Page 54 - Through New Eyes

The World as God’s House 47
What we have seen thus far is that heaven forms the model
for the earth – socially, artistically, morally, spiritually, and in
every other way. The Spirit initiated the task of shaping the
earth after the heavenly model. But we have also seen that God
set the sky within the earth as a symbol of His highest heaven.
The creation of the firmament-heaven, visible to man, means in
part that man, like the Spirit, will work at shaping the world
after the heavenly model. The highest heaven is invisible to us,
but the firmament-heaven gives us a visible blueprint.
The fact that the firmament-heaven contains images of
heaven (stars, birds, rainbows) is delightful and wonderful, but
it does not carry us very far in terms of a descriptive program. It
is the Bible, God’s Word, that is our primary blueprint. Since
heaven is the blueprint, the Bible is a heavenly book. The Bible
teaches this in imagery, for we read that the sky is like a scroll
(Isaiah 34:4; Revelation 6:14). This relates to the very word
jirmament, which as we saw refers to something stretched or
beaten out, like a scroll.
The primary passage that relates heaven to the Bible as our
blueprint is Psalm 19. The first six verses of the psalm have to do
with the heavens, which “are telling of the glory of God; and the
firmament is declaring the work of His hands.” Having cele-
brated the visible revelation of God’s glory in the heavens, the
psalmist then celebrates the Law-Word of God in verses 7-11. The
relationship is clear: The “speech” that is poured forth from the
heavens is found in the Bible.
Thus, in terms of the Biblical worldview, the blue sky and all
that it contains are to remind us of God, of His Word, and of our
wonderful project of “heavenizing” the earth.

Seeing God’s Glory
When Israel came out of Egypt, they grumbled against Moses
and Aaron because they did not have anything to eat. Moses
and Aaron called the people together and told them that God
would provide them heavenly bread, manna, and that

in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD. . . . And it
came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the
sons of Israel, that they turned toward the wilderness, and