Ephesians 2:1-3 English Standard Version

¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

I ended yesterday with the question of why the secrets of 2 Corinthians 12 revealed in the 3^rd heaven could not be shared with us in the 1^st heaven. The simple answer is that we are very bad at keeping secrets. As soon as we speak those secrets Satan will hear them. The secrets are being kept from Satan.

Satan is that prince of the power of the air. Whatever we say or do is known to him. What is not known to him is the future. If Satan had known God’s plan of salvation by the death of Christ on the Cross, Satan would have done everything in his power to prevent it. Since Satan did not know God’s plan he sought to put Christ to death.

Satan knows he will lose the final battle because we read it aloud from the bible and it is written for all to see. What Satan doesn’t know is the hour of Christ’s coming. Until then Satan will do everything within his power to stay in power as long as possible.

John 10:10 English Standard Version The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

The reason John 10:10 connects Satan’s objectives with Christ objectives is to tell us what Satan is attacking, life with Christ. There is nothing Satan can do to us within the dwelling place of Christ, our hearts, but everything else is fair game for him.

2 Corinthians 12:2 English Standard Version (ESV) I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.

Paul speaks to the issue of the third heaven. Where are the first and second heavens?

Revelation 21:1 English Standard Version (ESV) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

So the first heaven is connected to the first earth. We at one time looked up into the sky and understood the blue sky to be a heaven.

Matthew 3:16 English Standard Version (ESV) And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;

The sense of the heavens opening up might have been seen as the clouds parting.

The second heaven might well be defined in Matthew 24.

Matthew 24:29 English Standard Version (ESV) “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

The celestial bodies which we know as the universe comprised of an untold number of galaxies would be the second heaven.

In verse 3 Paul declares that the third heaven is paradise. We can assume that this is a reference to the Garden of Eden where God walked with Adam and Eve. Interestingly Paul declares that in this place he hears things that cannot be shared, verse 4. This is a place where great secrets are kept.

Why not share those great secrets with us in the first heaven?