Question
Is there information on why God put His city in heaven first instead of creating it on earth to begin with?
Response
Yes, I think there is information that lets us understand why God first created the city for His kingdom in heaven and not on the earth to begin with. It is evident to me from a passage like Job 38:4-7 that God wanted the creatures of His creation to be part of the work and pageantry of establishing His residence and kingdom on the earth in the midst of His creation. He designed and planned for them to understand and appreciate what He was doing with His creation as a whole and with the earth in particular; to observe His activities in forming, preparing, and readying the earth as His special place; and to participate with Him and to rejoice with Him in the establishment of His residence and kingdom within His creation on the earth. His plan and purpose, therefore, was not to have the earth first created, formed, and established as His residence and capital of His kingdom, and then to create His creatures into it. But instead to have His creatures be a part of what He was doing, to observe the establishment of His kingdom on the earth, and to rejoice over it.
As God states in this particular passage, when He created the earth and performed the initial work of forming it into the place of His residence and kingdom, the creatures of the angelic realm were observing what He was doing and they were rejoicing in it. They understood and appreciated what He was doing, and this is something God wanted them to do. He provided for them to observe Him making the earth into the special place within all of creation that He purposed it to be, and He wanted them to participate in what He was doing; just as verse 7 relates that they did at the outset. With the creation of man on the earth, he too was to participate in it. And in accordance with the instructions that God gave to Adam it is evident to me that man had a role to perform in preparation for the bringing of God’s kingdom to the earth.
Wherefore, my understanding is that the primary reason why God created the city for His kingdom in the third heaven first and not on the earth has nothing to do with efficiency or anything like that. Rather it has to do with it being His intended purpose that the creatures of His creation participate with Him in the establishment of the earth as the place of His residence and His kingdom within creation.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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