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Creation: Not Random but Purposeful

The Bible starts with a simple but attention getting phrase, "In the beginning".  If you do a little digging and take a look at the Hebrew word that phrase translates you will find that it designates the start of a period of time.  In other words "in the beginning" is the start of a segment of time that will eventually end.  So, implicit in those opening words of the Bible is that there will be an ending.  Between "In the beginning" and the end is what we call history.

 History, as far as the Bible is concerned, if purposeful, meaningful, and heading toward a conclusion. In his excellent book The End : A Complete Overview of Bible Prophecy and the End of Days (click on that link so you can hop over to Amazon on get a copy) Mark Hitchcock writes that history is not and endless series of reincarnations, and that the world will not just go on forever through unending cycles of history (p. 9).  Instead, God has a goal in mind and that goal is to bring glory to Himself.  John Piper puts it like this "All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and His Son among all the peoples of the earth."
Since history has a purpose and since Genesis begins and sets the ultimate trajectory of history and Revelation closes it, it is not surprising to find parallels between these two books.  For instance in Gn. 1:1 there is the creation of the heavens and earth, in Rv. 21:1 there is a new heaven and a new earth; in Gn. 1:3 there is light before the sun and moon are created, in Rv. 21:23 there is no need for the sun or moon to illuminate the new heavens and earth; in Gn. 1:4 light and darkness are divided, in Rv. 21:25 there is no night; in Gn. 1:16 the sun and moon rule over the day and night, in Rv. 21:23 there is no need for sun or moon.

Within these bookends of history are prophetic events whose end are to reveal the glory and sovereignty of God.  The full glory and sovereignty of God will be seen in and through history and in and through what He has created.  Since His creation is centered in the earth then the revelation of His full glory will fundamentally be through the land.  


The land, and a particular land, are the central focus at both the start and end of history for just as the creation of man and his designation as co-regent over all the earth was the culmination of the creation account (Gn. 1:26—30), so the realization of this co-regency and the culmination of history will be found in the literal 1000 year reign of another man and the last Adam, Jesus, in the land that God sovereignly, unilaterally, unconditionally, and eternally pledged to the nation of Israel (Rv. 20:1—6).

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