Heaven on Earth
God Called the Firmament Heaven
By Pastor Bob Enyart
At Denver Bible Church, we teach Dr. Walt Brown’s Hydroplate Theory as the best understanding of Noah’s Flood, geology and the relevant scriptures. On Day Two of creation, God formed the crust of the earth, the firmament, above a massive subterranean ocean of water miles underground. “Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament,” (Gen. 1:7). The global flood began when these “fountains of the great deep were broken up,” (Gen. 7:11). Dr. Brown’s book, In the Beginning, goes on to demonstrate powerfully that the world’s major geologic features flow logically from these initial conditions. But some creationists who disagree point out that, “God called the firmament Heaven” (Gen. 1:8), claiming that this firmament must be either the atmosphere (Morris) or outer space (Humphreys).
However at DBC we show that, whether figurative or literal, the crust of the earth is the boundary between heaven and hell. Everything below the crust can be referred to as hell, the prison God had planned for any future unrepentant beings, “Hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming” (Isa. 14:9). Everything above the crust can be referred to as heaven. Thus dozens of verses indicate that heaven also refers to the earth’s atmosphere as in “rain from heaven;” the “dew of heaven;” city walls “fortified up to heaven;” Sinai “burned with fire to the midst of heaven;” “dust from the heaven;” drought means “the heavens are shut;” “birds of heaven;” “frost of heaven;” “clouds of heaven;” “snow from heaven;” and “hail from heaven.” So not only God’s throne room, but His entire realm, everything not under the earth’s crust He referred to as heaven, including Earth before the Fall.
Adam lived not underground, as a “worm” that “does not die,” but above ground, in heaven on earth. Since the earth’s crust formed the border between heaven and hell (with even the floodwaters of judgment held underground), therefore heaven began at the firmament, thus “God called the firmament Heaven.” After the Fall, earth permanently lost its designation as a part of heaven, and even the New Earth will differ greatly from God’s original heaven on earth. Thus we should expect the Bible to refer to earth as heaven only prior to the Fall. For afterward it became associated with the rebellion. Therefore while Isaiah 14:12 describes “Lucifer” as “fallen from heaven,” Scripture places him on earth at the moment of his fall. “You were in Eden, the garden of God,” (Ezek. 28:13), and “you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,’” (Isa. 14:13 14), “yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit,” (Isa. 14:15). Even though he was on earth, Lucifer fell “from heaven,” because prior to the Fall, the surface of the earth was still part of the realm of heaven. In the modern classic, Soul of Science, (1994, p. 38), Pearcey and Thaxton describe the view of Christian “medieval cosmology” which caught the spirit of God’s original nomenclature, that “at the very center of the universe was Hell, then the earth, then (moving outward from the center) the progressively nobler spheres of the heavens.” The Bible throughout, even after the Fall, from Job and Genesis, through the Gospels, Acts and Revelation, continues to refer to the atmosphere, one molecule above the ground, as heaven. And David even seems to refer to the “earth” as “the foundations of heaven” (2 Sam. 22:8). Thus this understanding, that God classified the original crust as part of heaven, only expands today’s accepted definition of the term heaven by one molecule, to include not only the atmosphere, but the foundation of that atmosphere, the crust itself.
As man quickly rebelled, though, earth became more like hell than heaven. So man’s habitation promptly lost its designation as part of heaven. Thus the firmament on earth (which divided the waters of the earth, Gen. 1:2, 6), was originally called “heaven,” which Genesis 1 then carefully differentiated from outer space by consistently calling space the “firmament of the heavens.” Moses used the word firmament nine times in the creation story, the last four distinguished from the first four, pivoting around the central instance where God called the earth’s firmament Heaven, by the exceptional repetition of the prepositional phrase, “of the heavens.” That is, each of the four instances in the second grouping (Gen. 1:14, 15, 17, 20) is qualified as “the firmament of the heavens,” so that the reader will not confuse this firmament (of space) with the previous firmament (of the earth). Many centuries, which include the Fall and the tower of Babel, separate the writing of Scripture from the original creation. Therefore after reporting God’s name for the firmament surface of the earth as “Heaven,” the Author took pains to differentiate that other firmament, space, by four times including the qualifying prepositional phrase, “of the heavens,” declaring this a distinct firmament, so that readers alien to the notion of “heaven” on earth will nonetheless be able to distinguish the two firmaments, and understand God’s meaning. Now, millennia after the Fall, sin has almost completely obscured God’s original perspective of the earth’s surface as “heaven,” His own record of creation notwithstanding.
The Bible describes Hell as below, bounded by the firmament, thus “God called the firmament Heaven” because that’s where His innocent children would live, above ground on the surface, in the heavens, in fellowship with Him, not in any other realm but in His heavenly kingdom, in heaven on earth.
God Called the Firmament Heaven
By Pastor Bob Enyart
At Denver Bible Church, we teach Dr. Walt Brown’s Hydroplate Theory as the best understanding of Noah’s Flood, geology and the relevant scriptures. On Day Two of creation, God formed the crust of the earth, the firmament, above a massive subterranean ocean of water miles underground. “Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament,” (Gen. 1:7). The global flood began when these “fountains of the great deep were broken up,” (Gen. 7:11). Dr. Brown’s book, In the Beginning, goes on to demonstrate powerfully that the world’s major geologic features flow logically from these initial conditions. But some creationists who disagree point out that, “God called the firmament Heaven” (Gen. 1:8), claiming that this firmament must be either the atmosphere (Morris) or outer space (Humphreys).
However at DBC we show that, whether figurative or literal, the crust of the earth is the boundary between heaven and hell. Everything below the crust can be referred to as hell, the prison God had planned for any future unrepentant beings, “Hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming” (Isa. 14:9). Everything above the crust can be referred to as heaven. Thus dozens of verses indicate that heaven also refers to the earth’s atmosphere as in “rain from heaven;” the “dew of heaven;” city walls “fortified up to heaven;” Sinai “burned with fire to the midst of heaven;” “dust from the heaven;” drought means “the heavens are shut;” “birds of heaven;” “frost of heaven;” “clouds of heaven;” “snow from heaven;” and “hail from heaven.” So not only God’s throne room, but His entire realm, everything not under the earth’s crust He referred to as heaven, including Earth before the Fall.
Adam lived not underground, as a “worm” that “does not die,” but above ground, in heaven on earth. Since the earth’s crust formed the border between heaven and hell (with even the floodwaters of judgment held underground), therefore heaven began at the firmament, thus “God called the firmament Heaven.” After the Fall, earth permanently lost its designation as a part of heaven, and even the New Earth will differ greatly from God’s original heaven on earth. Thus we should expect the Bible to refer to earth as heaven only prior to the Fall. For afterward it became associated with the rebellion. Therefore while Isaiah 14:12 describes “Lucifer” as “fallen from heaven,” Scripture places him on earth at the moment of his fall. “You were in Eden, the garden of God,” (Ezek. 28:13), and “you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,’” (Isa. 14:13 14), “yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit,” (Isa. 14:15). Even though he was on earth, Lucifer fell “from heaven,” because prior to the Fall, the surface of the earth was still part of the realm of heaven. In the modern classic, Soul of Science, (1994, p. 38), Pearcey and Thaxton describe the view of Christian “medieval cosmology” which caught the spirit of God’s original nomenclature, that “at the very center of the universe was Hell, then the earth, then (moving outward from the center) the progressively nobler spheres of the heavens.” The Bible throughout, even after the Fall, from Job and Genesis, through the Gospels, Acts and Revelation, continues to refer to the atmosphere, one molecule above the ground, as heaven. And David even seems to refer to the “earth” as “the foundations of heaven” (2 Sam. 22:8). Thus this understanding, that God classified the original crust as part of heaven, only expands today’s accepted definition of the term heaven by one molecule, to include not only the atmosphere, but the foundation of that atmosphere, the crust itself.
As man quickly rebelled, though, earth became more like hell than heaven. So man’s habitation promptly lost its designation as part of heaven. Thus the firmament on earth (which divided the waters of the earth, Gen. 1:2, 6), was originally called “heaven,” which Genesis 1 then carefully differentiated from outer space by consistently calling space the “firmament of the heavens.” Moses used the word firmament nine times in the creation story, the last four distinguished from the first four, pivoting around the central instance where God called the earth’s firmament Heaven, by the exceptional repetition of the prepositional phrase, “of the heavens.” That is, each of the four instances in the second grouping (Gen. 1:14, 15, 17, 20) is qualified as “the firmament of the heavens,” so that the reader will not confuse this firmament (of space) with the previous firmament (of the earth). Many centuries, which include the Fall and the tower of Babel, separate the writing of Scripture from the original creation. Therefore after reporting God’s name for the firmament surface of the earth as “Heaven,” the Author took pains to differentiate that other firmament, space, by four times including the qualifying prepositional phrase, “of the heavens,” declaring this a distinct firmament, so that readers alien to the notion of “heaven” on earth will nonetheless be able to distinguish the two firmaments, and understand God’s meaning. Now, millennia after the Fall, sin has almost completely obscured God’s original perspective of the earth’s surface as “heaven,” His own record of creation notwithstanding.
The Bible describes Hell as below, bounded by the firmament, thus “God called the firmament Heaven” because that’s where His innocent children would live, above ground on the surface, in the heavens, in fellowship with Him, not in any other realm but in His heavenly kingdom, in heaven on earth.
