The Beginning and the End

So two nights ago I started thinking about Adam and Eve, Cain's wife, the "sons of God" and the Nephilim in Genesis 6, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and the dragon and the two beasts in Revelation 12-13.  I don't even remember what made me think about all of it, and my thoughts were really scattered, and it's difficult to form coherent thoughts out of all of the discoveries God gave me.  But I tried anyway.  I talked with my mom about it last night, and we had a really in depth discussion about all of it, and it really helped.  A lot of what confused me got cleared up.  Well, it wasn't really "cleared up" in the sense that I learned the truth, but we found possible explanations.  Anyway, I'm going to attempt to write down most, if not all, of what we discovered.

• The "sons of God" in Genesis 6 were probably the same as the Nephilim (also mentioned in Genesis 6).  These "sons of God" could have been Adam and Eve's sinless children before they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Evidence: Genesis 3:16—Eve must have had children before the original sin, because how could she know that her pains in childbirth were "greatly increased" if she hadn't already experienced childbirth?  The image of God contained in man would not have been distorted in these children because they were not directly affected by Adam and Eve's sin.  (They did, however, have sins of their own, which I'll get to later.)  The Nephilim had to be wiped out in the flood along with the rest of mankind so that all people would be able to link themselves back to Adam and Eve through Noah.  While everyone, even descendants of the Nephilim, could still trace their family tree back to Adam and Eve, not everyone would be able to trace their line back to Adam and Eve after the original sin, so the sin nature would not have been passed down to everyone.  By wiping out the Nephilim, everyone after Noah was guaranteed to carry the sin nature, giving a reason for Jesus to come as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and allowing Him to atone for everyone's sins by taking the place of Adam, the original sinner.)

• The reason these “sons of God” are not listed among Adam and Eve’s children is that there was no need to record genealogies at the time.  If everyone lived forever and never died, there would be no reason to keep track of who was still alive.  But when Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and when they learned that they would eventually die, records became necessary to keep track of family lines, as well as accomplishments that would be told of in stories.  This record keeping was an act of pride because all men want to leave behind a legacy; everyone wants to be remembered, so the passing on of stories and the tracing of family lines were ways to ensure that a person would not be forgotten.

• The Nephilim are called "heroes of old, men of renown" (Genesis 6:4).  It's very possible that they may have been the Greek "gods" and "goddesses."  When they were wiped out in the flood, Noah's sons and their wives may have passed on stories of the Nephilim to their children and their children and so on, eventually distorting by the telephone effect so that they came to be considered gods.

• Noah's sons' wives, and even his own wife, may have been of Nephilim descent, which may account for giants like Goliath and the people of Canaan.

• Because the Nephilim were born to Adam and Eve before the original sin, they were sinless and were allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden.  But unlike Adam and Eve, who could not reenter the Garden, the Nephilim were free to leave the Garden and go into the rest of the world if they pleased.  Evidence: Genesis 6:1-2, 4—the sons of God left the Garden to marry the daughters of men, preferring the sinful world over God's perfect Garden, and this was their sin.

• There's some connection between the serpent in Genesis 3 and the serpent in Revelation 12, beyond the obvious connection that they're both Satan.  It may explain why the serpent in Genesis was able to talk and why God had to curse the serpent to crawl on its belly, as if it had been able to walk before.  I still haven't figured out this extra connection though.

• The dragon and the two beasts form an interesting evil trinity: the dragon (or the beast out of the sky), the beast out of the sea, and the beast out of the earth.  The beast out of the sky is the devil, the strongest beast and the leader.  The beast out of the earth is a person: just as Adam was taken from the dust of the earth, so the beast rose out of the earth.  And the beast out of the sea is the beast of the multitude.  Out of the sea of people arises a monstrosity with seven heads and ten horns and crowns: seven powers, or nations, with ten leaders.  The "antichrist," as so many people call the beast, does not appear to me to be one person, but a political group with authority.  The horns are the individual people who are the leaders of the powers/nations, and together they form the beast.  The real antichrist is Satan himself.

• In Daniel, another horn is said to rise up, separate from the first ten, and overthrow three of the original ten.  This eleventh horn in Daniel 7 is the beast out of the earth in Revelation 13.  This single man will unseat three of the rulers of the seven nations and take their place, and he will force everyone to worship (or follow religiously) the beast out of the sea, the political group, because it appeared that a catastrophe had fatally wounded the economy of one of the seven nations, yet they emerged miraculously victorious and unscathed.  The beast out of the earth will then establish a world-wide economy so that such a catastrophe will not happen again.  If there actually is a single human antichrist, the beast out of the earth appears to be it, not the beast out of the sea.  As Revelation 13:7 says, "He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed."  The beast out of the sea, the world-wide political power, will give the beast out of the earth authority to be the representative of the beast of the sea.

• The beast out of the sea is obviously an abomination with its seven heads and ten horns, but the beast out of the earth, with only "two horns like a lamb" (Revelation 13:11), will be much harder to recognize.  There will be something recognizably off about the political group, but the antichrist will be so charismatic that he will dispel any concerns about the beast of the sea, and the people will willingly—even eagerly—follow the beast of the sea because the beast of the earth is leading it.

None of these "discoveries" is definitely true.  It's all up to your interpretation.  These interpretations seemed reasonable to me, though, so I thought I'd offer another different point of view from what you may have heard before.  It's up to you to decide (and for God to reveal to you) whether or not any of this makes sense.  But when it comes right down to it, the prediction of what is going to happen is nothing compared to the opportunity to spend eternity with our Maker and Savior.  Don't get too caught up in the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the end times, but devote yourself to growing in the knowledge and love of Christ and in love for each other.  If you do that, the details of the end won't matter because the end will just be the beginning for those who are in Christ.