And again-"No man hath ascended up to Heaven but He that came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in Heaven."2

A singular expression this. "The Son of Man which IS in Heaven,”—for the Son of Man was then upon earth. As God He was everywhere, in Heaven and earth, though bodily, only upon earth; even as now He is bodily in Heaven, and absent from earth, though spiritually everywhere in Heaven and earth.

The assertion, "No man hath ascended up to Heaven," is more difficult to understand. What of Noah, of Abraham, of Daniel? Nay, putting them aside as men who died natural deaths, what of Elijah who did ascend in a chariot of fire when he "went up by a whirlwind into Heaven ?"3

"Into Heaven." But into what part of Heaven? For Heaven is a wide term. Heaven may have many divisions-terrace above terrace, as it were, in gradations of intensifying glory.

"The Temple" meant the whole Temple, including outlying courts and terraces, yet more peculiarly the word referred to the golden-plated central building. "Heaven" may mean the

whole boundless expanse of angelic lands, yet more peculiarly it may refer to the central Heaven of heavens, the place of the ever-burning awful Shechinah-glory. Was that in the mind of Christ when He said: "No man hath ascended up to Heaven?" Did Elijah ascend there, or did he not rather stop short in some fair outer court of the Heavenly Temple, to await with happy companion-spirits the attainment of yet higher glories?

Weread of Christ,—“He that descended is the same also that ASCENDED UP FAR ABOVE ALL HEAVENS. 4 May not this mean "up far above" all lower heavens, all outer courts, to the central Heaven of heavens?

The prophet Amos uses a singular expression, "It is He that buildeth His STOREYS (or ascensions or spheres, marg.) in the Heaven.5

Again, St. Paul writes when speaking of the revelations he had received from God: "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" and immediately after, as if the terms were identical,-" How that he was caught up into PARADISE, and heard unspeakable words. "6

Heaven, first, the atmosphere surrounding the earth; Heaven, secondly, the reaches of space beyond; Heaven, thirdly, the blessed waitingplace of departed spirits, washed in the blood of Jesus, is this the sense in which Paradise is counted as the third Heaven; or does it rank as third in the outer courts of the Heavenly Temple?

We cannot tell. Only so much seems plain, -that Heaven has its courts, its storeys, its ascensions, its degrees of glory.

There is in the Hebrew of the Old Testament a word "Sheol," and in the Greek of the New Testament a word "Hades," both signifying the same thing, yet having no corresponding word in the English language. In some places they are translated as "hell," in some places as "the grave." The real meaning is rather "the abode

of departed spirits," or "the other world," classing together all who have left this world, the good and the bad, the saved and the unsaved. Not this world but the other seems to be the thought conveyed.

"He (Jacob) refused to be comforted ; and he said; For I will go down into the grave (Sheol) unto my son, mourning.”7

"If I make my bed in hell (Sheol), behold, Thou art there."8

"For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; (Sheol) neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption."9

"Because Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, (Hades) neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption."10

Not "hell," the place prepared for the devil. and his angels, seems to be here meant ; and not the mere grave for the body in the earth was what Jacob's words signified; but in both cases, in a wide and general sense, the world of departed spirits.

In connection with this subject, compare carefully the two following verses:

"Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." 11

"Jesus saith unto her, Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father." 12

First we see the Lord Jesus, as He hung dying on the dread Cross of Calvary, promising to the poor penitent beside Him, that before the close of that same day, they two would be together in Paradise,- by which we understand Heaven.

Yet, when the three days are over of Christ's imprisonment in death-shackles, when He rises triumphant from the tomb and shows Himself to His disciples, He plainly asserts that He is not yet ascended unto His Father. Could the assertion have been made in just such terms, if the intervening time had been spent in the radiance of His Father's highest presence? It would seem not.

He had been in Paradise, bearing thither the spirit of the pardoned thief. He had been in Sheol, in Hades, in the world of departed spirits, -nay more, in that part of Heaven set apart for the waiting-time of restful and joyous expectation of His redeemed ones. But apparently He