“Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, and you possess it and live in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you bring in from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name…. When you have finished paying all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. You shall say before the LORD your God…. ‘Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as You swore to our fathers'” (Deut 26:1-2, 12-13, 15).
How easily we can miss the incredible theological implications of this passage if we are not paying careful attention. According to verses 1-2, God commands his people to bring the first-fruits of their produce to “the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name” (v. 2). After paying these first-fruit tithes and while still standing before the LORD at his tabernacle (vv. 12-13), they are commanded to pray to the LORD: “Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel” (v. 15).
Did you catch that? While standing at God’s sanctuary on earth, God’s people are commanded to pray to the LORD in his sanctuary in heaven. Isn’t this a contradiction? According to this passage, there are two temples where the LORD is simultaneously present, one in heaven and one on earth. Yet according to the math of Deuteronomy, one LORD in heaven and one LORD on earth equals ONE GOD.
“Hear O Israel the LORD our God, the LORD is ONE” (Deut 6:4).
On the Earth yet Also in Heaven
When the New Testament writers identify Yeshua as the LORD on earth (Mark 1:1-3; 4:35-41; John 1:14; Phil 2:9-11) while simultaneously affirming their belief in the LORD in heaven (Mark 1:9-11), they are not introducing new religious ideas about the God of Israel. They aren’t even contradicting the theology of the Torah. To say God is with us on earth at the same time God is watching over us in heaven is honestly and truly the faith handed down to us by our fathers! For the Torah itself affirms that the God of heaven commanded his people to build a tabernacle on earth because he does not believe in long distance relationships!
“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col 2:9). “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him” (1 Cor 8:5-6).
