Three Realms
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Posted On :
Sep-26-2011
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Article Word Count :
1442
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Apostle Paul informed us of a third heaven (where the presence of God dwells with His host). "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven." Here we are informed that Paul himself was in the very presence of God. (2 Cor. 12:2) The word of God tells that there are three heavens. The first being our immediate atmosphere, and the second is outer space.
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Three Realms
The Apostle Paul informed us of a third heaven (where the presence of God dwells with His host). "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven." Here we are informed that Paul himself was in the very presence of God. 2 Corinthians 12:2 The word of God tells that there are three heavens. The Hebrew word for "heavens" is shamayim, and it's in a plural form meaning "heights" or "elevations." The first being our immediate atmosphere, the second is outer space as far as it stretches, and the third is the place where God himself dwells. What Jesus referred to as the "Father's house." The first heaven concept is found in Genesis 2:19; 7:3,23; Psalms 8:8, Lamentations 4:19. It's our atmosphere that surrounds the earth. The second heaven is the outer space or the starry heavens. See Deuteronomy 17:3; Jeremiah 8:2; Matthew 24:29. The third heaven is where God and the holy angels as well as the spirits of just men dwell. It's called "The heaven of heavens" (Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalms 2:4; 115:16; 148:4).
There is also an underneath world that contains chambers. We read in Philippians 2:10-11 that those who abide in the subterranean areas will bow to God. "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." We are going to look at the underworld now. According to the Bible hell was made for Satan and his devils alone (he enticed one-third of the angels in heaven to follow him). "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." (Isaiah 5:14;14:9; Revelations 12:4) Hell was not originally meant for mankind, but because of sin and the rejection of God (and his word or revelations) many will go there. God created a place inside the earth to contain these spirits apart from His Holy presence. And all those who refuse to turn unto God, being in covenant with Him, will suffer the same consequences (eternal separation from God) as those rebellious angels. "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matthew 25:41) Let's take a look at various terms that often are not clarified which will done so now.
1) Sheol (Old Testament Hebrew) is found 65 times. It's interpreted 31 times as hell, 31 times as the grave and 3 three times as the pit. (Numbers 16:30, 33; Job 17:16) Sheol was considered the place where the dead gathered, as thought by the early Hebrews, and was believed located beneath the earth. The dead were thought to lead a conscious shadowy existence there. Some thought they remained there cut off from God.
2) Hades (New Testament Greek) is considered to be the unseen world of departed spirits. And seen as some type of spirit king of the underworld (a spirit of destruction or hell). It's used 10 times. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." (Revelations 6:8) The Ante-Nicene church fathers wrote this about hades. " Hades was the torment compartment of Sheol-Hades. Where wicked spirits have always gone and will always go until the end of the Millennium. Hades is a place in the created system. A locality beneath the earth that light of the sun does not shine and the sun does not shine in that locality, there must necessarily be perpetual darkness there." They words were known and understood by the early church.
3) Tartaroo (New Testament Hebrew) used sparingly possibly twice, meaning the lowest chambers or areas. Where the worst or most wicked of the rebel spirits went to. Greek legends tells us that this place is guarded by gates and by other beings. "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6)
4) Gehenna (New Testament Greek) is also known as "Gehinnom" (the valley of Hinnom), made detestable by the fires of the Moloch sacrifices of Manasseh (II Kings 23:10). The parents would cast their infants into the belly of an idol. King Solomon sacrificed unto this idol. According to some, the smoke from subterranean fires came up through the earth in this place; "there are cast the spirits of sinners and blasphemers and of those who work wickedness and pervert the words of the Prophets." Gehinnom has been said to serve a double purpose both annihilation and eternal pain. It has said to have seven departments, one beneath the other (along with several types of pain inflicted upon the inhabitants thereof). In Jesus' day it was a deep trash pit in the southern portion of Jerusalem. A very steep place from which nobody could physically climb out of and a place of perpetual burning. It has been claimed that when Judas Iscariot hanged himself, that his bowels gushed out over this place.
5) Abyss (New Testament Greek) is the bottomless pit. Translated about 9 times. Where the most evil ones are bound. Used in connection with the sea (the multitudes of people). "The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me. Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth." (Job 28:14; Psalm 71:20) Also translated as the deep. "And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep." (Luke 8:30-31) Found in Revelations 9:1-2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1,3. "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season."
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Article Source :
http://www.articleseen.com/Article_Three Realms_85913.aspx
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Author Resource :
Wikipedia, King James Bible, New Testament Greek, Jerusalem, History
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Keywords :
third, heaven, body, Paul, earth, first, second, evil, God, abyss, trash, Jerusalem, Greek, hades, hell, end, sun, shine, darkness, church, sword,
Category :
Society
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Religion
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