When you look at the big picture of the Old Testament you discover that everything centers on four major acts of God, Creation, the Flood, the Exodus, and the Return from Babylonian Exile. Most of the prophecies in the Old Testament were concerned about one or more of these four great events. At first glance it may not appear that this process has much to do with Revelation. It will, however, provide the foundation upon which a sound understanding of Revelation can be based. We will begin at the beginning.

In the original Hebrew of Genesis the Flood (Gen 6-9) is described as an undoing of Creation (Gen 1-2). When you compare these two stories, you notice that the Flood is a piece-by-piece undoing of the creation. The destruction of the Flood is followed by a re-creation that puts the world back together again. While this is obvious to the reader of the Hebrew you can also see a lot through a closer look at the English text.

In creation, for example, God followed a process of separation and distinction. He separated the waters from the dry land (Gen 1:9). He used the atmosphere to separate the waters above from the waters below (Gen 1:7). And that’s not all. “God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” (Gen 1:4) “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years.’” (Gen 1:14) Separation and distinction, then, are the how of the creation process.

Now let’s compare the above texts with the way the Flood is described. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month–on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” (Gen 7:11-12) According to this text, the waters under the earth came up and the waters above the earth came down. What God had separated in the creation came together and that which was distinct became unified again. The Flood was a reversal of the separation and distinction that took place at Creation.

“The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.” (Gen 7:20) In creation, the waters were separated from the dry land; in the Flood, the waters once again cover the dry land. In other words, the destructions of the Flood return the earth to the condition it was in before Creation: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Gen 1:2, cf. 8:1).” So the Flood is described as a bit by bit undoing of the Creation.

In Creation there were not only distinctions but also unities. These unities included the relationship between Adam and God, between Adam and Eve, and between the human pair and their environment. In the flood story these unities are also reversed. The Flood occurs because of a breakdown in the human relationship with God (Gen 6:5-7,12-13). People also begin to hate and murder one another (Gen 4:-8,23-24; 6:13). The environment falls apart and the human ability to control the environment is destroyed (Gen 6:17; 7:10-11,23). So, in the flood story, that which was separate in creation comes together and that which was united is torn apart.

The decisive point is this: the language of the flood story is the language of the creation. The flood story applies the very same language used in the description of the original creation. Then when the destruction of the Flood is over and the waters have gone down, Genesis 8-9 describes the re-creation of the world. “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded.” (Gen 8:1)

With this “wind” (same Hebrew word as “spirit” in Gen 1:2) the process of re-creation after the Flood began. The language of this re-creation parallels the language of the original creation. Once again the dry land appears (Gen 8:13); there is a renewal of the seasons (Gen 8:22); and there is talk of human beings in the image of God (Gen 9:6). And this time the distinctions God has created are guaranteed: “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (Gen 9:11)

What I hope is clear at this point is that the language of God’s second mighty act–the Flood–is parallel to that of the first mighty act–the Creation. The Flood is the destruction of the original creation. God takes His own creation apart, much as a child might take a Lego creation apart piece by piece. He then rebuilds it piece by piece in the same language and style as the original creation.