Studying Genesis and Revelation in tandem is quite helpful in understanding what everything is all about, and what the Bible truly says about the beginning and the end. I would say, for the most part, I’ve never quite made the proper connections.
These bookends fit together like lock and key. They parallel each other and rhyme, and seem almost mirror images once you lay it all out. Remarkable symmetry.
We started out after Creation in a Utopian paradise. Sin introduced entropy into the world, which increased slowly over time. An easy life of leisure gradually declined into labor and toil, with ever-diminishing returns. Lifespans stretched almost a thousand years for the first 1600 years, until the earth was knocked off its foundations and rapidly fell into chaos and ruin. In the centuries which followed, lifespans declined rapidly over each successive generation, from around 500 years, to 400, to 300, to 200, to less than 150.
Revelation picks up the narrative in the very near future. A fantastic world war ends in ruin and once again knocks the earth off its hinges, bringing an end to another age of mankind, but not the end of the world. After Armageddon, entropy rapidly reverses, and the earth is transformed once more into a Utopian paradise. Lifespans jump back up to several hundreds of years. Wars and diseases cease. Food is plentiful, and poverty non-existent. Governments function without corruption. All news agencies tell the truth. Christ is the king of the earth — no longer an invisible abstraction or a concept to be debated. Yet, even then, in a perfect world with every excuse removed, many will choose to reject the truth and die in their unbelief. And after a thousand years of Utopian paradise, a final world war is waged (Armageddon II). Boom. Creation I ceases, and Creation II begins — and this time, the perfection is eternal.
Interestingly, this world begins and ends in Edenic paradise, both times disrupted by the Great Dragon, the Serpent, as he convinces humanity to join him against the Lord of Creation. And both times — first spiritually, then literally — he is defeated by Christ. Very poetic, I think.
The Interminable Frozen Pond 
Reblogged this on oogenhand.
Posted by oogenhand | 9 May, 2014, 3:01 pmSin and repentance on a world-wide scale. It makes sense that this is what is seen in the Bible as the future.
Posted by jasonjshaw | 10 May, 2014, 12:09 pmMost people assume the Bible says earth is destroyed during “Armageddon,” that when we pray “Thy Kingdom come,” we’re praying for his spiritual kingdom to be on earth. Jesus is identified in scripture as the King of the Jews and the King of Israel, the King of Kings. His kingdom is an earthly one, whereas the “Kingdom of God” is in Heaven.
A great many people survive the apocalypse. The world continues into the Golden Age of history and ends in perfection.
Posted by Quackzalcoatl | 10 May, 2014, 4:55 pmExactly, starts in perfection, falls in sin, goes through all sorts of turmoil in repentance, ends in perfection. Biblical Earth mirrors the suggested path of the individual believer.
Makes me wonder if the Biblical path of humanity is more of an extrapolation of the life path of a born-again believer. It makes sense as to how such ideas came to be written and believed.
Posted by jasonjshaw | 10 May, 2014, 6:49 pmIt also makes me wonder how Christians throughout history could be so anti-Semitic. When Jesus reigns on earth after the apocalypse, he reigns in Israel as the leader of the world — analogous to the American President since the end of WWII. There is no longer a Church (sorry, Mr. Pope). Interesting concept.
Posted by Quackzalcoatl | 10 May, 2014, 7:11 pmI think God may have overestimated the human capacity for taking the time to read thoroughly and thoughtfully in His presentation of the narrative of existence in the form of the Holy Bible. He might have fared better with a companion pamphlet highlighting the key points rather than trusting people in a business hierarchy (the church) to handle that.
Posted by jasonjshaw | 10 May, 2014, 7:22 pmNothing can ever be plain enough. Even with what amounts to God Himself reigning physically on earth in a Utopian paradise, a great multitude of people aren’t satisfied. Thus, Armageddon II, the true War to End All Wars.
Posted by Quackzalcoatl | 10 May, 2014, 7:56 pmReblogged this on Christianity Simplified and commented:
Sin and repentance is a key concept in Christianity. It only makes sense that the concept would be expanded from the personal scale to the worldwide scale in what is Biblically predicted for the future. A good concept to be aware of, even if in reality it doesn’t actually occur in such a finite way.
Posted by jasonjshaw | 10 May, 2014, 12:16 pmPoetic, but a stretch in literacy devices. You are only making this connection due to someone’s decision to structure the Bible as we not have it in such a way. So you are doing so upon the assumption that this is how the Bible should be structured.
The facts are that Genesis’ creation story is written in an Archaic Hebrew that far predates, vastly, any of the other languages used in the entirety of the collection of books. Revelation, similarly, is written in a vastly different language with different poetic devices. One could just read Revelation as John’s acid trip, and many do.
You are welcome to your perspective though, and thanks for sharing it. I may not agree, but you are correct in saying it can be seen through a poetic lens, if one chooses to take upon them those glasses.
Posted by nikeyo | 11 May, 2014, 5:59 pmI believe that the scroll in the fourth chapter of the Book of Revelation is all of Holy Scripture that can only be understood in the light of Jesus Christ. The first five seals are opened to reveal a recapitulation from Genesis forward. The first seal represents the condition of Adam and Eve before the fall, and the second through fourth seal represent the human conditions since the fall. The fifth seal represents the ongoing tribulation of the Church awaiting the Lord’s return. The sixth and seventh seal reveal the events yet to take place.
Posted by Marc | 13 May, 2014, 10:53 pm