This document presents a very shortened version of the history of the world from a Biblical perspective, without reference to modern traditions and religious practices.
Most descriptions of Christianity either incorporate a large number of non-biblical changes and additions made by the Roman Church, or spend considerable time explaining why such changes should not be considered part of Biblical Christianity.
This document will do neither; it will present the subject on a clean slate, assuming no prior knowledge on the part of its readers. If the readers can do the same, emptying their minds of their already known concepts of Christianity, they may gain a new understanding of truth that was previously hidden among centuries of misinformation.
In places, I assign motives to God's actions. Since we can't always really know such motives, this is presumptuous and these assumptions may very well be incorrect, but the assigned motives are consistent with the recorded facts and help in understanding the course of events.
God existed as two immortal beings known as Elohim, equal in power and united in character, with one (the Father, or creator) having authority over the other (the Word, or spokesman).
God created other beings,
also immortal but less powerful and with very limited free will.
Over these were more powerful beings,
Michael (who is like God?
),
Gabriel (man of God
),
and Lucifer (bright star
or light bringer
).
About 15 billion years ago, God designed the laws of nature
and created the physical Universe
(when the morning stars [Lucifer's angels] sang together,
and the sons of God [the other angels] shouted for joy
).
As the Universe spread out and coalesced, one unique planet was selected. It was ideally located, not too close to a dangerous galactic core, nor hidden within a densely populated arm, yet not too far from its neighbours. It was the right distance from its sun to receive light and heat, while its magnetic core produced a field that shielded it from harmful radiation. A massive outer planet attracted cosmic debris that might otherwise have collided with it, and an unusually large satellite caused ocean tides that circulated minerals and nutrients, depositing them on the shores.
It was the perfect place for life, and being in a small galactic cluster within a small supercluster was the perfect place from which to observe the rest of God's creation. God populated this planet with an incredible variety of mortal life forms and assigned Lucifer and his angels to manage it.
Eventually Lucifer became discontent with his position. He was doing all the work running the world, and felt he could take over God's position too. He and his angels rebelled. They were of course immediately defeated and confined to the Earth.
It's possible the fifth planet (now the asteroid belt) was destroyed and many of the craters visible on the Moon's surface were caused at that time.
And whether in the struggle itself or simply as a result of spite, the Earth itself was badly damaged.
After perhaps millions of years, God began recreating the Earth.
The orbiting detritus and clouds of dust (like a nuclear winter) were removed and the first day dawned on the new Earth.
On the second day, the sun's heat helped dry the land creating clouds in the sky.
On the third day, the land was covered with plants, this time including new kinds (grasses, grains, fruit trees).
By the fourth day, the sky had cleared enough that stars could be seen. The apparent movement of these lights as seen from the Earth would mark the passage of time, dividing it into years, months, and days.
On the fifth day, God populated the seas and skies, including scaled fish and flying birds.
On the sixth day, God created land creatures, including grazing animals that could eat the new grasses.
And then he created one additional creature, mankind. Man was different from all the others; like God himself he had a conscious mind and free will. Instead of reacting automatically by instinct and reflex, man could reason, consider his possible actions, and make choices. But unlike God and the angels, he was still mortal.
The seventh day, God sanctified as a holy day of rest, as a symbol, to be celebrated each week, to remind man of his place in God's creation. God had great plans for man, but there was still a long way to go.
God saw mankind as his potential children. Man's life spirit gave him a mind that could develop character equal to God's own. But it was up to mankind itself to develop that character.
God had confined Lucifer (now called Satan (the Deceiver
))
and his angels (now called demons) to the Earth,
and had prevented them from causing any more damage without permission.
But Satan was still the god of Earth,
and he still had influence over its inhabitants.
If Man were to blindly accept God's way of life, he would be no better than the angels, who carried his messages and performed his tasks without thought. Man had to consciously choose God's way, to develop a mind and character that would not want to do otherwise.
If man could willingly obey God, he would eventually inherit eternal life,
but if he failed to do so he would not.
(Sin is the transgression of the law.
—
The soul that sins, it shall die.
).
It was a simple selection process,
with Satan's influence ensuring survival only to those that
could develop perfect characters.
To emphasize the significance of sin God instituted animal sacrifices, wherein the death and shed blood symbolized the cost of sin. To be fit to eat or sacrifice, animals must be killed by bleeding to death; meat that is strangled or killed by other means is considered unfit.
The first people, Adam and Eve, initially had two sons. Abel offered a sheep he had raised as a sacrifice to God, while his brother Cain offered a crop he had grown. Cain obviously did not understand the significance of sacrifice, and as his lacked blood and death it was not accepted.
After several generations, most of mankind was not even pretending to follow God's ways; personal death was a long way off (perhaps a thousand years), and personal pleasure was far too tempting. So God decided to start over.
This time it wasn't necessary to design a new creature, from now on, mankind's life expectancy would be much shorter and life more precious. God chose the most faithful living Man, Noah, and his family, along with a pair of each kind of animal (and seven pairs of those that were good to eat or sacrifice) to survive a deluge that destroyed the rest of mankind.
Noah's descendents were to repopulate the world, but after several generations, mankind was still concentrated in a small and highly developed area, where it saw itself collectively as a powerful creature able to accomplish whatever it wanted. Once again mankind rejected God's laws.
God forced the people to speak many different languages so they would separate into tribes and nations, each limiting the powers of the others and each able to develop differently, with one group perhaps able to follow God's way without corruption from the others.
The descendants of Noah's three sons migrated in different directions, forming the world's major races: Ham's to the southwest, Japeth's to the east, and Shem's to the northwest.
After several more generations, God saw Abraham as the most faithful of all men and chose him as an example for the rest of mankind. God promised Abraham that his descendants would occupy a promised land, that he would be the father of many nations, and that through him the rest of the world would be blessed.
His wife was old, and Abraham didn't understand how they could ever have descendants, so he conceived a child with one of her servants. But this son, Ishmael, was not the one God had ordained. He and his mother left Abraham's household, his descendants becoming the Arab world.
Eventually, and much to his surprise, Abraham did conceive a child with his wife, and he realized that he must accept the future as God has planned it, not attempt to force it into being before its time.
Years later, God gave Abraham the chance to demonstrate his faith by asking him to sacrifice his son. Isaac might have been in his 20s or 30s, so it was his faith too that was being tested. Even so, Isaac allowed himself to be bound lest his own faith slip and he resist his old and physically weak father. At the last moment, a sheep appeared and God told Abraham to sacrifice it instead.
The test wasn't that Abraham was willing to perform such an act without question, but why he was willing to do so. Human sacrifices clearly went against God's laws, but Abraham had faith in what God had promised him; whatever happened, he knew that (currently childless) Isaac was destined to be the ancestor of many nations, and nothing he did could change that.
More significantly, new symbolism was introduced, the sacrifice of a son and the blood of a sheep offered not only as a symbolic payment for sin, but to actually save human life.
Isaac had two sons, Esau, whose descendants were known as Edomites and who perhaps have become modern Turks, and Jacob, who inherited Abraham's birthrights and blessings. God reaffirmed this inheritance, promising Jacob that his descendants would become a nation and a company of nations
Jacob became known as Israel (struggle with God
).
He had twelve sons, with Joseph inheriting his name and birthright
(God's promise of national greatness)
and Judah his promise that the world would be blessed
through his seed (the scepter
).
Jacob and his household moved to Egypt, where they prospered with the help of Joseph, who held a high government position.
Centuries later, Israel's descendants had become very numerous, with each son's family having become a large tribe. But Joseph's position was long forgotten and they were now treated as slaves of the Egyptians.
The time had come for the Israelites to move to the promised land, and God chose Moses, of the tribe of Levi, to lead them to freedom. The Egyptian Pharaoh of course refused to let them go, not even temporarily to hold a feast to God (perhaps an annual remembrance of Isaac's near sacrifice). So God sent ten plagues on Egypt.
The final plague was the death of the firstborn son of each family. To escape this plague themselves, the Israelites were told to mark their doors with lamb's blood. Their children were saved, but the Egyptians were not so fortunate, including the Pharaoh himself, who relented and allowed the Israelites to leave.
The event has been celebrated as Passover each year thereafter on the 14th of Nissan as a reminder of how their firstborn sons had been spared from death, just as Abraham and Sarah's firstborn son Isaac had been saved by the blood of a lamb. The evening meal included mutton, which was to be consumed without leftovers and without breaking any bones.
On the Sunday following Passover, a priest would wave a sheaf of barley towards the heavens as an offering to God from the first-fruits of the early spring harvest. Much of the significance of this lamb and first-fruits symbolism wasn't obvious at the time.
After leaving, the Israelites were pursued by the Egyptians but were led by God to safety after crossing into the Arabian desert.
During this flight, food had to be prepared quickly so there was no time to leaven bread, which had to be made from flour and water without any yeast. Each year, the week after Passover is celebrated by avoiding all forms of yeast as a reminder that Israel had escaped from slavery in Egypt.
Again it wasn't obvious at the time, but the exodus from Egypt was symbolic of how God's people had to separate themselves from the sins of the world, both removing themselves from sinful influences and removing and keeping sin out of their own lives. Like yeast, even a small amount of sin can grow and take over, so avoiding yeast for one week each year became a symbolic reminder of how one must always be on guard against allowing even seemingly trivial sin to infect one's life.
Fifty days after leaving Egypt, the Israelites received a written copy of the ten commandments directly from God. These commandments had always been in effect and known by mankind (e.g. Abraham was noted as having followed them), but now they had been set down as part of a permanent written record.
Then, and during the ensuing years, Moses recorded many of God's other existing laws (e.g. Abraham tithed, Noah knew about clean and unclean meat), and codified appropriate practices for honouring the weekly sabbath and the seven annual holy celebrations (Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost in the Spring, and four others in the Autumn). These writings comprise the first five books of the Bible and are known as the Torah, or the Law.
Each year, this Feast of Weeks (a week of weeks is 49 days) was to be celebrated to commemorate the receiving of God's laws. It was also known as the Feast of Harvest, when the first-fruits of the late spring harvest were gathered and offered as thanksgiving to God.
Pentecost was when God ratified his Covenant with the people of Israel, who were to be the physical first-fruits of his own Harvest. The symbolic significance wouldn't become apparent until 1300 years later.
The first three commandments defined man's relationship with God. God must be considered the only god, nothing else could come before him; his name must be invoked only when it was necessary to communicate with him; and no physical object could ever be considered to have supernatural power.
Three other commandments defined man's relationship with society, forbidding murder, theft, and perjury.
Two more commandments defined relationships within a family, requiring faithfulness within marriage and respect for parents.
These eight commandments could all be followed or broken without its being obvious to outsiders. Many of them are even required by other cultures and societies, they are hardly unique or unusual. But one commandment was different from the rest. Not honouring God's Sabbath is a very obvious sign that one has chosen not to follow God's way of life.
And just as the Sabbath commandment encapsulates one's attitude toward God, a tenth commandment applies to one's attitude toward society. Unlike the others it does not regulate physical actions, but requires that one not covet other people's possessions. This commandment was a hint as to how God's commandments would one day be honoured in spirit and not only according to their literal physical interpretation.
In addition to God's commandments, a number of new laws were created specifically to allow the Israelites to govern themselves and run their society. God chose Israel to be an example nation to the rest of the world, and made a conditional covenant with them. If they followed his rules, the nation would prosper, if they didn't, they would suffer. This covenant applied both to the nation as a whole and to individual Israelites. Although the Covenant was racially based, any non-Israelites who accepted God's way of life were welcome to join and be assimilated into their society.
These blessings were strictly physical, offering health, power, and prosperity; there was no real concept of an afterlife at this time.
Note that the promises that God had made to Abraham and Jacob were unconditional and still in effect. Israel (whose birthright and name were passed to Joseph's two sons) would one day become a great nation and company of nations, and Judah's descendants would one day produce the seed through which the rest of the world would be blessed.
God led the Israelites toward the promised land, appearing as a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Each morning they would find manna, which could be boiled or baked into bread. On the sixth day of each week, a double portion was provided so that none needed to be gathered on the Sabbath.
Despite all the miracles they had experienced, many times the people began to doubt Moses and God, wanting to return to Egypt or to follow Egyptian worship practices, and in other ways rejecting God's wishes. Each time, Moses was able to return them to the proper course.
But when scouts sighted the promised land, they doubted again and gave a false report to Moses saying they would be unable to take it from its inhabitants. This was the final straw, and God decreed that instead of occupying the promised land immediately, the people would have to remain in the desert for forty years until the generation that had grown up under Egyptian culture had all died. Even Moses wasn't exempt, and he eventually died after seeing, but not entering, the new land.
Each year, the 1st day of 7th month was the first Fall festival day, to be treated as a sabbath and known as the Feast of Trumpets. Traditionally trumpets were used to signal danger or to precede great announcements.
The 10th day was to be the most sacred holiday of the year
and known as the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur
).
Not only was no work to be done, as on sabbaths and other high holidays,
but the people were to fast for a night and a day.
It was a time to review one's mistakes over the past year
and to contemplate one's relationship with God.
The priests were to take two goats, one was assigned all the sins
of the nation and led into the desert,
while the other was sacrificed as payment for those sins.
Thus sin was symbolically removed from the nation and past sins paid for.
People were figuratively cleansed of their sins
allowing them to once again be at one
with God.
The Feast of Tabernacles lasted a week, starting on the 15th, and was set aside to celebrate the Autumn harvest. It was a time to commemorate the good things that God had provided. It was also a time to remember the time that the Israelites had spent living in temporary dwellings after leaving Egypt. During this time families would typically travel to a great centre such as Jerusalem and spend the week away from home, enjoying themselves and not working (much like a modern summer vacation). Families were expected to set aside 10% of their annual income for these celebrations. Even those people that could not get away from home would sleep in temporary structures outside their homes.
The day following that week was another high holiday, the Last Great Day, when people would assemble for readings of the Torah to ensure that they knew God's laws.
Again, these four holidays have a greater symbolic meaning, one that would not become apparent until much later.
It's perhaps an interesting coincidence that God's 7 festivals occupy 19 days, while the sacred calendar requires the addition of a leap month 7 times in every 19 year cycle.
For many years, Israel operated as a theocracy, run by the Levites (the tribe formed by Jacob's son Levi), with descendants of Moses's brother Aaron serving as priests. The Levites had no specific land of their own, the promised land being divided among the other twelve tribes (Joseph's two sons count as separate tribes since Jacob had adopted them as his own). Within each tribe, Judges ruled smaller areas.
After a few hundred years the people wanted to be governed like other nations and Saul was chosen as their first king. His reign wasn't very successful and he was replaced by David, who found favour with God.
The promise given to Judah was passed on through David. (Incidentally, David's great grandmother was Ruth, a Moabite (not a Jew or other Israelite), illustrating that racial purity was not part of the Covenant.) During his reign the nation expanded to include all the land between Egypt and the Euphrates river.
David's son Solomon was considered the wisest man ever to live. He wrote Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and many of the Psalms, built the great temple in the capital city Jerusalem, and led Israel to became a rich and great nation, trading throughout the Mediterranean in partnership with the Phoenicians.
Following Solomon's death, the northern tribes separated from the Kingdom. In the south, Judah (and the small tribe of Benjamin, which had largely been destroyed by an earlier war) was still ruled from Jerusalem, but the other tribes retained the name Israel, which by birthright belonged through Joseph's sons to the two tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.
The two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, went their separate ways,
eventually going so far as to war against each other.
(The first time the Bible uses the word Jew
it talks of a war between Israel and the Jews).
Each kingdom went through its own cycles of good and bad leadership. Whenever a king practiced God's ways, the people followed and the nation prospered. And whenever a king practiced the pagan examples of neighbouring countries, the people followed and the nation suffered. God occasionally sent prophets to each kingdom (e.g. Jeremiah to Judah, Hosea to Israel) to change the people's ways, but any resulting improvement was only temporary.
These two kingdoms recorded their history in truthful detail, and unlike other nations, included their defeats and bad times.
During the few years around 723 BCE,
Israel was invaded and the vast majority of the people
were taken into captivity in Assyria.
Later, they migrated to the north-west and eventually lost their identity
(the legendary Ten Lost Tribes
).
In 586 BCE, Judah itself was captured and its people taken into captivity by the Babylonian empire. Seventy years later, the survivors returned to the southern kingdom. They were mostly members of the tribe of Judah along with some Benjaminites and Levites, and now constituted the people known to this day as Jews. (To distinguish them from Jews, many descendants of Levi still bear family names like Levi or Lewis, and Levite priest Aaron's descendants are called Cohen.)
With help from Persia the returned exiles rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, but never regained anything approaching the golden age of Solomon's reign. In the following centuries, the Jews were occupied by the Greeks and later by the Roman Empire.
The Jews knew that their tribe had been promised a scepter
,
the seed
that would one day save them and through whom
all of mankind would be blessed.
Many prophesied of his imminent coming,
and the people eagerly awaited this messiah who would
lead them to overthrow their Roman overlords.
Some prophecies provided quite specific details about many
aspects of this saviour, such as:
his ancestry (descended from David);
his birth (of a virgin);
his birthplace (Bethlehem);
his homes (Egypt, Nazareth);
his appearance (unremarkable);
his mission (to save humanity from death);
his rejection (by his own people);
his betrayal (by a friend and companion for 30 pieces of silver);
his suffering and death
(forsaken by his followers,
scourged,
executed along with criminals,
his hands, feet and body pierced, but no bones broken);
his burial (with the wealthy);
the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord
;
and his kingdom
(given from Heaven, to include Gentiles, never to be destroyed).
Even the date of his appearance was suggested by some prophecies
(e.g. the Seventy Weeks
of Daniel 9).
Some of the prophecies seemed contradictory (the Messiah was to be killed, yet was also to rule the kingdom), but they would eventually make sense in light of what was to happen.
Eventually the Messiah was born, most likely during the Fall festivals,
perhaps at the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles
when his family made their annual journey to Jerusalem.
This Jesus (whose name means saviour
) was in every way fully human,
but he was also the incarnation of God (the Word),
stripped of all divinity
but retaining his perfect personality and character.
For thirty years he matured as a man, taking over his human father's construction business and supporting his widowed mother and younger siblings. Then he began his three and a half year long ministry, preaching from the scriptures and teaching people to understand the truth.
Several sects and religious groups existed at this time in Judea. Some, such as the mystical Essenes isolated themselves and so not much was heard from them. The Sadducees worked closely with the priesthood but were more of a materialistic political group, denying any afterlife or spiritual contact. The Pharisees were the morality police of the time. They had correctly learned the lesson that God had chosen Israel to demonstrate (when the King and country obeyed God's laws, everyone prospered; when they followed pagan ways, everyone suffered), but applied the teaching far too zealously. They devised a large number of additional laws whose obedience would guarantee that all of God's laws would be obeyed without any doubt.
Jesus taught people to reject all three groups and to return to his (i.e. God's) original teachings. He wanted people to knowingly follow the spiritual intent of the law rather than blindly following their literal wording. Refraining from murder and adultery weren't enough, one shouldn't even hate anyone else or contemplate unfaithfulness.
He also taught about the coming Kingdom of God, where God would directly rule and all the kingdoms of the Earth would live in peace.
Much of what he taught was not intended to be immediately understood, but would make sense in retrospect following his death. Some of it would even take another two thousand years to be comprehended.
The God (יהוה) who had talked and walked with Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and others, who had lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land, who had delivered the Ten Commandments, was actually the being that became the human Jesus. God the Father had never had any direct contact with humanity, but soon that would change.
Throughout his life Jesus had been tempted to sin just like any other human being. Even more so, he was specifically tempted by Satan himself, the god of this world, who offered him immediate physical power to rule the nations. But although human, he had access to God's holy spirit, which guided him and offered strength when it was needed.
Never did he yield to temptation, living a life without sin. Being without sin, he was the one human being in history not subject to the death penalty that everyone else must pay.
Thus, when he was taken by the Romans, humiliated, tortured, and sentenced to death, it was the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. He was nailed to a post by the feet and wrists and left to suffer. At the worst moment, just before a soldier ended his life by stabbing his side with a spear, even his heavenly Father withdrew from him. His death (by bleeding, not by the strangulation that crucifixion normally caused, and without the broken legs that soldiers often used to hasten the process) at 3pm matched the time when sheep were being ceremonially slaughtered for the Passover.
Jesus was quickly buried without much preparation since it had to be
done before the Passover sabbath, which began at sunset (6pm Wednesday).
The next day (Thursday) was an annual high sabbath
when no work could be done, but on the following day (Friday)
his followers bought and then prepared the spices
that would be used for the traditional anointment of his body.
They had to rest one more day on the weekly sabbath
before going to the tomb just before sunrise
on the first day of the week (Sunday),
only to discover that it was now empty.
Jesus had arisen late the previous afternoon after spending
exactly three nights and three days in the grave,
just as he had earlier said would be the only real proof
of his being the promised messiah (Christ
in Greek).
Later that day, Jesus appeared to several people. At first he would not let them touch him because he had not yet arisen to heaven. Later he did allow them, presumably because he had by then been accepted by the Father. Just as the when the priests offer barley to heaven as the first-fruits of the early spring harvest, this happened on the first Sunday after Passover.
Seven weeks later, while his Disciples were together, celebrating Pentecost, the spirit of God came upon them. Just as at the original Pentecost, when God had delivered the Ten Commandments and his blessings to the physical nation of Israel, this time God delivered his commandments and blessings to the spiritual nation of Israel. Jesus was the first-born of what would be many children of God. Just as the Israelites had entered into a covenant with God on the first Pentecost, the Disciples had now become part of God's new covenant. And just as the priests offered late spring harvest wheat at Pentecost, the Disciples had now become part of the first-fruits of God's initial harvest.
This new covenant was no longer with a literal race of people, one of physical gifts in exchange for adherence to physical laws. The new covenant was now of a spiritual nature, available for all mankind. It was an opportunity, just as Jesus had become the first-born, to be born again as an immortal spirit being, as a literal child of God and a brother of Jesus. It was now up to the Disciples to spread the message of this good news to the rest of the world. People must truly repent of their sins, must accept Christ's sacrifice and God's holy spirit, and must be baptized to symbolize both their burial and rebirth and the washing away of their due penalty, paid for by Jesus's death.
Just as human conception physically unites parts of the two parents
to form a new individual, who must be physically protected and cared
for by its mother until developed enough to be born,
at baptism the human spirit is united with God's holy spirit
to form a new spiritual being.
That embryonic spiritual being must also be protected and cared for
by its mother (the Church) as it develops,
until eventually it can be born again
as a spiritual being, a child of God and full brother of Jesus,
sharing his power and entitled to rule on Earth
and eventually inherit the Universe.
God's plan for mankind now becomes clear. Many of the old prophecies had finally been fulfilled, and those that remained were of the eventual Day of the Lord, when this current age would come to an end. His Festivals, beyond commemorating historical events and symbolizing expected behaviour for the physical nation of Israel, are now celebrated by the spiritual nation of Israel (Christianity) as something obviously much more than that. They had been a prediction of God's plan for Mankind all along.
The shed blood to pay for sins, the lamb to replace Isaac, the sacrifice of a first-born son, all represented Jesus's death as a payment for mankind's sins. Each year as we celebrate Passover, we accept his broken body and shed blood in the symbolic form of bread and wine, and in doing so accept Christ's sacrifice as payment for our past sins.
The exodus from Egypt and the Days of Unleavened Bread represent how we not only must remove ourselves spiritually from the physical world of sin, but must reject all sources of sin from our lives and be continuously on guard against any infiltration.
And Pentecost represents the acceptance of God's spirit, which incorporated into our own human spirit gives us the strength and guidance we need to refrain from further sin.
Over the next two thousand years, God's spiritual Israelites spread around the world, preaching the good news and gaining converts to the church. But God's message would also be taken by others, distorted and merged with Pagan ideas, and its followers would claim to be God's church. As prophesied by Jesus and later by the Apostles, God's true church was destined to remain small until the end times.
Many of the Israelite prophets spoke of the end times and the Day of the Lord, when God would eventually destroy this evil world and bring in a new age of peace and prosperity. God's truth would flow from Jerusalem to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world would accept this truth and celebrate God's festivals. Toward the end of his life, Jesus's disciple John was given a vision of this Day of the Lord, which he recorded in the book of Revelation.
During his ministry, Jesus told of the end times, how there would be false religions, wars, famines, and deadly diseases. He spoke of how most people would be deceived by these religions, many sincerely worshiping Jesus and the Father, but in vain, because they had accepted traditions of mankind over his true message. The end times would become so bad that unless God stepped in, mankind would wipe itself from the face of the Earth.
John described these terrible times symbolically as four horsemen, preaching a false gospel, fighting war, bringing famine, and spreading death and disease. He saw a great false church and its daughter churches as harlots, selling themselves for popularity and power, and controlling a military and political beast, symbolizing a final resurrection of the Roman empire, that in cooperation with the false church tries to take over the world. In his vision John saw angels opening seven sealed documents, each of which symbolized some awful event. The first four seals corresponded to the four horsemen. The seventh seal represented the Day of the Lord, and consisted of seven trumpets, each announcing another step. The seventh trumpet signals Christ's return.
The four Fall festivals symbolize what will happen next.
The Feast of Trumpets symbolizes Christ's return to Earth to put an end to the total mess mankind has made of things. The armies of the beast and those of its enemies will all be destroyed. Over the centuries, a small number of people accepted God's teaching lived lives following Jesus's example, and developed God-like character. Both those that have died and those that are still alive at the time of his return will immediately be reborn as immortal spirit beings. Those members of this first resurrection (perhaps only hundreds of thousands or only a few million) will now teach and rule on Earth in the Kingdom of God.
The Day of Atonement symbolizes the binding of Satan and his demons
(the goat sent into the wilderness).
For the next thousand years the surviving members of mankind will
be able to live free of the devil's influence
and will be directly instructed and ruled by God's new children.
We will be at one
with God and his way.
The Feast of Tabernacles symbolizes Jesus's temporary return to the Earth, teaching and living among mankind. The world will be managed and governed correctly, with peace and prosperity guaranteed. And God will make this his spiritual Fall harvest. During this millennium, most people will understand and accept God's way of life, just as the relatively few members of God's church had done during the preceding centuries.
The Last Great Day symbolizes what happens at the end of the millennium. In a second general resurrection, all mankind that had not had a chance to know God's way will be resurrected. In the Kingdom they will have the chance to live and learn.
After most of the last generation of mankind has been reborn as immortal spirits there will be one last resurrection, a resurrection of all that have died after rejecting God's way of life. Those, and the remaining people still living on Earth, and indeed all the surface of the Earth itself will then be totally destroyed in a fiery blast. Nothing will be left but ashes. Even memory of them will be gone.
The Earth will then be rebuilt, the Father himself will come to Earth, and his children will spread to new worlds throughout the universe.