The wise leaders will shine with all the brightness of the sky. And those who have taught many people to do what is right will shine like the stars forever.
(Daniel 12:3) Good News Translation
Then God’s people will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Listen, then, if you have ears!
(Matthew 13:43) Good News Translation
The creation of gravity and formation of the firmament was to establish a place, heaven, where God would dwell in perpetual light because the firmament is bright like the sun, as we see from Daniel.
- IF Jesus said that the righteous shall shine like the sun,
- AND Daniel wrote that the wise who turn people to righteousness shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and of the stars,
- THEN the firmament shines like the sun.
We all have the same evidence. Our choice of paradigm determines what we think it’s evidence of.
– Matty’s Razor
The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God shines on it, and the Lamb is its lamp.
(Revelation 21:23) Good News Translation
We already know that the firmament shines brightly, and that it was the source of light on the second and third days of creation, because it’s confirmed as the source of brightness in John’s vision of heaven.
However, God hid the proof of his presence as part of his plan of redemption. God gave us free will so that those of us who want to know Him will make a choice to believe. It can’t be blindingly obvious that God created us, that would mean there is no free will. God hid himself from view from below by clothing the inner surface of the firmament in blackness.
I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.
(Isaiah 50:3) English Standard Version
This gives us a way to account for a passage in Psalm 18, about riding the heavens, where within the same context the Bible refers to God being in light and darkness at the same time.
Matty's Paradigm 