Presently, I have my Catholic mother and orthodox father visiting us from Ukraine. Please pray for the success in the evangelistic work that I am conducting with them. I would really appreciate that because it is immensely difficult to do it with them. They both are 74 years old. Louis, can you please help me with one question, please? They both try to convince me that Mary has ascended into Heaven after she died: the old Catholic story, I hope you understand. Rather than argue with them, I am trying to show them from the Scripture that it could have not had happened. Best thing that comes to my mind is a passage from John 3:13 where he indicates “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.” If that is so (and in no way I am trying to question the integrity of this statement by John, who was filled with the Holy Spirit), than how about Enoch and Elija who were taken into Heaven also? Is there something I am not aware of? Please, help me on this one! Thank you ever so very much! Wishing you and Bonnie all the best and looking forward to receiving the note from you. Your brother in Christ, Paul Fedko
There is no better Scripture to which you could have turned to show that only Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven where God is (Daniel 2:44). John 3:13 as well as Ephesians 4:10 are conclusive regarding only Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven where God is. Therefore, not Mary the mother of our Lord, not Enoch and not Elijah has ascended to heaven where God is. Regarding Mary, no Scripture indicates anything respecting her death and certainly not anything regarding a supposed ascension to heaven.
The Bible makes three uses of the word heaven, each with a different meaning. Heaven can refer to the sky immediately above the earth, or heaven can refer to the universe that is populated with stars, or heaven can refer to the dwelling place of God. The first two usages of the word heaven that we have noted pertain to the physical, created universe. The third application of the word heaven pertains to a spiritual rather than a physical place. The reference in Luke 4:25 to heaven refers to the sky in which there may be rain clouds: “But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land.” See also Daniel 7:13 regarding the heaven in which there are clouds or Genesis 1:20 respecting it also being the heaven in which birds fly. Genesis 1:14-18 uses the word heaven to refer to the expanse above the sky in which are stars, the moon and our sun. The apostle Paul referred to heaven where God is as the “third heaven” (2 Corinthians 2:2).
Heaven is not mentioned in connection with Enoch. The verse simply reads: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). In conjunction with Hebrews 11:5, one discerns that Enoch avoided the usual threshold of death by which one ordinarily makes his journey from life to death: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Neither of these verses, though, addresses the disposition of Enoch after he left the earth.
In every instance where the Bible says something about the whereabouts of a departed soul, it always indicates that before the final judgment souls are in Hades, either in “Paradise” or in Tartaros. Two Greek words are translated with the English word “.” One is gehenna, referring to the place of eternal torment prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Another is hades, referring to the place of departed spirits awaiting final judgment and the subsequent bestowal of eternal heaven or endless (Luke 16:23). This latter, underlying Greek word appears 11 times in the New Testament (Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13-14 and 1 Corinthians 15:55 where it is translated as “grave”).
Luke 16:19-31 indicates that there are two chambers in Hades that respectively are foretastes of heaven where God is and. In Luke 16, the foretaste of heaven is called Abraham’s bosom (verse 23), whereas Jesus on the cross referred to it as “paradise” (Luke 23:43). The foretaste of in Hades is what the apostle Peter called “” from the Greek tartaros (2 Peter 2:4), which means “the deepest abyss of Hades.” Enoch, then, is in the part of Hades called “paradise” or the ‘Abraham’s bosom,’ with Abraham and every other faithful child of God who no longer resides on earth.
The context in which Elijah is taken by God mentions the English word “heaven” twice (2 Kings 2:1, 11). The same Hebrew word is used in both places and it can refer to the sky or the place where we see the stars. Hence, nothing is said in that context regarding the disposition of Elijah’s soul, just that Elijah was observed rising into the sky until he was no longer visible. Elijah and Moses appeared at the transfiguration of Christ and nothing regarding that event suggests that Elijah and Moses experienced different dispositions away from each other as they await judgment to come (Matthew 17:3-4). No one imagines that Moses is anywhere other than in Hades, because there is no other place the Bible indicates a departed soul can inhabit before the judgment besides Hades. Elijah, then, with Moses, is in Hades — not in heaven where God is.
Enoch and Elijah are in Hades rather than in heaven where God is. The King James Version impedes understanding of these matters by using the same English word, “,” for translating gehenna and hades. Jesus was in Hades between his death and resurrection; “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 2:27). Our Lord, though, resurrected (i.e., his soul was not left in Hades and his body came forth from the grave). Subsequently, Jesus Christ (and only Jesus Christ) ascended to heaven where God is. Enoch, Elijah and Mary are in Hades, not in heaven where God is.
