Can we please turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter 12? We will read from verse 1 to verse 10.
It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. But I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago—whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth—such a one caught up even to the third heaven.
And I know such a man—whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not; God knoweth—
how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
On behalf of such a one will I glory: but on mine own behalf I will not glory, save in my weaknesses.
For if I should desire to glory, I shall not be foolish; for I shall speak the truth: but I forbear, lest any man should account of me above that which he seeth me to be, or heareth from me.
And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch.
Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
May we look to the Lord.
Our Father, we are in Thy presence. We pray that Thou wilt remove any veil that may be upon our eyes, that we may behold Thee with open face. May we see the glory of the Lord and be transformed from glory to glory according to His image, by the Lord the Spirit.
Lord, we do expect Thee to do such a work in our midst this morning. We pray that Thou wilt breathe upon Thy Word and make it living, new, and operative in each of our lives, that Thou mayest be glorified.
Give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation that we may know Thee. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been fellowshipping in this second letter to the Corinthians, and there we see a man. He is a man in Christ—a spiritual man.
This spiritual man is characterized by certain things. We mentioned, first of all, that a spiritual man is a man with authority. It is not authority that he tries to claim or assume; it is an authority that is wrought into his life.
In other words, spiritual authority is nothing but the measure of Christ in that person. This authority is needed for the building up of the body of Christ. As Paul said, God had given him authority not for throwing down, but for building up.
We have also seen that this spiritual man has another characteristic: he is God’s fool. In the eyes of the world, and in the eyes of carnal believers, such a man is a fool.
He is considered by the world as foolish. Why? Because he is not interested in his own interests; he is concerned with the interests of God and His people.
Here you find the apostle Paul saying that he is jealous for the Corinthian believers with the jealousy of God. Because he was so jealous for them, for God’s sake, he contended with them. For that reason, he was disliked, criticized, and opposed.
But the jealousy of God filled his heart. He could not help it. He wanted to see these Corinthian believers as chaste virgins, espoused to Christ, that they would maintain their singleness of heart toward Christ instead of being led astray into the complexity that is of the world.
He is God’s fool because he is willing—in a sense, he volunteered. It was not something forced upon him, but he was willing to suffer for the sake of the body of Christ.
He is to have fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for His body, which is the church.
This man is a fool because he is constrained by the love of Christ. He is willing to spend and be utterly spent for those whom he loves. Yet the more he loves them, the less he is loved; and yet he keeps on loving.
Now, he is a fool. So, dear brothers and sisters, remember that a spiritual man is characterized, first, by spiritual authority; second, by the foolishness of God.
But the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. Brothers and sisters, how often we try to be wise, try to be clever. Yet we must remember that there is such a thing called the foolishness of God. Unless we are willing to take that foolishness, we will never be spiritual in the real sense.
Now this morning we would like to see the third characteristic of a spiritual man: he is a man of vision.
In the last chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul comes to this matter of visions and revelations. Yet, when he tries to speak about visions and revelations, he becomes most reluctant.
In a sense, he is forced by the ingratitude of the Corinthians to speak of the visions and revelations that he has received. If he had not been forced by the Corinthian believers, probably he would never have mentioned what God had shown him in visions and revelations.
Why? Because he says that fourteen years ago he knew a man in Christ. This man, fourteen years ago, was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, he did not know; God knew.
This man was caught away into Paradise and heard things that men should never utter—tremendous revelations. But whether in the body or out of the body, he says that he does not know. Only God knows.
You know, dear brothers and sisters, if you are really given a vision or a revelation from above, you do not know whether you are in the body or out of the body.
Sometimes it may seem as if it is physical—you really see something. Yet it is so spiritual that you do not know whether you are in the body or out of the body; that is, whether you are in the spirit. You have no way to tell.
That is the reason why this man says that he does not know. He only knows that he was given visions and revelations, but he cannot be sure whether he saw them in the body or out of the body.
When you receive a vision or a revelation, that is always the case. If you are so sure that you see it in the body, I wonder if it is a vision or a revelation. Why? Because most likely you are not in the spirit.
This man says, “Fourteen years ago.” You know, if we receive a little light, a little vision, or a little revelation—if we see a little bit—probably the next moment the whole world will know about it.
Probably it will be on the front page of the newspaper, or broadcast over the radio or television. We want everybody to know that we have received vision and revelation.
Now, I do not mean this badly. Sometimes, perhaps you think that God has given you so much, and it is so tremendous that you would like to share it with everybody—and that is good.
Yet, on the other hand, sometimes you find that it is really because the vision or revelation has so elated you that you want everybody to know that you have seen it. That is not too good.
But here is a man who received such tremendous visions and revelations, and he never told anyone until fourteen years later. Even then, he was being forced.
It was because the Corinthian believers would not accept Paul or his apostolic authority that he was forced to tell them what revelation and vision God had given him fourteen years before.
Students of the Bible have not been able to pinpoint the exact occasion. They offer different explanations.
Some say that it cannot refer to the vision Paul received on the road to Damascus. On the road to Damascus Paul received a tremendous vision, but this must have happened at some later time.
Some people think that Paul refers to the time when he was in Arabia, in the desert. You remember that after he received the vision on the road to Damascus, and after a short period in Damascus with the believers, he went away to Arabia.
There he spent about three years alone with God. Some people think that the experiences he mentioned from fourteen years before refer to that time. While he was alone with God, he was caught up to the third heaven and caught away to Paradise. We do not know.
Others think it was at the time when the apostle Paul and Barnabas were preaching in the Galatian regions. While they were preaching there, you remember that, when they were in Lystra, a lame man was healed.
The whole city was stirred. A priest of Zeus came with garlands and a bull. They thought that gods had appeared in human form, so they wanted to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas tore their garments, leaped into their midst, and tried to stop them, saying, “This is what we came for, that you may be delivered from all these vanities.” They were hardly able to stop them from doing that.
But how fluid human emotion is. The next moment, you find that they turned against Paul. They stoned him, dragged him out of the city, and left him there.
Only the believers stood in a circle over that dead body. Then Paul got up.
Some people think that Paul was really dead—that he was stoned to death—but that he was raised up miraculously by God. When he was dead, perhaps he was caught up to the third heaven and then caught away to Paradise.
It might have been that time; we do not know. Other people offer other explanations. But this is not important. The important thing is that fourteen years before, Paul had this experience: he was caught up to the third heaven.
Now, what is the third heaven? Sometimes you hear people speak of seven heavens, as if heaven had seven layers. But really, according to the Bible, there are three heavens.
Usually, we say that the first heaven is where the air is—the clouds. The second heaven is where the stars are. The third heaven is where the throne of God is set.
God’s throne is set in the third heaven. So Paul says that this man was caught up to the third heaven. Now, that is a tremendous experience.
He was not only caught up to the third heaven; he was also caught away to Paradise. Oftentimes we mix up these two places. We think that heaven is Paradise and Paradise is heaven. But strictly speaking, this is not true.
The third heaven is where God is, where His throne is. But Paradise is the place where the blessed dead go to rest and wait for the time of resurrection.
You remember the thief on the cross. At the last moment, he trusted in the Lord. He was only hoping that in the distant future the Lord would remember him.
But the Lord said, “Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” What does it mean? It means that because he believed in the Lord Jesus, even at the last moment, after he died and his spirit left his body, his spirit and soul would go to Paradise, the place of the blessed dead, to wait for the time of resurrection.
Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
No one can enter into heaven without a resurrection body. It is too bright; you cannot stand it. It is too pure. You need to be clothed with a resurrection body in order to go to heaven.
When a person dies, those who are the Lord’s go to Paradise. Those who are not go to Hades.
You remember the account our Lord told of the rich man and Lazarus. That is not a parable, because whenever the Bible speaks of a parable, it says that it is a parable. But on that occasion, the Lord was unveiling something behind the scene.
It was something that no living man had ever seen, but the Lord knows. So He opened the veil a little and told us about the life afterward—the world after a person dies.
There He shows us that there are two places. One place is called Hades, and the rich man was there, suffering. Lazarus was resting in Abraham’s bosom. That is Paradise.
No one can cross over. There is a great gulf separating these two places.
Some people think—and this is the traditional concept of Christianity—that after the Lord was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, He took Paradise to heaven. They think He took all those who were in Paradise to heaven.
So, the traditional concept is that Paradise, which was underneath the earth, is now in heaven because Christ took Paradise to heaven.
But, dear brothers and sisters, is Paradise in heaven, or is it still underneath the earth?
There is no Scripture that explicitly tells us that, at the ascension of our Lord Jesus, He took Paradise to heaven. On the contrary, you find that Paradise is still underneath the earth.
Why? Because one day, when the Lord shall gather His people, those who are dead in Christ Jesus shall be raised from the dead. When they are raised, they will be caught up into the air.
If they are already in heaven, they should come down to the air. But the Scriptures say that they are caught up to the air.
That is why I remember one brother saying that the way Paul puts it is significant. Paul says, “I know a man—whether in the body or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth—he was caught up to the third heaven.”
Then he says again, “I know a man—whether in the body or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth—and he was caught away to Paradise,” not caught up, but caught away.
In other words, in all these visions and revelations, Paul was not only in the third heaven; he was in Paradise too. If that is the case, perhaps Paul really was stoned to death, and that is why he was taken to Paradise. It might be; we do not know.
But, anyway, you find that there is the third-heaven experience and there is the Paradise experience.
Paul was forbidden to tell us what he heard in Paradise because he heard things that could not be uttered. Because of that, he did not tell, and we do not know. There is no sense in guessing. Do not be too curious about it.
But he was not forbidden to tell us what he saw in the third heaven. Even though he did not mention it in 2 Corinthians 12, you find in other places in his writings that he did tell us what he saw in the third heaven.
Dear brothers and sisters, what can you expect to see in the third heaven?
Every time you find the heavens opened, and a vision is given, what do you see? In the Bible, invariably, when the heavens are opened—that is, when the third heaven is opened—you see God.
The throne of God is there. Of course, it is the Lamb who sits upon the throne. Of course, it is the Man in glory. That is what you see in the third heaven.
You may see the four living creatures. You may see the twenty-four elders. You may see myriads of angels. But these are secondary.
What you really see in the third heaven is only one: you see God, His throne, and Christ. He is on the throne. You see the Man in glory.
What did Paul see on the road to Damascus? The heavens were opened to Paul, and he saw, as he said, “the Righteous One.” Who is the Righteous One? The Man in glory.
He had thought of Jesus of Nazareth as One to be persecuted and despised. To his surprise, he saw that Man in glory, in power, in honor. That is what Paul saw.
What did Stephen see when he was stoned to death? He saw the heaven opened and the Son of Man standing there, receiving him.
Dear brothers and sisters, what is the third-heaven vision? The vision of the third heaven is nothing but a revelation of God, a revelation of Christ, a revelation of the Man in glory.
There is a Man in glory, and that Man is our Lord Jesus. Because He is in glory, He guarantees that one day He will lead many sons into glory.
This Man in glory is a corporate Man. He is the new man that Paul talks about. It is Christ as the Head and the church as His body. That is the vision in the third heaven.
As to Paradise, we do not know what Paul saw there. Probably he met some of his acquaintances there. He saw Stephen there, no doubt.
But, anyway, we do not know what he heard. We do know what Paradise means: there you find those who are redeemed by the Lord. Those who are redeemed are resting, waiting for the day of their glorification.
They are waiting for the day when they shall put on a resurrection body and join with the One in glory. They will be heirs and joint-heirs with Christ.
Brothers and sisters, do we have such visions? Paul says, “I will come to visions and revelations.” Notice that these are plural: not vision singular and revelation singular, but visions and revelations.
In other words, Paul is a man of vision. As you read his life, you find that he received visions and revelations from time to time—perhaps all the time. He was a man who lived under an open heaven.
Dear brothers and sisters, how important it is that we live under an open heaven. Do you know that this is our inheritance?
If Christ had not opened the new and living way for us, heaven would forever be closed to us. We would be living under a heaven of brass and iron. There would be no rain and no dew. We would live in hunger and thirst, of course spiritually speaking.
But thank God, our Lord Jesus has opened a new and living way for us into the holiest of all. The veil is rent.
Therefore, it is our inheritance; it is our portion that we, as believers, should live under an open heaven. If heaven is closed upon us, something is wrong.
If we are not able to see Christ, something is wrong. If we are not able to receive revelation, something is wrong. If we live by traditions, something is wrong.
We shall live under an open heaven, and visions and revelations should be our portion. It is not something spectacular or strange; it should be our daily food.
In the life of Paul, you find that he received revelation after revelation, beginning from the road to Damascus. Before that time, he had no vision or revelation whatsoever. All he had was tradition—the best of tradition.
But beginning from the road to Damascus, he began to receive revelations. He received a vision on the road to Damascus. He saw the Man in glory.
That Man in glory challenged him and said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” Paul had to surrender and say, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
He was told to go to Damascus and wait. But that was not the end of his vision. While he was fasting and praying during those three days, in a vision he saw a man coming to him—Ananias.
This man laid his hands upon him and opened his eyes. The revelation continued. In other words, he not only saw the Head, Christ, the Man in glory in heaven, but he also saw some part of the body.
Ananias represented that body of Christ in Damascus, and Saul was joined to that body. But that was not the end.
When he was in Jerusalem, after he returned from the desert, he went to the temple. While he was praying, he was told, “Leave Jerusalem. Go away. The people here will not accept your testimony.”
Paul said, “Lord, they knew me. They knew my past. Because of such a tremendous change, certainly my testimony will have weight among them.” But God said, “No, go away. Do not stay here. Go to the nations.”
Sure enough, he had to go. He was sent away to Tarsus. That is why some people say that “fourteen years ago” refers to that period when he was in Tarsus.
But, anyway, throughout his life you find that he continued in visions and revelations.
Something happened in the church in Antioch. Some people came from James, from Jerusalem, and began to teach the people that they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved and perfected.
There was an argument. You remember how the church in Antioch sent Barnabas and Paul back to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders there, in order to decide about this matter.
Yet Paul, in Galatians 2, tells us that he went to Jerusalem by revelation. It was not just that the church in Antioch sent him there. Actually, he received revelation from God that he should go. So he went.
You find that his whole life was governed by revelation.
You also remember that during his second missionary journey, he was thinking of going to Asia, but God would not allow him. He was thinking of going to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Christ would not allow him.
So he went straight until he came to Troas, that seaport, and there was nowhere to go. In a dream, in a vision, a Macedonian appeared to him and said, “Come over and help us.”
The next morning, they all decided that they should go to Macedonia. That was the first time the gospel was preached from Asia to Europe.
When he was in Corinth, the opposition was great. He must have been a little fearful. You remember that the Lord stood by him at night and said, “Fear not. I have many people here. Stay on.”
Paul stayed on for a year and six months.
When he was arrested in Jerusalem, the Lord again comforted him, standing by him and saying, “Fear not. You will bear witness for Me in Rome.”
When hope was given up, an angel of the Lord stood by him and said, “Fear not. You will stand before Caesar.”
So you find throughout the life of Paul that he was a man of vision and revelations. He was given visions and revelations to guide him, strengthen him, and help him throughout his life. He lived under an open heaven.
Dear brothers and sisters, is this true with us?
It is not enough simply to testify that fourteen years ago you received a vision or a revelation. But how about today?
It is important that our whole life should be lived under an open heaven. There should be an opening of heaven to us, an unveiling of God’s mind and His heart to us, in a continual and increasing way.
Actually, there is no end to it. It is infinite. But are we living under an open heaven? Do we have visions and revelations?
In Proverbs 29:18, the famous verse says:
Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.
Some versions say, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Where there is no vision, the people disintegrate.
How important it is that we have vision. Why? Because vision gives us direction. Vision strengthens us. Vision carries us through trials and testing. Vision unites us.
Without vision, we are like scattered things, but vision unites us into one. Without vision, we cast off restraint. In other words, everyone does what he likes. There is no restraint, no discipline.
Vision constrains us, restrains us, and builds us. We need vision.
Brothers and sisters, what is this vision? We are not talking about merely something you see with your naked eyes. Sometimes God does condescend to our level and lets us see something physically, but that is not important.
The important thing is that a vision or a revelation is an unveiling of the heart and mind of God.
Within God there is a mystery, a secret. Within God is His purpose, His will. But God is willing to make His mind, His will, and His secret known to us. How? By revealing it through the Holy Spirit.
He reveals His mind through the Holy Spirit to our spirit. There, in our spirit, we receive a vision. We see something. We see the spiritual reality—not appearance.
Even the visions that prophets saw in the Old Testament were appearances and impressions. They were not the real thing. The real thing is what is behind them.
But vision is that which God unveils. In our spirit, we see the reality—the eternal reality—of God. Now, that is vision.
Unless we see this, unless we see the eternal purpose of God—what God really desires, what He is doing today and throughout the centuries, what He wants—we will disintegrate.
We will go all to pieces. We will not be able to stand in persecutions and trials. There will be no strength. We will be scattered to all corners of the earth. It is vision that gives us strength and direction.
Remember when Paul stood before Agrippa. He said, “O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
If you want to judge Paul’s life, if you want to judge what he did, that is the answer: “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
Here he sums up all the visions and revelations that he had received throughout his life into the heavenly vision.
You know, brothers and sisters, when we talk about vision, you find people saying, “Well, I have a vision.”
Probably we all have some visions and revelations. As a matter of fact, if you have never received any revelation or vision, you are not the Lord’s.
How did you come to Christ? How did you become a believer? It is because Christ said, “My Father who is in heaven hath revealed Him unto thee.”
It pleased God to reveal His Son in me. If there is no revelation, if there is no vision, we will never be saved. We may consider Jesus the greatest man in the world, but we will never see Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
There will be no living faith in Him. So, in a sense, all believers have, once upon a time, seen a vision and received a revelation. That is true. But that is the beginning; that is not the end.
That tells us that our whole Christian life should be a life of vision, a life lived under an open heaven. There is much more that we need to receive.
Sometimes we hear people say, “I do have a vision.” Now, what vision do they have?
Some people have a vision of world evangelism. They see the world evangelized, the whole world coming to Christ. They have that vision. Thank God for that vision.
Some have a vision that everybody would be healed. God is a healer, a mighty healer, and no one should be left in sickness. Everybody should be healed. Thank God for that vision.
Or some people feel that every Christian should be prosperous and rich—the gospel of prosperity. Some say that they have that vision: “You do not need to drive a Chevrolet; you can drive a Cadillac or a Lincoln Continental.”
Other people may have a vision to open an orphanage, a vision to open a hospital, a vision to be a foreign missionary, or a vision of this and a vision of that.
Now, thank God for all these visions. They are true. Sometimes they are merely ideas, but sometimes they are visions coming from God.
But, dear brothers and sisters, do you know that because we have visions of this and visions of that, instead of finding God’s people united, we find that their visions divide them?
Everyone thinks that his vision is the vision. Everyone thinks that this is the thing God is doing. Instead of bringing God’s people together, these visions divide them. Why?
I can only think of a jigsaw puzzle. You know, you may have a jigsaw puzzle of one hundred pieces, or perhaps two hundred pieces. All the pieces are in such odd shapes.
Probably you pick up one piece, and I pick up another piece. You think, “That is it. That is it.”
But, brothers and sisters, that is not it. That is only part of it.
That piece in itself is meaningless. It looks strange. You cannot figure out what it is. Unless you put all the pieces together, then you see.
You not only see the vision, but you see what part your piece plays in that picture.
The problem today with God’s people is that we have all these pieces and bits. We have this vision, that vision, this revelation, that revelation. If they are from God, thank God for all these visions and revelations. Do not look down upon any of them. They are all important and necessary.
But if you do not see the whole thing, brothers and sisters, it is meaningless. It does not serve God’s purpose. It falls short of God’s glory.
For instance, world evangelism. Certainly, we should preach the gospel to all nations. Certainly, God wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, because it is not His heart to see anyone perish.
Certainly, we should go and preach the gospel and disciple the nations, baptizing them and teaching them all the things that Christ has enjoined upon us. Certainly, we should do that.
But suppose all the people of the world are evangelized and saved. Then what? Then what?
Why does God want them saved? Why does God save you? Does He want to save you merely so that you may go to heaven and walk on the golden street? Not streets—street, only one street. Is that all?
Brothers and sisters, why does God want you to be saved? World evangelism is part of the heavenly vision.
The Man in glory—God has His eyes upon the Man in glory. God wants man, but that Man is in glory.
Today, man is in shame and humiliation, in sin, in curse, and in death. But thank God, there is a Man in glory today. This Man in glory is to bring man to glory. That is what God wants.
God wants a new man. In the new man there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither American nor Chinese.
In that new man, it is Christ all and in all. That is what God wants. That is the picture.
Brothers and sisters, if God has given you a part to play—a piece—put that in. Fit it with the other pieces, and then you will find the whole thing coming forth: a glorious picture, the Man in glory.
Remember, dear brothers and sisters, all these visions and revelations are the filling up of the vision.
How blessed it is if you will be like Paul: in the beginning, see the framework of that vision first. Then, as you go on with the Lord, you are filled in with visions and revelations. That will save a lot of trouble.
But unfortunately, with many of God’s people, all they see are bits and fragments. They take these bits and fragments as the whole, without seeing the overall vision of God.
Oh, brothers and sisters, may the Lord have mercy upon us.
There is nothing more needed among God’s people today than that, by the grace of God, we will be given the spirit of wisdom and revelation unto the true and full knowledge of God.
May we know His eternal purpose and know what the heavenly vision really is.
Dear brothers and sisters, if you see this, then when the Lord begins to fill in, you know where each piece should stand. Every piece will be joined together and fitted together.
That is what is meant when we are being fitted together and joined together, and everyone fulfills its part for the building up of the body of Christ in love.
So, a spiritual man is a man of vision.
Shall we pray?
Our Heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou hast opened the way to heaven for us. There is no need for us to live under a closed heaven.
We praise and thank Thee that this is our portion: an open heaven for us.
O Lord, give us vision and revelation, that we may know Thee and know Thy Christ. May we know Thy will and Thy pleasure. May we see that Man in Christ, that Man in glory.
O Lord, deliver us from taking a part as the whole. Teach us how to fit that part into the whole. Guide and lead us. Have mercy upon us as a people.
Bless Thy people everywhere throughout this church. Give Thy heavenly vision to Thy people. As the time is drawing near, Lord, we want Thee to have that which Thou art after.
We want to give ourselves to Thee for that purpose. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.