I knew a man in Christ about fourteen years ago
Which is to be understood of himself, as appears from ( 2
Corinthians 12:7 ) , where he speaks in the first person; and
the reason why he here speaks in the third, is to show his
modesty and humility, and how much he declined vain glory and
popular applause; and whilst he is speaking of himself, studies
as it were to conceal himself from being the person designed, and
to draw off the mind of the reader from him to another person;
though another cannot be intended, for it would not have been to
his purpose, yea, quite beside it, when he proposes to come to
visions and revelations he had of the Lord, to have instanced in
the rapture of another. Moreover, the full and certain knowledge
he had of this man, of the place he was caught up to, and of the
things he there heard, best agrees with him; as also his
attesting, in such a solemn way, his ignorance of the manner of
this rapture, whether in the body or out of the body, and which
he repeats and refers to the knowledge of God, clearly shows he
must mean himself; besides, it would otherwise have been no
instance of any vision of his, nor would the rapture of another
have at all affected his character, commendation, and praise, or
given him any occasion of glorying as this did: though he did not
choose to take it, as is clear by his saying that if he gloried
of it he should not be a fool, yet forbore, lest others should
entertain too high an opinion of him; and after all, he was in
some danger of being elated with this vision along with others,
that the following sore temptation was permitted, to prevent his
being exalted with it above measure: and when he calls this
person, meaning himself, a "man", it is not to distinguish him
from an angel, whose habitation is in the third heaven, and so no
wonderful thing to be found there; or from any other creature;
nor perhaps only to express his sex, a man, and not a woman,
though the Syriac version uses the word (arbg) , peculiar to the masculine sex; but merely
to design a person, and it is all one as if it had been said, I
knew a person, or I knew one in Christ: and the phrase "in
Christ", is not to be connected with the word "know", as if the
sense was, that he called Christ to witness the truth of what he
was about to say, and that what he should say was not with a view
to his own glory, but to the glory and honour of Christ only; but
it is to be connected with the word "man", and denotes his being
in Christ, and that either, as Dr. Hammond thinks, in a singular
and extraordinary manner; as John is said to be "in the spirit",
( Revelation 1:10 ) ,
that is, in an ecstasy; and so here this man was in the Spirit of
Christ, and transported by him to see visions, and have
revelations; or rather it intends a spiritual being in Christ,
union to him, the effect of which is communion with him. The date
of
fourteen years ago,
may refer either to the time when the apostle first had the
knowledge of his being in Christ, which was at his conversion; he
was in Christ from all eternity, being given to him, chosen in
him, loved by him; set as a seal upon his heart, as well as
engraven on the palms of his hands, and represented by him, and
in him, in the everlasting covenant; and so in time, at his
crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session
at the right hand of God; in consequence of all which, when the
set time was come, he became a new creature, was converted and
believed in Christ, and then he knew himself to be in him; he was
in him secretly before, now openly; and this was about fourteen
years before the writing of this epistle; the exact time of his
conversion might well be known and remembered by him, it being in
such an extraordinary manner: or also this date may refer to the
time of his rapture, which some have thought was some time within
the three days after his conversion, when he was without sight,
and neither ate nor drank; some have thought it to be eight years
after his conversion; but the most probable opinion is, that it
was not at Damascus, but when he was come again to Jerusalem, and
was praying in the temple, and was in a trance or ecstasy, (
Acts 22:17 ) ,
though the difference there is among chronologers, and the
uncertainty of their conjectures, both as to the time of the
apostle's conversion, and the writing of this epistle, makes it
very difficult to determine this point. They that make this
rapture to be at the time of his conversion, seem to be furthest
off of the truth of things; for whether his conversion be placed
in the 34th year of Christ, as some, or in the 35th, as others,
or in the 36th; and this epistle be thought to be written either
in the 56th, or 58th, or 60th, the date of fourteen years will
agree with neither: they indeed make things to agree together
best, who place his conversion in the year 36, make this rapture
to be eight years after, in the year 44, and this epistle to be
written in the year 58. Dr. Lightfoot puts the conversion of the
apostle in the year 34, the rapture of him into the third heaven,
in the year 43, at the time of the famine in the reign of
Claudius, ( Acts 11:28 ) , when he
was in a trance at Jerusalem, ( Acts 22:17 ) , and the
writing of this epistle in the year 57. That great chronologer,
Bishop Usher, places Paul's conversion in the year 35, his
rapture in the year 46, and the writing of this epistle in the
year 60. So that upon the whole it is hard to say when this
rapture was; and it may be, it was at neither of the visions
recorded in the Scripture, which the apostle had, but at some
other time nowhere else made mention of: when, as he here says,
such an one was caught up to the third heaven,
the seat of the divine Majesty, and the residence of the holy
angels; where the souls of departed saints go immediately upon
their dissolution; and the bodies and souls of those who have
been translated, caught up, and raised already, are; and where
the glorified body of Christ is and will be, until his second
coming. This is called the "third" heaven, in respect to the airy
and starry heavens. The apostle refers to a distinction among the
Jews of (yatt aymvw yaeuym
aymvw) (yalye aymv)
, "the supreme heaven, the middle heaven, and the lower heaven"
F6; and who also make a like division
of worlds, and which they call (lpvh Mlwehw yeumah Mlwew Nwyle Mlwe) , "the supreme
world, and the middle world, and the lower world" F7; and
sometimes F8 the world of angels, the world of
the orbs, and the world of them below; and accordingly the
Cabalistic doctors talk of three worlds; (hatylt amle) , "the third world", they say
F9, is the supreme world, hidden,
treasured, and shut up, which none can know; as it is written,
"eye hath not seen" and is the same with the apostle's "third
heaven". The state and condition in which he was during this
rapture is expressed by the following words, put into a
parenthesis,
whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the
body I
cannot tell, God knoweth:
whether his soul remained in his body, and he was caught up soul
and body into heaven, as Elijah was carried thither soul and body
in a chariot with horses of fire; or whether his soul was out of
his body, and he was disembodied for a time, as Philo the Jew
F11 says that Moses was (aswmaton) , "without the body", during
his stay of forty days and as many nights in the mount; or
whether this was not all in a visionary way, as John was "in the
Spirit" on the Lord's day, and Ezekiel was taken by a lock of his
head, and lifted up by the Spirit between earth and heaven, and
brought "in the visions of God to Jerusalem", cannot be said. The
apostle did not know himself, and much less can any other be able
to say how it was; it is best with him to refer and leave it to
the omniscient God; one of the four persons the Jews say entered
into paradise, who are hereafter mentioned in (See Gill on
2 Corinthians 12:4), is said to have his mind snatched
away in a divine rapture F12; that is, he was not himself, he
knew not where he was, or whether in the body or out, as says the
apostle.