paradise: the garden where God dwells, the blessed abode of his people
Paradise began as a plain word for a walled park. It came into Greek from Persian, where it named the royal hunting grounds and pleasure gardens of kings, enclosed, well-watered, and stocked with trees and game. When Jewish translators put the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, they reached for this word to name the garden of Eden, the garden God himself planted and walked in. That single choice gave the word its whole religious weight: paradise is the garden of God, the place of his presence and of unspoiled life with him.
By the time of the New Testament, Jewish writers had carried paradise upward and forward. It was still the first Eden of the beginning, but it had also become a hidden, heavenly garden where God dwells, the place that receives the righteous when they die, and the restored garden God will reveal at the end. These were not rival words but layers of one rich idea, and a first-century reader could hear several of them at once.
The three places the New Testament uses the word each lean on a different layer without abandoning the others.
- To the dying criminal beside him, Jesus promises paradise as the welcome of the blessed dead.
- Paul is caught up to paradise as the highest heaven, the very dwelling of God.
- The risen Christ promises the faithful the tree of life in the paradise of God, the Eden restored at the end.
One word holds the whole arc, from the first garden to the last.
Nuances
Whether paradise in Jesus's promise to the crucified criminal names a blessed waiting place that receives the righteous between death and the end, or simply immediate fellowship with the risen Christ.
- majorityParadise is the abode of the blessed dead, the place that receives the righteous at death, functionally like Abraham's side in Luke 16, grounded in Second Temple Jewish parallels.; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (Anchor Bible 28A; Doubleday, 1985), 1507-11; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Eerdmans, 1978), 872-73
- minorityParadise implies no in-between waiting place; because Jesus promises the criminal will be with him there, it is immediate fellowship with the exalted Christ, collapsing the gap between death and the end.; Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (New International Commentary on the New Testament; Eerdmans, 1997), 822-24
Whether paradise in Paul's account of being caught up is the highest heaven of God's presence (the same place as the third heaven of the previous verse), or a lower stage in a taller heavenly scheme that Paul's ascent does not reach.
- majorityParadise and the third heaven name one and the same reality in parallel: the highest heaven, the very dwelling of God, in a three-heaven picture of the cosmos.; Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (International Critical Commentary; T&T Clark, 1994-2000); Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Eerdmans, 2005), 833-46
- minorityPaul presents an incomplete ascent in a seven-heaven scheme, reaching only the third heaven and paradise within it, deliberately falling short of the highest heaven to undercut boasting.; Paula Gooder, Only the Third Heaven? 2 Corinthians 12.1-10 and Heavenly Ascent (Library of New Testament Studies 313; T&T Clark, 2006)
Whether the paradise of God promised to the conqueror is a present heavenly reality, the future end-time garden of Revelation 22, or both at once.
- majorityParadise is both a present heavenly reality and the future garden of Revelation 22 together: the promise here begins what chapter 22 completes.; G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Eerdmans, 1999), 234-35; Craig R. Koester, Revelation (Anchor Yale Bible 38A; Yale University Press, 2014)
- minorityParadise is primarily a present heavenly reality, the cosmic center where God already dwells.; David E. Aune, Revelation 1-5 (Word Biblical Commentary 52A; Word, 1997), 151-54
- minorityParadise is primarily the future, end-time garden, identical with the restored Eden of Revelation 22.; Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, rev. ed. (New International Commentary on the New Testament; Eerdmans, 1997)