As A River Flows

by Wayne Blank

Those who are in the habit of reading The Bible from beginning to end (see 52-Week Bible Reading Plan) often realize that there is a definite purpose in the sequence of people and events of Bible History. It isn't just a haphazard record of who and what happened, but rather is more like a river flowing from its source to its destination. Many things found at the beginning of Genesis are a foreshadow (see Type and Antitype) of what is fulfilled by the end of Revelation. Some examples:

The Holy Bible The creation of the heavens and the earth, and the creation of the new heaven and a new earth:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1 RSV)
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1 RSV)

The coming of light, and the coming of the Light:

"And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light." (Genesis 1:3 RSV)
"And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the Glory of God is its Light, and its Lamp is the Lamb. By its Light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day - and there shall be no night there" (Revelation 21:23 RSV)

When death will have outlived its purpose:

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Genesis 2:17 RSV)
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more" (Revelation 21:4 RSV)

Humanity began physical life near a river, a foreshadow of the "river of the water of [eternal] life":

"A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden" (Genesis 2:10 RSV)
"Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1 RSV)

The Tree of Life returns:

"Then The Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever" - therefore The Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the Tree of Life." (Genesis 3:22-24 RSV)
"Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the Tree of Life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:1-2 RSV)

Fact Finder: Is Jesus Christ "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end"?
Revelation 22:13

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