MERRY THURSDAY BY PARRIS
“I also know that this man was hijacked into paradise—again, whether in or out of the body, I don’t know; God knows. There he heard the unspeakable spoken, but was forbidden to tell what he heard. This is the man I want to talk about. But about myself, I’m not saying another word apart from the humiliations.” 2 Cor. 12:4
One has to always step back and ponder the life and words of the Apostle Paul, after all he wrote 13 epistles in the New Testament. He impacted men such as Luther and Augustine that changed our world forever. As one who lived and moved and had his being in Christ, he was raised to a higher region of experience than that in which he had lived before. The word “hijacked” means to unlawfully seize and force to go to a different destination or use for a different purpose. Our lives are to be “lost in the life of Christ” for we are “not our own”.
“Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell”—Ellicot says, “The body remains, sometimes standing, sometimes recumbent, but, in either case, motionless. The man may well doubt, on his return to the normal condition of his life, whether his spirit has actually passed into unknown regions in a separate and disembodied condition, or whether the body itself has been also a sharer in its experiences of the unseen. Sounds of ineffable sweetness, bursts of praise and adoration, hallelujahs like the sound of many waters, voices low and sweet as those of children, whispers which were scarcely distinguishable from silence and yet thrilled the soul with a rapturous joy—this we may, perhaps, think of as underlying St. Paul’s language.”
Edwards said, “Heaven is a progressive state, the heavenly joy of the saints, and even of the triune God, will forever continue to increase… Saints can look forward to an unending expansion of their knowledge and love of God, as their capacities are stretched by what they receive… There is no intrinsic limit to their joy in heaven. As the saints continue to increase in knowledge and love of God, God receives more and more glory. This heavenly reciprocity will never cease because the glory God deserves is infinite, and the capacity of the saints to perceive Gods glory to praise him for out us ever increasing. And as the happiness will be increasing to eternity, the union will become more and more strict (closely bound) and perfect”.
Everyday we can revive ourselves tasting of the heavenly joys available to us now. Steeping ourselves in divine realities instead of the world around us. The earth is tired and doesn’t have the capacity of a new song. Dig deep and drink much! For a heavenly reciprocity happens with the Trinity that you too will be forever hijacked!