The sun is so perfect for sustaining human life, it's incredible.
According to astronomers, compared with other stars the sun is nothing to write home about. Yet the energy that animates living matter on planet earth—every flower, each tree, all living creatures—is derived from the heat and light of the sun. Move it a little closer or farther away and we find ourselves in deep trouble. Extinguish it and we are goners.
We survive because we soak up only a fraction of the sun's heat. Our star is 93 million miles away from the earth, a comfortable distance from this powerhouse of white-hot molten energy.The space probe Soho provides us with scientific facts about the sun we never knew before. But certain fundamental understanding can only come from only one source.
It would be strange indeed had the Bible said nothing about the sun. But God's Word mentions the solar body more than 150 times throughout its pages. Perhaps most important biblical reference about the sun is the simple observation that God created it (Genesis 1:1, 14). Thus humanity has no valid reason to worship the flaming orb as some of the Israelites and other ancient peoples did (2 Kings 23:11; Ezekiel 8:16-17; see also Romans 1:25).
Sometimes the sun is mentioned in Scripture in the context of the 24-hour day. At other times it is used metaphorically. For instance, in the transfiguration account, depicting the glorified Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God, His face shone like the sun (Matthew l7:2). In the book of Revelation describes the face of Christ as "the sun shining in its strength" (Revelation 1:16). The glory of God the Father and of Jesus Christ is declared to be greater and more enduring than sunlight (Revelation 21:23).
The apostle Paul even compares the resurrection of the righteous to the heavenly bodies in their glory, mentioning the sun in particular (1 Corinthians 15:40-44). The Hebrew Bible shows that these same righteous men and women "shall shine like the brightness of the firmament" (Daniel 12:3). Jesus Christ Himself said that "the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43).
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