Healing, Gifts Of – Heavens, New (And Earth, New)

Healing, Gifts Of

(charismata iamaton): Among the "spiritual gifts" enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12:4–11,1 Corinthians 12:28 are included "gifts of healings." See SPIRITUAL GIFTS. The subject has risen into much prominence of recent years, and so calls for separate treatment. The points to be considered are:

(1) the New Testament facts,

(2) the nature of the gifts,

(3) their permanence in the church.

1. The New Testament Facts:

The Gospels abundantly show that the ministry of Christ Himself was one of healing no less than of teaching (compare Mark 1:14 f with 1:32-34). When He sent forth the Twelve (Mark 6:7,Mark 6:13) and the Seventy (Luke 10:1,Luke 10:9), it was not only to preach the Kingdom of God but to heal the sick. The inauthentic conclusion of Mark's Gospel, if it does not preserve words actually used by Christ Himself, bears witness at all events to the traditional belief of the early church that after His departure from the world His disciples would still possess the gift of healing. The Book of Ac furnishes plentiful evidence of the exercise of this gift by apostles and other prominent men in the primitive church (Acts 3:7 Acts 5:12–16; Acts 8:7; Acts 19:12; Acts 28:8 f), and the Epistle of James refers to a ministry of healing carried on by the elders of a local church acting in their collective capacity (James 5:14 f). But Paul in this passage speaks of "gifts of healings" (the plural "healings" apparently refers to the variety of ailments that were cured) as being distributed along with other spiritual gifts among the ordinary members of the church. There were men, it would seem, who occupied no official position in the community, and who might not otherwise be distinguished among their fellow-members, on whom this special charisma of healing had been bestowed.

2. The Nature of the Gifts:

On this subject the New Testament furnishes no direct information, but it supplies evidence from which conclusions may be drawn. We notice that the exercise of the gift is ordinarily conditional on the faith of the recipient of the blessing (Mark 6:5,Mark 6:6; Mark 10:52; Acts 14:9)--faith not only in God but in the human agent (Acts 3:4 Acts 5:15; Acts 9:17). The healer himself is a person of great faith (Matthew 17:19 f), while his power of inspiring the patient with confidence points to the possession of strong, magnetic personality. The diseases cured appear for the most part to have been not organic but functional; and many of them would now be classed as nervous disorders. The conclusion from these data is that the gifts of healing to which Paul alludes were not miraculous endowments, but natural therapeutic faculties raised to their highest power by Christian faith.

Modern psychology, by its revelation of the marvels of the subliminal self or subconscious mind and the power of "suggestion," shows how it is possible for one man to lay his hand on the very springs of personal life in another, and so discloses the psychical basis of the gift of healing. The medical science of our time, by its recognition of the dependence of the physical upon the spiritual, of the control of the bodily functions by the subconscious self, and of the physician's ability by means of suggestion, whether waking or hypnotic, to influence the subconscious soul and set free the healing powers of Nature, provides the physiological basis. And may we not add that many incontestable cases of Christian faith-cure (take as a type the well-known instance in which Luther at Weimar "tore Melanchthon," as the latter put it, "out of the very jaws of death"; see RE, XII, 520) furnish the religious basis, and prove that faith in God, working through the soul upon the body, is the mightiest of all healing influences, and that one who by his own faith and sympathy and force of personality can stir up faith in others may exercise by God's blessing the power of healing diseases?

3. Permanence of Healing Gifts in the Church:

There is abundant evidence that in the early centuries the gifts of healing were still claimed and practiced within the church (Justin, Apol. ii.6; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. ii. 32, 4; Tertullian, Apol. xxiii; Origen, Contra Celsum, vii.4). The free exercise of these gifts gradually ceased, partly, no doubt, through loss of the early faith and spirituality, but partly through the growth of an ascetic temper which ignored Christ's gospel for the body and tended to the view that pain and sickness are the indispensable ministers of His gospel for the soul. All down the history of the church, however, there have been notable personalities (e.g. Francis of Assisi, Luther, Wesley) and little societies of earnest Christians (e.g. the Waldenses, the early Moravians and Quakers) who have reasserted Christ's gospel on its physical side as a gospel for sickness no less than for sin, and claimed for the gift of healing the place Paul assigned to it among the gifts of the Spirit. In recent years the subject of Christian healing has risen into importance outside of the regularly organized churches through the activity of various faith-healing movements. That the leaders of these movements have laid hold of a truth at once Scriptural and scientific there can be little doubt, though they have usually combined it with what we regard as a mistaken hostility to the ordinary practice of medicine. It is worth remembering that with all his faith in the spiritual gift of healing and personal experience of its power, Paul chose Luke the physician as the companion of his later journeys; and worth noticing that Luke shared with the apostle the honors showered upon the missionaries by the people of Melita whom they had cured of their diseases (Acts 28:10). Upon the modern church there seems to lie the duty of reaffirming the reality and permanence of the primitive gift of healing, while relating it to the scientific practice of medicine as another power ordained of God, and its natural ally in the task of diffusing the Christian gospel of health.

LITERATURE.

Hort, Christian Ecclesia, chapter x; A.T. Schofield, Force of Mind, Unconscious Therapeutics; E. Worcester and others, Religion and Medicine; HJ, IV, 3, p. 606; The Expositor T, XVII, 349, 417.

J. C. Lambert

Health

helth (shalom, yeshu`ah, 'arukhah; riph'uth, 'arukhah; soteria, hugiaino): Shalom is part of the formal salutation still common in Palestine. In this sense it is used in Genesis 43:28; 2 Samuel 20:9; the stem word means "peace," and is used in many varieties of expression relating to security, success and good bodily health. Yeshu`ah, which specifically means deliverance or help, occurs in the refrain of Psalms 42:11; Psalms 43:5, as well as in Psalms 67:2; in the American Standard Revised Version it is rendered "help." Riph'uth is literally, "healing," and is found only in Proverbs 3:8. Marpe' also means healing of the body, but is used in a figurative sense as of promoting soundness of mind and moral character in Proverbs 4:22; Proverbs 12:18; Proverbs 13:17; Proverbs 16:24, as also in Jeremiah 8:15, where the Revised Version (British and American) renders it "healing." 'Arukhah is also used in the same figurative sense in Isaiah 58:8; Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 30:17; Jeremiah 33:6; literally means "repairing or restoring"; it is the word used of the repair of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah (chapter 4).

The word "health" occurs twice in the New Testament: in Paul's appeal to his shipmates to take food (Acts 27:34), he says it is for their soteria, literally, "safety"; so the American Standard Revised Version, the King James Version "health." The verb hugianino is used in 3 John 1:2, in the apostle's salutation to Gaius.

Alexander Macalister

Heap

hep (`aremah, gal, nedh, tel): "Heap" appears

(1) in the simple sense of a gathering or pile, as the translation of `aremah, a "heap," in Ruth 3:7 of grain; Nehemiah 4:2 of stones; in 2 Chronicles 31:6, etc., of the tithes, etc.; of chomer (boiling up), a "heap"; in Exodus 8:14 of frogs; of gal, a "heap"; in Job 8:17 of stones.

(2) As indicating "ruin," "waste," gal (2 Kings 19:25; Job 15:28; Isaiah 25:2; Isaiah 37:26; Jeremiah 9:11; Jeremiah 51:37); me`i (Isaiah 17:1); `i (Psalms 79:1; Jeremiah 26:18; Micah 1:6; Micah 3:12); tel, "mound," "hillock," "heap" (Deuteronomy 13:16; Joshua 8:28; Jeremiah 30:18 the King James Version; Jeremiah 49:2).

(3) Of waters, nedh, "heap," "pile" (Exodus 15:8; Joshua 3:13,Joshua 3:16; Psalms 33:7; Psalms 78:13); chomer (Habakkuk 3:15, "the heap of mighty waters," the Revised Version margin "surge").

(4) A cairn, or heap of stones (a) over the dead body of a dishonored person, gal (Joshua 7:26; Joshua 8:29; 2 Samuel 18:17); (b) as a witness or boundary-heap (Genesis 31:46 f, Gal`edh (Galeed) in Hebrew, also mitspah, "watch tower," Yeghar-Sahadhutha' (Jegar-sahadutha) in Aramaic, both words meaning "the heap of witness"; see Genesis 31:47,Genesis 31:49 the Revised Version (British and American)).

(5) As a way mark, tamrurim, from tamar, "to stand erect" (Jeremiah 31:21 the King James Version, "Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps," the Revised Version (British and American) "guide-posts," a more likely translation).

"To heap" represents various single words: chathah, "to take," "to take hold of," with one exception, applied to fire or burning coals (Proverbs 25:22, "Thou writ heap coals of fire upon his head," "Thou wilt take coals of fire (and heap them) on his head"); caphah, "to add" (Deuteronomy 32:23); tsabhar, "to heap up" (Habakkuk 1:10); kabhats, "to press together" (with the fingers or hand) (Habakkuk 2:5); rabhah, "to multiply" (Ezekiel 24:10); episoreuo, "to heap up upon" (2 Timothy 4:3, they "will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts"); soreuo, "to heap up" (Romans 12:20, "Thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head"); thesaurizo, "to lay up" (as treasure) (James 5:3 the King James Version, "Ye have heaped treasure together," the Revised Version (British and American) "laid up"); tsabhar, "to heap up," "to heap" or "store up" (Job 27:16, "silver"; Psalms 39:6, "riches"; Zechariah 9:3, "silver,"); sum, sim "to place," "set," "put" (Job 36:13 the King James Version, "The hypocrites in heart heap up wrath," the Revised Version (British and American) "They that are godless in heart lay up anger"). In Judges 15:16 we have chamor, chamorothayim, "with the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps," the Revised Version margin "heap, two heaps"; one of Samson's sayings; chamor means "an ass," chomer "a heap."

For "heap up words" (Job 16:4), the Revised Version (British and American) has "join together"; for "shall be a heap" (Isaiah 17:11), "fleeth away," margin "shall be a heap"; "heap" for "number" (Nahum 3:3); the English Revised Version "heap of stones" for "sling," margin as the King James Version and the American Standard Revised Version (Proverbs 26:8); "in one heap" for "upon a heap" (Joshua 3:16); "he heapeth up (dust)" for "they shall heap" (Habakkuk 1:10).

W. L. Walker

Heart

hart (lebh, lebhabh; kardia): The different senses in which the word occurs in the Old Testament and the New Testament may be grouped under the following heads:

1. Various Meanings:

It represents in the first place the bodily organ, and by easy transition those experiences which affect or are affected by the body. Fear, love, courage, anger, Joy, sorrow, hatred are always ascribed to the heart--especially in the Old Testament; thus courage for which usually ruach is used (Psalms 27:14); joy (Psalms 4:7); anger (Deuteronomy 19:6, "while his heart is hot," lebhabh); fear (1 Samuel 25:37); sorrow (Psalms 13:2), etc.

Hence, naturally it came to stand for the man himself (Deuteronomy 7:17; "say in thine heart," Isaiah 14:13).

2. Heart and Personality:

As representing the man himself, it was considered to be the seat of the emotions and passions and appetites (Genesis 18:5; Leviticus 19:17; Psalms 104:15), and embraced likewise the intellectual and moral faculties--though these are necessarily ascribed to the "soul" as well. This distinction is not always observed.

3. Soul and Heart:

"Soul" in Hebrew can never be rendered by "heart"; nor can "heart" be considered as a synonym for "soul." Cremer has well observed: "The Hebrew nephesh ("soul") is never translated kardia ("heart"). .... The range of the Hebrew nephesh, to which the Greek psuche alone corresponds, differs so widely from the ideas connected with psuche, that utter confusion would have ensued had psuche been employed in an unlimited degree for lebh ("heart"). The Biblical lebh never, like psuche, denotes the personal subject, nor could it do so. That which in classical Greek is ascribed to psuche (a good soul, a just soul, etc.) is in the Bible ascribed to the heart alone and cannot be otherwise" (Cremer, Lexicon, article "Kardia," 437 ff, German edition).

4. Center of Vital Action:

In the heart vital action is centered (1 Kings 21:7). "Heart," except as a bodily organ, is never ascribed to animals, as is the case sometimes with nephesh and ruach (Leviticus 17:11, nephesh; Genesis 2:19; Numbers 16:22; Genesis 7:22, ruach). "Heart" is thus often used interchangeably with these two (Genesis 41:8; Psalms 86:4; Psalms 119:20); but "it never denotes the personal subject, always the personal organ."

5. Heart and Mind:

As the central organ in the body, forming a focus for its vital action, it has come to stand for the center of its moral, spiritual, intellectual life. "In particular the heart is the place in which the process of self-consciousness is carried out, in which the soul is at home with itself, and is conscious of all its doing and suffering as its own" (Oehler). Hence, it is that men of "courage" are called "men of the heart"; that the Lord is said to speak "in his heart" (Genesis 8:21); that men "know in their own heart" (Deuteronomy 8:5); that "no one considereth in his heart' (Isaiah 44:19 the King James Version). "Heart" in this connection is sometimes rendered "mind," as in Numbers 16:28 ("of mine own mind," Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) ex proprio corde, Septuagint ap' emautou); the foolish "is void of understanding," i.e. "heart" (Proverbs 6:32, where the Septuagint renders phrenon, Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) cordis, Luther "der ist ein Narr"). God is represented as "searching the heart" and "trying the reins" (Jeremiah 17:10 the King James Version). Thus, "heart" comes to stand for "conscience," for which there is no word in Hebrew, as in Job 27:6, "My heart shall not reproach me," or in 1 Samuel 24:5, "David's heart smote him"; compare 1 Samuel 25:31. From this it appears, in the words of Owen: "The heart in Scripture is variously used, sometimes for the mind and understanding, sometimes for the will, sometimes for the affections, sometimes for the conscience, sometimes for the whole soul. Generally, it denotes the whole soul of man and all the faculties of it, not absolutely, but as they are all one principle of moral operations, as they all concur in our doing of good and evil."

6. Figurative Senses:

The radical corruption of human nature is clearly taught in Scripture and brought into connection with the heart. It is "uncircumcised" (Jeremiah 9:26; Ezekiel 44:7; compare Acts 7:51); and "hardened" (Exodus 4:21); "wicked" (Proverbs 26:23); "perverse" (Proverbs 11:20); "godless" (Job 36:13); "deceitful and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9 the King James Version). It defiles the whole man (Matthew 15:19,Matthew 15:20); resists, as in the case of Pharaoh, the repeated call of God (Exodus 7:13). There, however, the law of God is written (Romans 2:15); there the work of grace is wrought (Acts 15:9), for the "heart" may be "renewed" by grace (Ezekiel 36:26), because the "heart" is the seat of sin (Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21).

7. Process of Heart Renewal:

This process of heart-renewal is indicated in various ways. It is the removal of a "stony heart" (Ezekiel 11:19). The heart becomes "clean" (Psalms 51:10); "fixed" (Psalms 112:7) through "the fear" of the Lord (verse 1); "With the heart man believeth" (Romans 10:10); on the "heart" the power of God is exercised for renewal (Jeremiah 31:33). To God the bereaved apostles pray as a knower of the heart (Acts 1:24--a word not known to classical writers, found only here in the New Testament and in Acts 15:8, kardiognostes). In the "heart" God's Spirit dwells with might (Ephesians 3:16, eis ton eso anthropon); in the "heart" God's love is poured forth (Romans 5:5). The Spirit of His son has been "sent forth into the heart" (Galatians 4:6); the "earnest of the Spirit" has been given "in the heart" (2 Corinthians 1:22). In the work of grace, therefore, the heart occupies a position almost unique.

8. The Heart First:

We might also refer here to the command, on which both the Old Testament and New Testament revelation of love is based: "Thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deuteronomy 6:5); where "heart" always takes the first place, and is the term which in the New Testament rendering remains unchanged (compare Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30,Mark 12:33; Luke 10:27, where "heart" always takes precedence).

9. A Term for "Deepest":

A bare reference may be made to the employment of the term for that which is innermost, hidden, deepest in anything (Exodus 15:8; Jonah 2:3), the very center of things. This we find in all languages. Compare Ephesians 3:16,Ephesians 3:17, "in the inward man," as above.

J. I. Marais

Hearth

harth: Occurs 7 times in the King James Version: Genesis 18:6; Psalms 102:3; Isaiah 30:14; Jeremiah 36:22,Jeremiah 36:23 bis; Zechariah 12:6; Zechariah 12:4 times in the Revised Version: Leviticus 6:9; Isaiah 30:14; Ezekiel 43:15,Ezekiel 43:16 ("altar hearth"); compare also Isaiah 29:1 the Revised Version margin. It will be noted that the renderings of the two versions agree in only one passage (Isaiah 30:14).

(1) The hearth in case of a tent was nothing more than a depression in the ground in which fire was kindled for cooking or for warmth. Cakes were baked, after the fashion of Genesis 18:6, in the ashes or upon hot stones. In this passage, however, there is nothing in the Hebrew corresponding to the King James Version "on the hearth." In the poorer class of houses also the hearth consisted of such a depression, of varying dimensions, in the middle or in one corner of the room. There was no chimney for the smoke, which escaped as it could, or through a latticed opening for the purpose (the "chimney" of Hosea 13:3). While the nature of the hearth is thus clear enough, more or less uncertainty attaches to specific terms used in the Hebrew. In Isaiah 30:14 the expression means simply "that which is kindled," referring to the bed of live coals. From this same verb (yaqadh, "be kindled") are formed the nouns moqedh (Psalms 102:3 (Hebrew 4)) and moqkedhah (Leviticus 6:9 (Hebrews 2:1–18)) which might, according to their formation, mean either the material kindled or the place where a fire is kindled. Hence, the various renderings, "firebrand," "hearth," etc. Moreover, in Leviticus 6:9 (2) the termination -ah of moqedhah may be taken as the pronominal suffix, "its"; hence, the Revised Version margin "on its firewood."

(2) Two other terms have reference to heating in the better class of houses. In Jeremiah 36:22,Jeremiah 36:23 the word ('ach) means a "brazier" of burning coals, with which Jehoiakim's "winter house" was heated. The same purpose was served by the "pan (kiyyor) of fire" of Zechariah 12:6 the Revised Version (British and American), apparently a wide, shallow vessel otherwise used for cooking (1 Samuel 2:14, English Versions of the Bible "pan"), or as a wash basin (compare Exodus 30:18; 1 Kings 7:38, etc., "laver").

(3) Another class of passages is referred to the signification "altar hearth," which seems to have been a term applied to the top of the altar of burnt offering. The moqedhah of Leviticus 6:9 (2), though related by derivation to the words discussed under (1) above, belongs here (compare also Ecclesiasticus 50:12, "by the hearth of the altar," par' eschara bomou). Again in Ezekiel's description of the altar of the restored temple (43:15,16), he designates the top of the altar by a special term (the Revised Version margin, ariel), which is by most understood to mean "altar hearth" (so the Revised Version (British and American)). With this may be compared the symbolical name given to Jerusalem (Isaiah 29:1), and variously explained as "lion (or lioness) of God," or "hearth of God."

Benjamin Reno Downer

Heartily

har'-ti-li: Occurs (Colossians 3:23) as the translation of ek psuches, "out of the soul," "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord (who sees the heart and recompenses "whatsoever good thing a man does") and not unto men" (however they, your masters according to the flesh, may regard it); the Revised Version (British and American) "work heartily," margin (Greek) "from the soul."

In 2 Macc 4:37, we have "Antiochus was heartily sorry," psuchikos ("from the soul").

Heat

het (chom, horebh, "drought," Job 30:30; Isaiah 4:6; Isaiah 25:4; Jeremiah 36:30; sharabh, Isaiah 49:10, translated in the Revised Version margin "mirage"; zestos, "fervent," Revelation 3:15, therme, Acts 28:3, kauma, Revelation 7:16, kauson, Matthew 20:12; see MIRAGE):

1. Dreaded in Palestine:

The heat of the summer is greatly dreaded in Palestine, and as a rule the people rest under cover during the middle of the day, when the sun is hottest. There is no rain from May to October, and scarcely a cloud in the sky to cool the air or to screen off the burning vertical rays of the sun. The first word of advice given to visitors to the country is to protect themselves from the sun. Even on the mountains, where the temperature of the air is lower, the sun is perhaps more fierce, owing to the lesser density of the atmosphere.

2. Causes Disease:

This continuous summer heat often causes sunstroke, and the glare causes diseases of the eye which affect a large percentage of the people of Palestine and Egypt.

3. Relief Sought:

It is to be expected that in these times of heat and drought the ideal pleasure has come to be to sit in the shade by some cool flowing fountain. In the mountains the village which has the coolest spring of water is the most desired. These considerations give renewed meaning to the passages: "as cold waters to a thirsty soul" (Proverbs 25:25); "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters" (Psalms 23:2). What a blessing to be "under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalms 91:1), where "the sun shall not strike upon them, nor any heat" (Revelation 7:16)!

4. Midday Heat:

The middle of the day is often referred to as the "heat of the day" (1 Samuel 11:11). It made a great difference to the army whether it could win the battle before the midday heat. Saladin won the great battle at Hattin by taking advantage of this fact. It was a particular time of the day when it was the custom to rest. "They came about the heat of the day to the house of Ish-bosheth, as he took his rest at noon" (2 Samuel 4:5). Yahweh appeared to Abraham as "he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day" (Genesis 18:1). The hardship of working throughout the day is expressed in Matthew 20:12, "who have borne the burden of the day and scorching heat." Sometimes just after sunrise the contrast of the cold of night and the heat of the sun is especially noticeable. "The sun ariseth with the scorching wind" (James 1:11).

5. Summer Heat:

In summer the wind is usually from the Southwest, but in case it is from the South it is sure to be hot. "When ye see a south wind blowing, ye say, There will be a scorching heat" (Luke 12:55). The heat on a damp, sultry day, when the atmosphere is full of dust haze is especially oppressive, and is referred to in Isaiah 25:5 as "the heat by the shade of a cloud." The heat of summer melts the snow on the mountains and causes all vegetation to dry up and wither. Ice and snow vanish in the heat thereof (Job 6:17), "Drought and heat consume the snow waters" (Job 24:19). But the "tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots by the river .... shall not fear when heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green" (Jeremiah 17:8).

6. Figurative Uses:

The word is used often in connection with anger in the Scriptures: "hot anger" (Exodus 11:8); "hot displeasure" (Deuteronomy 9:19); "anger of the Lord was hot against Israel" (Judges 2:14 the King James Version); "thine anger from waxing hot" (Psalms 85:3 King James Version, margin); "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot" (Revelation 3:15).

Alfred H. Joy

Heath

heth.

See TAMARISK.

Heathen

he'-th'-n, he'-then.

See GENTILES.

Heave Offering

hev of'-er-ing.

See SACRIFICE.

Heaven

hev'-'n.

See ASTRONOMY.

Heaven, Host Of

See ASTRONOMY, sec. I, 1.

Heaven, Ordinances Of

See ASTRONOMY, sec. I, 1; II, 13.

Heaven, Windows Of

See ASTRONOMY, sec. III, 4.

Heavenly

hev'-'n-li (ouranios, epouranios): Pertaining to heaven or the heavens. See HEAVENS. The phrase ta epourania, translated "heavenly things" in John 3:12; Hebrews 8:5; Hebrews 9:23, but in Ephesians "heavenly places" (John 1:3,John 1:10; John 2:6; John 3:10; John 6:12), has shades of meaning defined by the context. In John 3:12, in contrast with "earthly things" (i.e. such as can be brought to the test of experience), it denotes truths known only through revelation (God's love in salvation). In Hebrews the sense is local. In Ephesians it denotes the sphere of spiritual privilege in Christ, except in 6:12, where it stands for the unseen spiritual world, in which both good and evil forces operate. It is always the sphere of the super-earthly.

James Orr

Heavens

hev'-'nz (shamayim; ouranoi): On the physical heavens see ASTRONOMY; WORLD. Above these, in popular conception, were the celestial heavens, the abode of God and of the hosts of angels (Psalms 11:4; Psalms 103:19–21; Isaiah 66:1; Revelation 4:2; Revelation 5:11; compare Daniel 7:10), though it was recognized that Yahweh's presence was not confined to any region (1 Kings 8:27). Later Judaism reckoned seven heavens. The apostle Paul speaks of himself as caught up into "the third heaven," which he evidently identifies with Paradise (2 Corinthians 12:2).

See HEAVENLY.

Heavens, New (And Earth, New)

|| 1. Eschatological Idea

2. Earliest Conceptions: Cosmic verses National Type

3. Different from Mythological Theory

4. Antiquity of Cosmical Conception

5. The Cosmical Dependent on the Ethico-Religious

6. The End Correspondent to the Beginning

7. The Cosmical Heavens: Hebrews 12:26-29

8. Palingenesis: Matthew 19:28

9. A Purified Universe

1. Eschatological Idea:

The formal conception of new heavens and a new earth occurs in Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1 (where "heaven," singular). The idea in substance is also found in Isaiah 51:16; Matthew 19:28; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Hebrews 12:26–28. In each case the reference is eschatological, indeed the adjective "new" seems to have acquired in this and other connections a semi-technical eschatological sense. It must be remembered that the Old Testament has no single word for "universe," and that the phrase "heaven and earth" serves to supply the deficiency. The promise of a new heavens and a new earth is therefore equivalent to a promise of world renewal.

2. Earliest Conceptions: Cosmic verses National Type:

It is a debated question how old in the history of revelation this promise is. Isaiah is the prophet with whom the idea first occurs in explicit form, and that in passages which many critics would assign to the post-exilic period (the so-called Trito-Isaiah). In general, until recently, the trend of criticism has been to represent the universalistic-cosmic type of eschatology as developed out of the particularistic-national type by a gradual process of widening of the horizon of prophecy, a view which would put the emergence of the former at a comparatively late date. More recently, however, Gressmann (Der Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie, 1905) and others have endeavored to show that often even prophecies belonging to the latter type embody material and employ means of expression which presuppose acquaintance with the idea of a world-catastrophe at the end. On this view the world-eschatology would have, from ancient times, existed alongside of the more narrowly confined outlook, and would be even older than the latter. These writers further assume that the cosmic eschatology was not indigenous among the Hebrews, but of oriental (Babylonian) origin, a theory which they apply not only to the more developed system of the later apocalyptic writings, but also to its preformations in the Old Testament. The cosmic eschatology is not believed to have been the distinctive property of the great ethical prophets, but rather a commonly current mythological belief to which the prophets refer without formally endorsing it.

3. Different from Mythological Theory:

Its central thought is said to have been the belief that the end of the world-process must correspond to the beginning, that consequently the original condition of things, when heaven and earth were new, must repeat itself at some future point, and the state of paradise with its concomitants return, a belief supposed to have rested on certain astronomical observations.

4. Antiquity of Cosmical Conception

While this theory in the form presented is unproven and unacceptable, it deserves credit for having focused attention on certain phenomena in the Old Testament which clearly show that Messianic prophecy, and particularly the world-embracing scope which it assumes in some predictions, is far older than modern criticism had been willing to concede. The Old Testament from the beginning has an eschatology and puts the eschatological promise on the broadest racial basis (Genesis 3:1–24). It does not first ascend from Israel to the new humanity, but at the very outset takes its point of departure in the race and from this descends to the election of Israel, always keeping the Universalistic goal in clear view. Also in the earliest accounts, already elements of a cosmical universalism find their place side by side with those of a racial kind, as when Nature is represented as sharing in the consequences of the fall of man.

5. The Cosmical Dependent on the Ethico-Religious:

As regards the antiquity of the universalistic and cosmical eschatology, therefore, the conclusions of these writers may be registered as a gain, while on the two other points of the pagan origin and the unethical character of the expectation involved, dissent from them should be expressed. According to the Old Testament, the whole idea of world-renewal is of strictly super-natural origin, and in it the cosmical follows the ethical hope. The cosmical eschatology is simply the correlate of the fundamental Biblical principle that the issues of the world-process depend on the ethico-religious developments in the history of man (compare 2 Peter 3:13).

6. The End Correspondent to the Beginning:

But the end correspondent to the beginning is likewise a true Scriptural principle, which theory in question has helped to reemphasize, although there is this difference that Scripture does not look forward to a repetition of the same process, but to a restoration of the primeval harmony on a higher plane such as precludes all further disturbance. In the passages above cited, there are clear reminiscences of the account of creation (Isaiah 51:16, "that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth"; Isaiah 65:17, "I create new heavens and a new earth"; 2 Peter 3:13 compared with 2 Peter 3:4–6; Revelation 21:1 compared with the imagery of paradise throughout the chapter). Besides this, where the thought of the renewal of earth is met with in older prophecy, this is depicted in colors of the state of paradise (Isaiah 11:6–9; Hosea 2:18–21). The "regeneration" (palingenesia) of Matthew 19:28 also points back to the first genesis of the world. The `inhabited earth to come' (oikoumene mellousa) of Hebrews 2:5 occurs at the opening of a context throughout which the account of Genesis 1:1–3:24 evidently stood before the writer's mind.

7. The Cosmical Heavens: Hebrews 12:26-29:

In the combination "new heavens and a new earth," the term "heavens" must therefore be taken in the sense imposed upon it by the story of creation, where "heavens" designates not the celestial habitation of God, but the cosmical heavens, the region of the supernal waters, sun moon and stars. The Bible nowhere suggests that there is anything abnormal or requiring renewal in God's dwelling-place (Hebrews 9:23 is of a different import). In Revelation 21:1–27, where "the new heaven and the new earth" appear, it is at the same time stated that the new Jerusalem comes down from God out of heaven (compare 21:1,2,10). In Hebrews 12:26–28 also the implication is that only the lower heavens are subject to renewal. The "shaking" that accompanies the new covenant and corresponds to the shaking of the law-giving at Sinai, is a shaking of "not the earth only, but also the heaven." This shaking, in its reference to heaven as well as to earth, signifies a removal of the things shaken. But from the things thus shaken and removed (including heaven), the writer distinguishes "those things which are not shaken," which are destined to remain, and these are identified with the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, however, according to the general trend of the teaching of the epistle, has its center in the heavenly world. The words "that have been made," in 12:27, do not assign their created character as the reason why heaven and earth can be shaken, an exegesis which would involve us in the difficulty that among that which remains there is something uncreated besides God; the true construction and correct paraphrase are: "as of things that were made with the thought in the mind of God that those things which cannot be shaken may remain," i.e. already at creation God contemplated an unchangeable universe as the ultimate, higher state of things.

8. Palingenesis: Matthew 19:28:

In Matthew 19:28 the term palingenesia marks the world-renewing as the renewal of an abnormal state of things. The Scripture teaching, therefore, is that around the center of God's heaven, which is not subject to deterioration or renewal, a new cosmical heaven and a new earth will be established to be the dwelling-place of the eschatological humanity. The light in which the promise thus appears reminds us that the renewed kosmos, earth as well as cosmical heavens, is destined to play a permanent (not merely provisional, on the principle of chiliasm) part in the future life of the people of God. This is in entire harmony with the prevailing Biblical representation, not only in the Old Testament but likewise in the New Testament (compare Matthew 5:5; Hebrews 2:5), although in the Fourth Gospel and in the Pauline Epistles the emphasis is to such an extent thrown on the heaven-centered character of the future life that the role to be played in it by the renewed earth recedes into the background. Revelation, on the other hand, recognizes this element in its imagery of "the new Jerus" coming down from God out of heaven upon earth.

9. A Purified Universe:

That the new heavens and the new earth are represented as the result of a "creation" does not necessarily involve a production ex nihilo. The terms employed in 2 Peter 3:6–13 seem rather to imply that the renewal will out of the old produce a purified universe, whence also the catastrophe is compared to that of the Deluge. As then the old world perished by water and the present world arose out of the flood, so in the end-crisis "the heavens shall be dissolved by fire and the elements melt with fervent heat," to give rise to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. The term palingenesia (Matthew 19:28) points to renewal, not to creation de novo. The Talmud also teaches that the world will pass through a process of purification, although at the same time it seems to break up the continuity between this and the coming world by the fantastic assumption that the new heavens and the new earth of Isaiah 65:17 were created at the close of the Hexemeron of Ge 1. This was inferred from the occurrence of the article in Isaiah 66:22, "the new heavens and the new earth."

Geerhardus Vos