What is paradise?

Question 10117.

The biblical paradise is the place of God’s presence, pictured as a garden, where the righteous dead are at rest and where the tree of life stands. The word appears only three times in the New Testament, and each occurrence adds something: Jesus promises it to the dying thief, Paul is caught up into it, and John sees the tree of life in it.

It is one of those words we use loosely, usually as a synonym for heaven or for a holiday brochure. The biblical paradise is more specific and considerably more interesting than either.

Where the word comes from

Paradeisos is a loanword from Old Persian, and it meant a walled enclosure, specifically the landscaped park of a Persian king. Xenophon uses it of the royal hunting grounds. The word travelled into Hebrew as pardes and into Greek from there.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament uses it for the garden of Eden. So when a first-century Jew heard paradeisos, he heard garden, enclosure, royal estate, and behind all of it, Eden.

That matters for how we picture the biblical paradise. It is not a cloud. It is cultivated ground inside a wall, belonging to a king, and the person walking in it is there by invitation.

Jesus and the dying thief

Luke 23:43 is the first occurrence. Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Three things in one sentence: the timing is immediate, the location is paradise, and the essential feature is with me.

That last phrase is the key to the biblical paradise. It is defined by the presence of Jesus rather than by its scenery. Wherever he is, that is the place.

It is also worth noticing who receives the promise. A convicted criminal, hours from death, with no time to reform and nothing to offer. If the biblical paradise is open to him, the entrance requirement is not what most people assume.

Paul caught up into paradise

In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul describes a man caught up to the third heaven, and then repeats himself: caught up into paradise. The two expressions appear to describe the same destination.

The third heaven, in Jewish reckoning, is above the sky and above the stars, the dwelling place of God himself. So the biblical paradise is located with God rather than in some intermediate zone.

Paul heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. That is a striking restraint, and it should govern how much detail we are willing to invent about the place.

The tree of life in paradise

The third occurrence is in Revelation 2:7, where the risen Jesus promises the overcomer at Ephesus that he will grant him to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

The tree of life was in Eden and was fenced off after the fall. In Revelation 22 it reappears in the New Jerusalem, on either side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit. So the biblical paradise begins in Genesis, disappears from view, and returns at the end restored and open.

That is the shape of the whole Bible in one image. What was lost is not simply recovered but improved, and the gate that was guarded by a flaming sword now stands open because of the cross.

Did paradise move?

Here is a question that divides good men. Before the cross, the righteous dead went to Sheol, and Luke 16 describes a place of comfort there called Abraham’s side, separated from torment by a great chasm.

Many dispensational writers hold that this comforted region was paradise at that time, and that when Jesus ascended he led captivity captive and took those saints with him into the presence of God, so that paradise is now above rather than below. Ephesians 4 is the usual text.

I find that reading persuasive without wanting to be dogmatic about it. What is certain either way is that since the resurrection the biblical paradise is where Christ is, which is what Paul assumes when he speaks of departing to be with him. I have set out the detail in my answer on Abraham’s bosom.

Paradise and heaven and the new earth

These are related but not identical terms, and the confusion causes real muddle. Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Paradise, in current usage, is the condition of the righteous dead in his presence before the resurrection. The new heaven and new earth is the final state after the resurrection.

So the biblical paradise is the intermediate condition rather than the destination. It is wonderful, and it is temporary, and I have written on the intermediate state at more length.

The final home is a renewed creation with a city in it, and the tree of life is there. Paradise, in that sense, ends up coming to us rather than us going permanently to it.

What the biblical paradise is like

Scripture gives us less than we would like and more than we usually notice. It is a garden. It has a tree bearing fruit. There is a river. There is no curse, no death and no night. And the Lamb is at the centre of it.

Everything else is speculation, and the church has produced a great deal of it. I would rather stand with Paul, who had actually been there and declined to describe it.

What we do know is the quality of the experience: with me, said Jesus, and far better, said Paul. Those two phrases are worth more than any amount of detail.

Why the garden image matters

It is worth asking why God chose a garden rather than a palace or a temple. A garden is made, tended, ordered and alive. It requires a gardener, and it produces fruit. It is the one setting in Scripture where humanity is placed at the very beginning, with work to do.

So the biblical paradise carries the sense of a restored vocation, not simply a restored comfort. We were made to cultivate, and the picture of the end includes that.

There is also a lovely detail in John 20. Mary mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener. She was wrong about the man and, in a deeper sense, entirely right.

Who goes there

Those who belong to Christ, and only those, and not on the basis of anything they have contributed. The thief is the standing proof of it, and the church has never been able to explain him away.

There is no suggestion in Scripture of a waiting area for the undecided, or of a process of improvement for those not yet ready. Paradise is entered by grace, immediately, on the strength of Christ’s finished work.

That is either the best news you have ever heard or a scandal, depending on what you think you have earned.

It also settles a question people often ask about their own loved ones. Was there time? Did they have long enough at the end to put things right? The answer the thief gives us is that God does not require a long runway. A dying man who could not lift a hand or say a creed was in the biblical paradise before sunset, on the strength of one request made in the dark.

A word about the word today

Since Luke 23:43 carries so much weight, it is worth answering the objection that is sometimes raised about it. Some argue that the comma belongs after today, so that Jesus is saying truly I say to you today, rather than promising paradise that day.

The Greek has no punctuation, so the question cannot be settled by the manuscripts alone. It has to be settled by usage, and usage is decisive. The formula truly I say to you occurs roughly seventy times in the Gospels and is never once attached to a time marker, for the simple reason that it would be pointless. When else would he be saying it?

So the natural reading stands, and with it the whole doctrine of immediate entry into the biblical paradise for the believer at death. It is not a fragile conclusion resting on one comma. It is what the sentence plainly says, and it agrees with everything Paul writes elsewhere.

So, now what?

If you have been thinking of heaven as a vague brightness, let the garden image do some work on you. Solid ground, growing things, a river, fruit, and the Lord Jesus present.

If you are dying, or sitting with someone who is, take Luke 23:43 as it stands. Today. With me. Nothing between the last breath and his face.

And if you are still deciding what to do about Christ, notice the timing in that verse. The thief had minutes left. You may have longer, but you do not know that. Why wait?

And he said to him, Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Luke 23:43, ESV