Weird Ideas: Seated at the Right Hand of GodНамуна

The Bible pictures a great divide between heaven and earth. What was once supposed to be fused together in harmony is now broken and separated because of sin. God is high. We are low. God is there. We are here. God is in heaven. We are on earth. God’s purpose, of course, is to reunite heaven and earth, making them one again. That’s why Revelation will talk about God coming down to dwell among us and form a new heaven and new earth.

That doesn’t mean God stays separate completely. The story of the Bible unfolds ways heaven and earth intersect – ways God comes down.

A notable image is the temple. More than a house of worship, the temple was an intersection of heaven and earth. Isaiah will talk about seeing God seated on his throne in heaven, with the bottom of his robe reaching down into the temple. A connection – God in heaven, God on earth.

In the temple was the Ark of the Covenant, placed between two cherubim overshadowing it. Just as God is seated in heaven with angels all around, so the Ark represents God’s presence on earth, seated beneath images of these angels. Biblical writers would come to call the Ark God’s footstool. If God is seated on his throne in heaven, then the Ark in the temple here on earth is where God’s legs hit the ground as he props up his feet.

This idea of God’s footstool is quoted in Psalm 110, the most quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament. Why? Because Jesus ruling from heaven on God’s throne is central to his identity and to our hope.