Page 56 - Through New Eyes

The World as God% House 49
Still later, when the Temple was about to be destroyed, God’s
glory appeared to Ezekiel in Babylon. God told Ezekiel that He
was moving out of the Temple, and was going to reside in exile
with His people (Ezekiel 8-11). Ezekiel was granted a vision
through the blue firmament into the cloud, and what he saw was
a chariot made of four cherubim with wheels, surrounded by a
rainbow: God’s portable throne (Ezekiel 1:4-28). Earlier, Isaiah
had had a similar vision of God’s heavenly, cloud-filled throne-
room (Isaiah 6:1-4).
Last, but certainly not least, the apostle John was caught up
into the cloud, and into heaven itself, where he stood on the
firmament and saw the throne of God and all sorts of heavenly
phenomena (Revelation 4-5). 10
In Chapters 12-18 of this book, we shall examine these vari-
ous heaven models in detail, because they were also pictures of
the world. Remember, heaven is the model for the earth. Each
of these symbolic pictures was given to teach the people of that
time how they were to live and relate to God. Accompanying
each visual blueprint were words from God, verbal blueprints. It
was man’s task to build the world, carrying it from glory to glory,
and making it a fit house for God. God dwells in heaven, but He
wants also to dwell on earth, when man has made it ready for
Him. Heaven is God’s throne-house, but potentially, so is the
earth. The blueprint for God’s earth-house is heaven.

T~ology
The Greek word typos refers to an image impressed onto
something else, for instance, wax. 11 It is the word used in Scrip-
ture for the imprint of God’s heavenly pattern on the earth, and
thus it is absolutely fundamental to a Biblical worldview.
In Acts 7:44 Stephen says, “Our fathers had the Tabernacle of
testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses di-
rected him to make it according to the pattern [type] which he had
seen.” Similarly, Hebrews 8:5, quoting Exodus 25:40, reminds
us that Moses was told, “See that you make all things according
to the pattern [type] which was shown you on the mountain.”
As we have seen, there are a succession of such imprints.
Each imprint is more glorious than the one before. Solomon’s
Temple was more glorious than the Mosaic Tabernacle. Ezekiel’s