Are there different levels of Heaven?
What are the three heavens?

Q. What are the three heavens? Are there levels of Heaven?

A. The standard King James Version says,

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

However, most modern translations correctly refer to heavens, plural.

Jeremiah 4:25 describes one heaven:

"I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled."

Birds fly within the earth's atmosphere. Therefore one heaven is the air we breathe. Revelation 19:17 substantiates this by stating,

"I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come."

Genesis 22:17 says,

"In blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore."

So it seems there's a second heaven where the stars and planets are, the part of the universe we call space.

Psalm 11:4 says,

"The Lord is in his holy temple: the Lord's throne is in heaven . . . "

but it doesn't reveal which heaven.

It can't be the first heaven, since God does not yet dwell with mankind. Could it be the second heaven, space?

Deuteronomy 10:14 tells us:

"Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's your God; the earth also, with all that therein is."

Job 22:12 sheds a little more light on the subject.

"Is not God in the height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how high they are!"

This suggests the height of heaven is even higher than the stars, thus indicating yet another heaven.

But it's Paul who truly reveals a third heaven. In 2 Corinthians 12:2 he wrote,

"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 knows;) such an one caught up to the third heaven."

Verse 4 refers to paradise, and Revelation 2:7 identifies it as the paradise of God.

So the three heavens are:

1. The atmosphere in which we live.
2. Space.
3. God's throne.

Q. Are there different levels of Heaven?

A. Paul tells us in 2Corinthians 12:2 that there are three heavens:

"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. "

Let also takes a look at Genesis.

" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Darby Translation) [the King James Version uses the word "heaven", which is an incorrect translation. It should be plural: heavens] . . . And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Beginning with the earth, there was a firmament above the waters of the earth, for the earth was under water at this time. " (Genesis 1:1, 7-8)

Genesis 1:14 states:

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:"

The first heaven mentioned here is the heaven that has the air and clouds that form our atmosphere encompassing the earth. The second heaven is the universe that contains the sun, moon, stars and galaxies. The third heaven is a place we know little about, other than it is the place where God, Christ and the angels dwell. It may not even be in the physical universe – It could be a spiritual dimension!

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."