“Thus saith the LORD GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her” (Ezekiel 5:5).

It is doubtful that enough was known about geography in Ezekiel’s day for him to be able to know that Jerusalem was “in the midst of the nations and countries” of the world. In fact, he also said that the people of Israel in the last days “dwell in the midst of the land” (Ezekiel 38:12). The last phrase could better be rendered “the center of the earth.”

In any case, Ezekiel was right! It would have been essentially impossible to determine the center of the earth’s land masses before the advent of modern computers, but this has now been done. A computer study sponsored by I.C.R. twenty years ago determined that the sum of the distances from a point in the “Bible lands” to all other increments of land areas on Earth would be smaller than from any other point on the earth’s surface.

Not only is this region (and probably Jerusalem itself, if we had precise information on the exact shape of the continents and their continental shelves) the geographic center of the earth, but it is also the spiritual center. It was there where Christ died and rose again and it is also there where He will come again and reign over the earth (Zechariah 14:4,9).

For that matter, the New Jerusalem will, in the ages to come, be the center of the entire universe. We do not know where the center of the universe is now, for one cannot even define the center of infinite space. The best we can do is to assume that the universe is centered around the throne of its Creator, from where it was “stretched out” in the beginning (Psalm 104:2). And, of course, when the New Jerusalem comes down to the new earth, “the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it” (Revelation 21:2; 22:3), and all who know Him now will live there too. HMM