Blog Six, September 12, 2025

The Four Spheres of Earth

“And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them’” (Acts 4:24, ESV, emphasis added)

Earth is a dynamic body with separate but highly interactive spheres. Each sphere is a system, a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. Environmental scientists speak of the “four spheres of Earth”:

• The Atmosphere, which is the air above Earth’s surface.

• The Geosphere (The Dry Land) consists of Earth’s crust, mantle, and core. Its surface is further differentiated into the lithosphere (rock), the continents, and ocean basins.

• The Hydrosphere, the water component of Earth. Nearly 71% of our planet’s surface is covered with water, about 97% of the waters are salt water (oceans, seas).

• The Biosphere (where life exists) reaches to the other spheres. It includes all life and is found from the ocean floor upward for several kilometers into the atmosphere.

The writer of Acts differentiated Creation the same way: Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. Creation consists of four components; the number four signifies Earth or Creation. Thus, man’s “scientific” segmentation of Earth systems matches the Creator’s.

The Acts context is the Body of Christ, Creator and Redeemer of Earth. Jesus spoke the created realm with its systems into existence with a word of His mouth (Colossians 1:16-17). He fashioned its interlocking parts into flawless machinery suitable to fulfill every need of mankind and living things. Jesus came to Earth to save us from our sins and promises to return to Earth to redeem His people.

Interestingly, the Book of Wisdom provides a similar and fascinating look at the spheres of Earth by listing these yet again. Here, however, the physics of the three inanimate (inorganic) spheres are mentioned in wonder alongside the biology of the living component:

“Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand:

(1) the way of an eagle in the sky, (atmosphere, the dynamics of flight)

(2) the way of a serpent on a rock, (geosphere, the physics of movement on land)

(3) the way of a ship on the high seas, (hydrosphere, the buoyancy on water bodies)

(4) and the way of a man with a virgin” (biosphere, the human drive to reproduce)

(Proverbs 30:18-19 ESV, numbering and comments added).

God has sanctioned investigation of Earth by the human mind! The four spheres of Earth, working in tandem, provide ample resources for our needs and considerable prospects for our study. Man has studied his world since he was placed here, and today we know a lot more – yet there is enough unknown to challenge us until the end of time. We will never reach the bottom of Earth’s storehouse of knowledge. The wisdom of God includes spiritual maturity, understanding, and discernment, but also scientific knowledge of Creation; we are commanded to seek both.

The wonder of Proverbs 30 is captured when we submit to the Creator’s wisdom and study the intricate natural realm placed before us. He was given us intelligence and reasoning ability to grasp and learn its physical and chemical features, and ordered it so we can master it and even model it mathematically.

Praise to our Creator, Lord of heaven and earth and sea and all living things found in these three domains! Let us celebrate the freedom He gives us to gaze at these in wonder and take dominion of Earth.

D. E.