. ), “the angels of the heavens” (Matt. 24:36), and “the God of the heavens” (Gen. 24:7).
* Sometimes translated the “birds of the sky.” But the original Hebrew word used is heavens (shamayim).
Paradise, on the other hand, referred to an earthly garden: the Garden of Eden. This came from the ancient Greek translation of the Bible, where “Garden of Eden” is translated “Paradise.”* The word “paradise” comes from the Old Persian pairi-daeza, which came to mean an enclosed garden, in other words, a garden enclosed by a wall.
* The ancient Greek translation of the Bible, also known as the Septuagint or LXX, was completed before the time of Jesus. It was influential in the early Church, being quoted even in the New Testament.
But by New Testament times, “Garden of Eden” (Gan Eden or Paradise) was also used as the name of the spiritual place where the souls of the righteous went after death. This is still the case in Judaism today. It was often described as a garden-like environment, as it also is in Islam. But this, too, was a different place than the presence of God in heaven.
The difference between heaven and paradise can be seen in the New Testament. When Jesus was on the cross, he said to one of the thieves that were being crucified with him, “Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). But three days later, after he arose from the dead, he said to Mary Magdalene, “I am not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). And he didn’t ascend until forty days later (Acts 1:9). This shows that paradise, where Jesus’ soul went immediately after death, is a different place than the immediate presence of the Father God in heaven.
At that time, many understood this spiritual paradise to be the “good” side of Hades (or Sheol), where all souls went after death.* This is the implication of Peter’s message: “[David] spoke about the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh experience decay” (Acts 2:31). In other words, Jesus’ spirit went to the paradise in Hades, but he didn’t stay there, but was raised up again.**
* Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol.
** This is the basis of the line in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus “descended into Hades.” This phrase, sometimes translated “he descended into hell,” actually means that Jesus descended to the good side of Hades, and has nothing to do with the place of eternal punishment of the wicked (Gehenna).
In fact, Jesus taught directly that those who believe in him would remain in Hades until the resurrection: “I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). In other words, those who believe in him will not be held in Hades forever, but will break out of those gates in the resurrection.
According to Josephus, this multi-purpose view of Hades was also shared by the Pharisees:
They also believe that souls have an immortal strength in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or wickedly in this life; and these [the wicked] are to be displayed publicly in an eternal prison, but those [the righteous] will have the relief of returning to life. (Antiquities 18:14)*
* According to Josephus, the Pharisees taught that only the righteous will experience the resurrection (Wars 2:163).
That Paradise and Hades were spatially close to each other can be seen in Jesus’ parable about Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31). The soul of the rich man, suffering in the bad part of Hades, calls out to Lazarus, who is on the other, good side, also known as the “bosom of Abraham,” another common name for Paradise (Luke 16:23-24). But despite being in these two different locations, they are close enough to have a conversation.
This Hades (or Sheol) was generally pictured in the Old Testament as down in the underworld somewhere, an idea shared with many ancient cultures, including ancient Rome and Greece. But over the years, the recognition that Hades (or Sheol) was a spiritual and not a physical place led to some uncertainty about where exactly it was located. Some began to put it in some distant place on the surface of the earth (1 Enoch 32). Others felt it was more appropriate, as a spiritual place, to locate it in one of the lower heavens, specifically in the third heaven (2 Enoch 8, 3 Baruch 4).
This last view seems to have been the understanding of the apostle Paul. When he spoke of a vision of paradise, he placed it in the third heaven: “I know a man in Messiah more than fourteen years ago, whether in the body or out of the body I don’t know, God knows, such a one was snatched up to the third heaven… He was snatched up into paradise and he heard inexpressible words which it is not permitted for a man to speak” (2 Cor. 12:2,4). Though many assume that Paul is talking about the highest heaven here, it’s important to note that he doesn’t say that this paradise was in the presence of the Father God.*
* This heavenly paradise is known as the “upper Garden of Eden” or upper paradise in modern Judaism. In later years, some began to teach that the Paradise of Adam and Eve had been moved up to the third heaven, and would eventually be restored to the earth.
To reconcile these different ideas about the location of paradise, the Church developed a teaching called the Harrowing of Hades. The idea is that when Jesus’ soul was in the underworldly paradise—the “good side” of Hades—after his death and before his resurrection, he preached the gospel to the righteous souls that were there. These accepted the gospel and went with him when he ascended into heaven. So according to this teaching, Jesus moved paradise from earth to heaven. But even so, this new heavenly paradise was long understood to be different than the direct presence of God in the highest heaven. It wasn’t until 1336 that the formerly novel idea that souls see God immediately after death was made a Church doctrine.*
* Before this decision was made, Pope John XXII (1244-1334) maintained the older teaching that souls will not see the Father God until after the general resurrection and Final Judgment. Rather they await the resurrection in the presence of Jesus: “having the eager desire to depart [this life] and to be with Messiah” (Phil. 1:23, also 2 Cor. 5:8). Support for this idea was found in the souls kept “under the altar” until the return of Jesus (Rev. 6:9). This is similar to the Jewish idea of a heavenly Treasury of Souls (Otzar HaNeshamot or Guf).
The Harrowing of Hades teaching, though, is not the only way to understand the location of Paradise. Another approach is to assume that a spiritual place like Paradise is not located in any particular physical place at all, or at least not of the kind we can currently understand. And so talking about it as being under the earth or up in heaven is only an aid to visualization, not a meaningful description of its location.
But wherever it’s located, paradise as it currently exists is only temporary. It will be emptied at the time of the “resurrection of the righteous,” also known as the “first resurrection” (Luke 14:14, Rev. 20:5-6). This is the resurrection that will take place at Jesus’ return, when the dead in Messiah will rise first: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of a chief messenger and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16).
Then, after a blessed time with Messiah on the earth, a new paradise will appear—or perhaps it will be the old one in a new guise. This will be in the New Jerusalem, which is also described as “the paradise of God,” where the “tree of life” will be located, just like in the original Garden of Eden (compare Rev. 2:7 with Rev. 22:2,14,19). In this way, paradise will finally be restored to mankind after all the troubles and tribulation created by our sin. But even here, this paradise on the “new earth” will be distinct from the “new heavens” above (Isa. 65:17,22; 2 Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21:1).
For more on this topic, check out my blog post on “Hell, Hades, and Gehenna: A List of Verses” or my post on Can the Gospel be Preached to the Dead? (The “Harrowing of Hell” in 1 Pet. 3:18-20).
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