Q6. Why Was Noah Spared the Flood?

Imagine that you pick up the New Paper one day to read the following headline:

"FATHER OF THREE FOUND NAKED BY SONS IN DRUNKEN STUPOR.
FATHER WAKES UP AND CURSES HIS YOUNGEST SON FOR EXPOSING HIM."

What impression would you form about this father and his son?

Now let's read Gen 9:20-24...

20 And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. 
21 Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. 
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
24 So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. 25 Then he said:
“Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants, He shall be to his brethren.”

One of the most familiar stories in the Bible is regarding Noah and the flood.

What may not have been expounded in detail, however, was the event leading up to the flood (as well as the above event that happened after the flood).

I remember my Sunday School teachers telling us very simplistically that Noah was spared from God's judgement because the entire world was wicked and evil, whereas only he, his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives were good and upright.

Yet we read in Gen 9 about how Noah got drunk one day and lay naked, and his youngest son Ham ratted on him. When Noah woke up, he placed a curse on the descendants of Ham.

This doesn't seem like the behaviour of persons who were good and upright, does it?

Noah was unblemished, just like those animal sacrifices.

So why then did God spare him and his family, yet everyone else had to perish in the flood?

For that, we need to read the account leading up to the flood.

In Gen 6:9, Noah was described as a "perfect man". The original Hebrew word is tamiym תָּמִים (Strong's 08549), which means "without blemish" or "unadulterated".

This same word is also used to describe the condition of animals that were acceptable to be offered unto the Lord under the Levitical customs.

Earlier in the same chapter, we also read about "unholy unions" between fallen angels and humans.

Gen 6:1-3 (Contemporary English Version)

More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted.

What resulted from those unholy unions were gigantic freaks (or what some versions refer to as Nephilim).

Now why would these fallen angels want to do that?

For that, we have to go back to that first prophecy that took place in the Garden of Eden in Gen 3:15, where God said that Eve's seed would one day defeat the devil.

In response, Satan first tried to stop the seed by inspiring Cain to kill Abel.  Well, he failed to do so, because Adam and Eve went on to have other children, Seth being one of them.

So what did Satan do next?  He summoned his followers to corrupt the seed of Eve, hoping that it would prevent that prophesy from coming to pass!

But thankfully, God was again one step ahead of the evil one. Noah and his family were the only ones left who remained unblemished as pure human. He was asked to build the ark and take pairs of each kind of animal with him. The workings of the devil in trying to corrupt the seed of Eve came to an abrupt end when all the products of the unholy unions perished in the flood.

It was important for Jesus to be fully-man, in order that He could be a kinsman-redeemer to the human race.

Hence, if we "connect the dots" using the "scarlet thread", we will understand not only why God spared Noah and his family, but also why He had to send the flood to wipe out everyone else.

[See the blog entry entitled "Connecting the Dots Via the Scarlet Thread"]

In other words, Noah was spared not because he was without sin, but because he was the only unblemished specimen of mankind left on earth!

By the way, the genealogy of Noah is recorded for us in Genesis 5.

Adam
Seth
Enosh
Kenan
Mahalalel
Jared
Enoch
Methusaleh
Lamech
Noah

Note the hidden message in there, which is that "At the appointed time, the blessed God shall come down as a mortal man, acquaint Himself with sorrow and teach us that His death shall bring the despairing rest/comfort."

We see the genealogy of Jesus being preserved through the flood.

The lineage from Noah to Abraham as recorded in Gen 11:10-32 is as follows:

Noah
Shem
Arphaxad
Cainan
Shelah
Eber
Peleg
Reu
Serug
Nahor
Terah
Abraham

There is not much mentioned about the patriarchs between Shem and Abraham.

However, Abraham was told specifically by God that he would become a father of many nations. The devil heard this and hence began his dirty deeds in earnest again.

Next up, I will blog about what he tried to do to Abraham and Sarah to prevent the first prophecy from happening, and how God continued to outsmart him.

Q5. Why did God Punish Some People yet Allow Others to Get Away Scot-Free?

Source: http://kevingriggs.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/unfair.png

Ok, having explained yesterday about "Connecting the Dots via the Scarlet Thread", let us now discuss one of, if not *the* most common question every Christian would have asked at some stage of our journey, and that is "why did God punish some people yet allow others to get away scot-free?" or some variation of that question.

Here are just some examples listing down those who appear to have gotten away relatively scot-free, and those who were punished or appear to have been unfairly treated:

S/N (Link)	Got Away Relatively Scot-free	Punished / Unfairly Treated	Scriptural Reference
01	Noah	Those who perished in the flood	Genesis 9:20-27; Genesis 6:9-8:22
02	Abraham	Pharoah, Abimelech	Genesis 12; Genesis 20
03	Jacob	Esau	Genesis 25 - 27
04	Judah and Tamar	Er and Onan, Reuben	Genesis 35:22; Gen 38
05	The Israelites (between Egypt and Mt Sinai)	The Israelites (after Mt Sinai)	Exodus 1-18; Exodus 19 onwards
06	Rahab	Achan	Joshua 2; Joshua 7
07	Gibeonites	All other inhabitants of Canaan (ie. Jericho, Ai, Jerusalem, etc)	Joshua 9; Joshua 6, 8, 10, 11-13
08	Gideon	Jepthah	Judges 8:30-31; Judges 11:31
09	Ruth	Naomi's family (husband Elimelek, and sons Mahlon and Kilion)	Ruth
10	David and Bathsheba	Uriah the Hittite	2 Samuel 11
11	Gomer (Hosea's wife)	Hosea	Hosea

Over the next few days, we will go through each of the cases in turn, using that scarlet thread to join the dots :-)

Connecting the Dots Via the Scarlet Thread

How many petals do you see?

When I was in kindergarten, I remember the teacher giving us activity sheets whereby there was an incomplete drawing, such as the one shown on the right.  We had to connect the dots by using a coloured pencil to draw a line from 1 to 2, from 2 to 3, and so on, and upon connecting the last pair of dots, the picture would be revealed.

By just glancing at the drawing, we can figure out that it is that of a flower because of the stem and leaves below, and the smiley face representing the centre of the flower.  But we cannot really make out how many petals there are exactly, until we connect the dots sequentially from 1 to 16.

The Bible appears to many of us like that incomplete drawing.  We are able to figure out the big picture, such as that God loves us, that Jesus came to die for our sins, that we will go to heaven after we depart from this earth.

But we struggle to make out certain passages in the Bible.  For example, why did God punish some yet let others get away?  Or why did God choose women of disrepute to be Jesus' genealogy?  These are like the unseen petals in that drawing.

So how do we "connect the dots" for such passages?  For that kindergarten activity, we used a coloured pencil.  For the Bible, we have to use a "scarlet thread".

Bloggers for Christ.  Thanks Terence for the lunch, and Ps Kenny for the photo.

I was having lunch with a couple of good friends I met in blogosphere at Folks Collective just a couple of days ago.  The place is packed during lunchtime and the food is served in 3 cute red containers.

In the course of conversation, we happened to talk about my re-blogging, and how I felt led to share the journey I have personally gone through. How I had many tough questions about passages in the Bible that I did not dare ask, and how everything sudden made sense when one sees it in the light of that first prophecy in the garden of Eden.

BlogPastor then came up with the term "scarlet thread"!

Now, imagine you are watching a game of chess, with God on one side, and the devil on the other.

All of God's moves are to fulfil...

The First Prophecy

Gen 3:15

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."

Earlier in that chapter, we read about how Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of the devil (who took the form of a serpent). God prophesied that someday, an offspring of Eve would ultimately crush the devil's head and bring about his defeat.

God has revealed His intention and thrown down the gauntlet.  What would Satan's response be?


All of Satan's counter-moves are to...

Stop the Seed!

Satan was told that one of Eve's descendants would cause his downfall, but he did not know who exactly. Hence, he did everything he could to stop the seed, and prevent the champion from coming forth.

Some examples would be:

• inspiring Cain to kill Abel (Gen 4:8)
• Abel's sacifice was pleasing to God, so he thought Abel was the promised seed

• getting his fallen angels to corrupt mankind by cohabiting with the daughters of Eve (Gen 6:2)
• this practice was so widespread that it reached the stage whereby Noah and his family were the only ones on the face of the earth to be pure humans, the rest were giants and freaks

• getting men to be attracted to other men in Sodom and Gomorrah
• because no seed would be able to come forth from homosexual relationships

• getting Onan to spill his seed (Gen 38:9)
• Satan would rather this, than for mankind to populate

When we start to see things that happen in the context of the great spiritual battle through the centuries, we will then realise why in some cases, God spared and yet in others, God judged.

So why the term "scarlet thread"?  "Thread" in the sense that it is the one underlying theme that weaves through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation "connecting the dots", as it were, and "scarlet" because it involves availing the blood of Jesus, going back in time to redeem the patriarchs and going forward into the future so that no one should perish.

Q3. How Did Dinosaurs Enter the Ark?

Many of us must have read Science books or watched the movie Jurassic Park, and seen pictures of these awfully gigantic creatures known as dinosaurs.

Scientific evidence indicate that these massive animals existed at one stage in time in history.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that science and the Bible should not contradict each other.  If anything, science should support the Bible.

If that is the case, why is it that the Bible doesn't talk about dinosaurs?  And given their enormous size, how did they get onto Noah's ark?

Let me answer the 2nd part of the question first, i.e. how did dinosaurs enter the Ark?

For that, we have to first correct some of our own wrong impressions that have formed over the years.

Please do not capsize!

Sometime in August 2007, my then-cell group attended a talk by Creation Ministries International that was held in my church.

During that talk, the speaker told us that one of the reasons why people do not believe the Genesis account (such as creation, Noah's flood, etc) is because they have seen pictures of Noah's Ark drawn in cartoon form.

Usually, the Ark is no larger than a bathtub, with giraffes' heads sticking out from it, and appears so unstable that it can topple at any time, what less withstand a huge catastrophic flood.

Now, this is more like it.  Huge and stable.

Somehow, such wrong impressions can consciously or unconsciously discredit the Bible and relegate its accounts to mere fairytales or fables, and cause people not to believe the truth that can set them free.

Well, the truth of the matter is that the Ark that Noah built was very, very huge and very, very stable. It was the size of 81 five-room HDB flats (27 flats X 3 storeys high).

The giraffes' head did not need to protrude from the top, and there was sufficient room for the dinosaurs, hippos, elephants, as well as hundreds of other animals.

Panoramic photo of Ark replica located at Noah's Ark Resort, Hong Kong.

To truly appreciate how massive the Ark really was, I highly recommend that anyone going to Hong Kong make a trip to Noah's Ark Resort.  It has a full-size replica of the Ark built to biblical proportions.  My family went there in November last year, and it was a truly eye-opening experience for me.  A panoramic photo which I took is shown above.

Gen 6:19-20 says

19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 
20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.

From the above verses, we see that God had commanded Noah to take pairs of each kind of animal onboard.  Note that He said "kind", which means just a pair of rodents, a pair of felines, a pair of canines, a pair of bovines, a pair of equines, and so on.  

The next time we take the MRT, just take a look around and you will find not just Chinese, Malays and Indians but also Filipinos, Thais, Koreans and even Caucasians.  We speak different languages, embrace different cultures, and look very different from one another.  Yet, if we took a step back and ponder, we will realise that every single one of these people are all related to us through Noah and 3 his sons!

If we are able to comprehend and accept that all of us humans descended from the 8 humans on the Ark, then we should likewise also be able to concede that the pair of rodents Noah brought onto the ark would be the ancestors of my niece's pet hamster, my pet chinchilla, that rat you see scurrying in the nearby rubbish dump, and the squirrels that frequent McRitchie Reservoir.

The pair of felines onboard Noah's Ark would be the ancestors of the pet cats my sister keeps, that lion in the Singapore Zoo, and the cheetahs and tigers you see on Animal Planet.

The first pair of canines would be the ancestors of the pet dogs in my colleagues' house, as well as the wolves, foxes, and jackals that roam out in the wild.

So too, are buffaloes, zebras and yaks descendants of that pair of bovines, while zebras, hippos and donkeys are descendants of that pair of equines.

Let me digress here, but it is times like this that make me appreciate the Chinese language.

For example, rodents have the "鼠" character, hence
squirrel = 松鼠
chinchilla = 灰鼠
hamster = 仓鼠
guinea pig = 豚鼠

Bovines have the "牛" character, hence
rhino = 犀牛
buffalo = 水牛
bison = 野牛
yak = 牦牛

With that in mind, it would thus be entirely possible to fit all the required animals and birds on the Ark.

Note also that nowhere is it mentioned in the Bible that it was a requirement for Noah to bring on board adult animals.  Hence, a pair of juvenile dinosaurs would have sufficed, small enough to fit into the Ark.  After the waters had subsided, the animals would have come of age, left the ark and procreated, including the pair of dinosaurs.

Afternote: A brother asked how come there was a dove and a raven on board the Ark.  Thanks for your question, bro!  For this, let's look at Gen 7:2-3:

2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth

The extra pairs of clean animals were meant for sacrificial purposes ("Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." Gen 8: 20).

Furthermore, Noah was asked to become an omnivore after he got off the Ark ("Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." Gen 9:3)

In Gen 1:6-8, we read that the atmosphere was surrounded by a firmament, and this probably kept the climate cool throughout the day (see Gen 3:8 where we read that "God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day").  This would have been ideal for animals such as the dinosaurs to live relatively free from harm.  After all, before the fall, death was an alien concept to God's creation.  It was because of man's original sin that death came about.

In Gen 7:11, we read that "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened".  Water covered the entire earth, so God had to tilt the earth in order for the excess water to gather at the poles.  This tilting of the earth also resulted in the 4 seasons, and animals that could not adapt to the severe change in environment would gradually become extinct.  That may explain why we do not see dinosaurs anymore.

Now let's get back to answering the 1st part of the question, which is why did the Bible not mention anything about dinosaurs.

For that we have to understand that the term "dinosauria" only came about in 1842.  It was coined by scientist Richard Owen to describe what he considered to be "fearfully great reptiles".

The book of Job, which dates back to 2,000 B.C., mentions creatures such as "behemoth" and "leviathan" in chapters 40 and 41 respectively.  Just because that scientist chose to come up with the word "dinosaur" does not necessary mean that he was not referring to the same creature.  After all, many scientists are atheists who do not acknowledge that there is a creator God, and the lesser they make reference to the Bible, the better they think they will be.

So there you have it.  Dinosaurs entered the Ark as young creatures, and just a pair of its kind (from which other dinosaurs could come forth) would have sufficed to re-populate the earth.

Next up: Q4. Are there aliens in outer space?

Q2. Where Did Adam and Eve's Grandchildren Come From?

OK, let's get down to answering the 1st of the tough questions mentioned in the introductory post, which is "Where did Adam and Eve's grandchildren come from?"

Mom's way of explaining to us the facts of life.

Sometime in the late 1970s, my mom brought my 3 sisters and I into her room one evening, and showed us a book with cartoon illustrations entitled, "Where Did I Come From?"

Basically, that was her way of teaching us about the birds and the bees.

Afternote: I just checked and found that the book is available on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-Come-Peter-Mayle/dp/0818402539

Now with the advent of the Internet, we as parents do not need to bring up this topic because our kids find out about it online or via their peers.

Anyway, back to those days of growing up.  It was impressed upon me that science and the Bible were supposed to be kept separate, and never the twain shall meet. For example, science tells us that the universe came into being via a big bang millions of years ago; the Bible describes how God created everything in 6 days, just over 6,000 years ago, in 4,004 B.C.  Science tells us that we evolved from monkeys; the Bible tells us that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve.

After learning from that book my mom showed me about how humans procreate, and also being told that incest is a crime (even till today), I had a burning question but did not dare to ask anyone about it...

Given that Adam and Eve were the original and only pair of humans on earth, their sons Cain, Abel and Seth, and other children must have come forth from them. No problem with that. But what about the next generation, ie. their grandkids? How did they come about?

There was only one logical answer -- that Adam and Eve's children must have procreated among themselves!  I quickly perished that thought and asked the Lord to forgive me for even harbouring it.

In recent years, I have come to realise that science and the Bible should support each other, or rather, science should support the Bible.  If that is to be so, we should not and cannot run away from tough and difficult questions, but rather seek the answers out fervently so that we can have a settled peace of mind.

For the answer to this (and all other burning questions for that matter), we have to go back to Genesis, in particular chapter 3, whereby Adam and Eve had just partaken of the forbidden fruit, and God kick-started His redemption plan by declaring to Adam, Eve and the devil that a day will come when Jesus (as Eve's seed) would defeat the devil.

If you were the devil, what would you do upon hearing this? Try your utmost to prevent the prophesy from coming to pass!

And so we see him going to work on this straightaway.  In just the next chapter, Gen 4, we read the famous story about the very first murder -- where Cain killed his brother Abel.  When the devil saw that God had accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's, he must have mistaken Abel to be the promised one, and thus inspired Cain to kill Abel.

This view is supported in the New Testament, where John, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded in 1 John 3:12 "Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother..."

Thankfully, God was always at least one step ahead of the devil, because Adam and Eve produced another son, Seth (Gen 4:25), and it was through this son that the line continued.

We read in Gen 5:4, "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters".  Adam's sons and daughters would have had to marry one another in order to have children. In particular, his sons Cain and Seth would have had to marry either their sister or niece.

Before one gets nauseated, do remember that God had commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Also back then, the only command that God told man *not* to do was to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was thus perfectly acceptable for a person to marry his own sister, or cousin, or niece, because the effect of the fall would take time to manifest in terms of genetic abnormalities. Hence, we find that Abraham married his half-sister Sarah, while Jacob married his cousins Leah and Rachel.

For that matter, after the flood (which took place in 2,348 B.C.), Noah's grandsons had to marry his granddaughters since everyone else besides his family had perished. It was only many generations later years during the time of Moses (circa 1,450 B.C.) that God said specifically that one could not have sexual relations with his sister (Lev 18:9). By then, the effect of the fall would have been of significance, and marrying a close relative would increase the chances of duplicating a particular gene mutation (which is the medical grounds upon which secular societies forbid incestuous relationships).

So there you have it.  Adam and Eve's grandchildren came as a result of their children marrying among themselves.  And so did Noah's grandchildren, from whom all of us are descendants of.

And it was part of God's command to be fruitful and multiply, and also steps taken towards fulfilling that first prophesy whereby one day, Jesus would come in human form to redeem mankind back to God.

Afternote:  A sister sent me the following link, 
"Who Was Cain's Wife?", 
Thanks Pearly!

Q1. Is Paradise the Same as Heaven?

Dearly beloved

I had wanted to start discussing the 5 questions mentioned in my previous post, but a brother wanted me to share my thoughts about paradise and heaven, hence this will be the first topic instead :-)

This brother tells me that he is of the opinion that paradise and heaven are 2 different things.  Well, his view is indeed biblically correct!

Back in the 1980s, there was a popular song entitled "Heaven is a Place on Earth". This is of course not scriptural, because we know that heaven is where we as believers will go to after we pass on from this earth.

But what if I were to tell you that Paradise and Heaven were indeed 2 different places?  Not only that, what if I told you that Paradise was a place in hell? Would you be surprised or offended? Read on…

Jesus tells the thief about paradise
Source: http://www.testimoniesofheavenandhell.com

In Matt 12:40, Jesus said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Here, Jesus was telling the scribes and the Pharisees that He would spend three days and three nights in hell. We of course know that He was referring to the time just after He would be crucified.

Yet, we also read in Luke 23:43 a verse that is often quoted at funerals. Jesus told one of the thieves, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

If Jesus had spent three days and three nights in hell, and yet also told this thief that he would be with Him in paradise, then the logical conclusion is that paradise was a place in hell!

Before someone shouts “Heresy!”, please let me continue…

Jesus also said in John 14:6 that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that no one got to the Father except through Him.

This is no problem for the believer today. Once a person accepts Jesus, He is guaranteed life eternal in heaven, where God the Father resides.

But how about the patriarchs of old such as Adam, Noah, Abraham or David, etc? When they were alive, Jesus was not yet made available to them, so to speak.

When they died, their spirits went to the "holding place" called paradise, located in hell, and they were there waiting in eager anticipation for Jesus to finally come and bring them up to heaven!

That place was also known as Abraham’s bosom or Abraham’s side, as described in the parable that Jesus told about the rich man and the beggar in Luke 16:19-28. Even though paradise and Sheol were both located in hell, we read in that parable that there was a great chasm that divided them, and no one could cross over from one place to the other.

Jesus died for all our sins, past, present and future. While the cross stands outside the dimension of time, we humans are bounded by time, hence the “past” sins that Jesus died for would refer to those that were committed by those patriarchs, and Jesus died for each and every one of them too.

So what exactly did Jesus do during those three days and nights in the depths of the earth?

(1) He went to get the keys of death and Hades back from the devil.

As a result of the first Adam's sin, man had to die. The keys of death were effectively handed over to the devil. But the second Adam conquered death and Hades and redeemed mankind back unto the Lord. Consider the following verses:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil. (Heb 2:14)
I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. (Rev 1:18)

(2) He proclaimed His victory over the fallen angels who during the time of Noah, had tried to corrupt the human race by procreating with the daughters of Eve

Satan had heard God prophesy in the Garden of Eden that a seed of Eve would crush his head. So he tried to prevent that from happening by getting his fallen angels to appear in human form to procreate with humans in order to corrupt the human race.

This extent of this corruption was so widespread that only 8 persons were purely human: Noah, his three sons and their wives.

Through whom also He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water (1 Pet 3:19-20)

I can imagine Jesus saying to those fallen angels "nani nani poo poo", because God outwitted the devil by sending the flood to destroy them. We read in Jude 1:6 that "these angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode are now kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day." 


(3) He went to "Abraham’s bosom" to release all those who were there and took them up with Him

Consider the following passage of Scripture

Matthew 27:50 - 53
50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Verse 53 is very interesting – it says that these saints appeared to many. Can you imagine how those in Jerusalem must have felt when they saw right before their very eyes their forefathers like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or David in flesh and blood before them.

So was there anyone the other side of the cross who went to heaven without having to spend time in this holding area?

Based on Scripture, there seems to be 3 persons: Enoch, Elijah and Moses.

Enoch and Elijah did not taste death but were raptured. We read in Gen 5:24 that "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away", and also in 2 Kings 2:11 that "suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.".

The third person to have gone to heaven was Moses. Unlike Enoch and Elijah, Moses tasted death, but Jude 1:9 records that "But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"

Here we see that Michael the Archangel and the devil fought over Moses' body, each probably laying claim to why he should have it. Satan's argument was that he had the power over death at that stage, but the fact that Moses appeared in glory next to Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration shows us the outcome of this "Holy War".

So there you have it.  Paradise is not the same as heaven, because the former was a holding area located in hell, for the saints who passed away before the cross.  For us this side of the cross, we can go straight up to heaven.  Amen?