John 10:22-30 22At that time the Feast of Dedicationa took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23and Jesus was walking in the temple courts in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24So the Jews gathered around Him and demanded, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”25“I already told you,” Jesus replied, “but you did not believe. The works I do in My Father’s name testify on My behalf. 26But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe. 27My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. 28I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. 29My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.”
Now, in other posts, I have gone into why I, as a Christian, no longer celebrate Christmas....and so I won't go into that in this post, other than to say, my decision in Faith in Christ to not celebrate rests on correction in the Holy Spirit, delivered through more than one passage in Scripture. The reason though that I began to celebrate/observe in Faith in Christ, the Feast of Dedication(re-dedication of the Temple, and we are the Temple of God)...is because, Our Lord during His time walking this earth, did observe the Feast of Dedication...and it was on the Feast of Dedication, when He was at the Temple, in Solomon's Colonnade, that Our Lord plainly revealed to the Pharisees that He is the Christ....which as Our Lord noted, He had already told them...but, they did not believe.
Awhile back I did a few posts on the topic of the Theory of Heliocentrism(the Heliocentric model/or "global model of earth and universe"...which teaches that earth is allegedly a globe, and allegedly spins, and allegedly moves around the sun etc....I evidenced from Scripture, in Faith in Christ, in many places, beginning with the Book of Genesis...exactly how this scientific theory, teaches a model which completely and blantantly denies everything which God, in the Word of God in Christ, has told us He created and how God describes what He has created....and noted in those posts, that Heliocentrism therefore is against Christ...because all things which were created, were created in Christ/with Christ...Who is the Truth of God, the living Word of God....to deny what God has told us is the Truth of God concerning what He created as He has described for us...denies the Truth of God in Christ.
In that post I also presented a lot of evidence outside of Scripture, which disputes the Theory of Heliocentrism...the model of "a globular earth, and of universe"...
But even though tons of evidence exists to dispute the Heliocentric model, and exists to evidence that, the earth is not a moving/spinning globe...It really boils down to one key thing if one is a Faithful Christian, striving to Uphold the Word of God in Christ: that one key thing rests on, what did Our Lord Himself, uphold as the Truth of God, concerning the structure of the earth and heavens...? Well ancient Hebrews, the Jews of that time and before Christ was made man by the Power of the Holy Spirit, and born on earth...embraced the following:
An early-twentieth-century conceptualization of ancient cosmology. Early Hebrews conceived of the universe as consisting of a disk-shaped Earth that was the center of the cosmos, in which a domelike sky was supported by pillars of heaven. From G. L. Robinson's Leaders of Israel (New York: Association Press, 1913), p. 2.
and the visual depiction of this model of the earth and heavens which they believed in is, shown below:
and, 1Corinthians 12:13 12The body is a unit, though it is comprised of many parts. And although its parts are many, they all form one body. So it is with Christ.13For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink.
Now Our Lord, being Jewish would have also embraced that model, which was taught at that time, as the model of the earth and heavens which God created, as described through the Scriptures(the Word of God in Christ)..In other words, Our Lord being Jewish would have also embraced the model which the Hebrews of that time did believe in as being the Biblical interpretation of what God has said He created as the earth and the heavens...
.Our Lord did correct the Hebrew people on many many things, where they(including the Pharisees), had come away from the Truth of God, and come away from the Word of God; and God through the Power of the Holy Spirit, and through his Almighty Power, has ensured that we today have those corrections accounted to us, in the Word of God in Christ, in the Holy Bible, which God has preserved for our correction our instruction, our spiritual benefit in Faith in Christ:
2Timothy 3:16…15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.…
Nowhere in the Word of God, does God correct the Hebrews of the Old Testament time period, concerning that they taught their children, and they themselves believed in, a flat and stationary earth(as pictured above), as the Truth of God, as defined by the Word of God(Scriptures)....Nowhere in the New Testament, does Our Lord correct this model which the Hebrews did(and this is historical fact....)embrace as the biblical model of the earth and heavens(as the model revealed to them through the Scriptures)....Our Lord did not correct the Hebrews belief, and surely He would have Corrected them if they had been teaching as Truth of God's creation, a model which was not upholding the Truth of God/the Word of God as delivered to them...and nowhere in the new Testament is such a correction noted anywhere...and of course if that had been incorrect, then the Holy Spirit ...the Spirit of Truth, would have corrected Christian believers for all time, in the Word of God...
The fact is that, the theory of Heliocentrism...only began to be taught as if truth, beginning five hundred years ago when Copernicus dusted off some anicent pagan beliefs which together form his theory of Heliocentrism...and then had it(through the backing of the Catholic Church) published and promoted from there.
Now I could go on to pull out at this point, all the evidence which exists outside of the Word of God(and, if you want to go over it...there is a post which does present some of that on this site(titled debunking Heliocentrism or something like that)
...but the fact is, the Word of God clearly describes throughout it, a flat, non-moving earth(and there is a post on here which details the passages in Scripture which all together, completely dispute the Theory of Heliocentrism...and, that is why, the ancient Hebrews, including Our Lord Himself , embraced that model as shown in the illustration above, was the model of the earth and heavens which, the ancient Hebrews believed in, because it was an accurate interpretation of what God has created.
God tells us in Genesis, in chronological detail, exactly what He created...and if you take a pen and slowly, step by step, draw out what He is describing while you are reading it, you do not end up with a sphere...not at all.
Paul plainly explains to us, that (just as the ancient Hebrew model as illustrated above shows also)...the realm of the dead where upon His death, Christ descended(before He ascended above all theheavens) is in the nether (lower)parts of the earth(Sheol): Ephesians 4:9-10
9What does “He ascended” mean, except that He also descended to the lower parts of the earth? 10He who descended is the very one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.
Paul does not say to the middle parts of the earth, because that would be incorrect...He says lower parts, because that is where Sheol is, and that is exactly what the ancient Hebrew model as pictured above, embraced as the Truth of God, concerning the structure of the earth and heavens as God created them.
Finally God explains that He put the Heavens high above/higher than(not surrounding) the earth as a reminder to us.., for this reason: Isaiah 55:9 " 8“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.