Bible Poetry Reading Plan: Job 31-32
What Happened to the Heavenly City?
Revelation 21:10-11 And He carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed
me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its
radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (ESV)
The Jews in New Testament times did not think of paradise and the Garden of Eden like we do
now – as two separate places; one in the past and one in the future; one earthly and one Heavenly.
Unlike us, the Jews assumed that the paradise where God lives now, and where godly people all
hope to go after they die, is the very same paradise – the Garden of Eden – that Adam and Eve
once lived in, way back in the beginning. They believed that the Garden of Eden continued to exist,
in Heaven, after Adam and Eve left it, and their hope for the future was that the Messiah would
one day welcome them back into that same Garden. This is important to realize because all of the
New Testament writers were Jews, and many of the people they were writing to were coming out
of a Jewish mindset. We know that the Garden of Eden is not on earth today and the Bible doesn’t
tell us what happened to it. We know that it used to be on earth, we know that it still exists right
now as part of the Heavenly City and we know that it will come down to the earth again someday.
Therefore, God must have taken it up from the earth at some point in the past. Believing that the
Heavenly city once went up from the earth is no more weird than believing it will one day come
down to the earth (Rev 21:1-4); if it can come down, it could certainly have gone up at some point.
Our best guess, and there are ancient Jewish writings which also attest to this, is that God took the
Heavenly city up from the earth during the Flood of Noah.
PRAYER and MEDITATION
1. When reading the Bible it is important to understand the Jewish mindset. Pray that as a
church we would grow in our understanding of the ancient Jewish people so that we can
continue to go deeper into the Word.
2. The Jews lived with the hope of living in Paradise one day with their God. Has your desire for
eternity grown through doing these devotionals? Pray that it will continue to grow and become
the centre of how you live your life here on earth.
3. Ask the Lord to give you deeper understanding of the Word of God and to grow you in being a
lover of Truth – His Truth, through His Word. Pray that the Scriptures would come alive to you
as you read and meditate on them.
