Chiasmus: The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways!

A had a major ah-ha today as I was reading an interpretation of the book of revelation. I thought maybe someone had already done a project on the connection I made, but I found nothing. So I took it upon myself to make a Chiasmus of the life of Earth, from the pre-mortal life through the history of earth into eternity. What I found was awe-inspiring, to say the least.

The Timeline:

For starters, I made an actual timeline, which you can see below:

Look in the symmetrical location of each item to see it's chiastic partner

I could probably ramble enough to write a book on the ah-ha's I've been getting from this. But I'll try to consolidate my thoughts to a few pages.

The Chiasmus:

1. Pre-mortal life: ...Forever into the past.
 2. Counsel in Heaven: Plan of Salvation/Plan of Misery Proposed. Some choose each plan.
  3. War in Heaven: Satan loses, he and his host are cast from Heaven.
   4. Creation/Garden of Eden: Peace, no temptation, and God is personally on the earth.
    5. The Fall: Earth becomes temporal through sin.
     6. 1st Dispensation: Dispensation of Adam.
      7. Sacrifices are Given: Cain and Abel give sacrifices to the Lord. The Lord denies Cains offering.
       8. Cain's Covenant: Cain makes promises to Satan, secret combinations are born.
        9. Wickedness: People war with each other, righteous are persecuted Satan rules and evil abounds.
         10. 2nd Dispensation: Dispensation of Enoch.
          11. Zion: The righteous gather under the direction of Enoch. They are translated by their righteousness.
           12. The Great Flood: The Earth is cleansed of wickedness by a baptism of water.
            13. The Exodus: The Children of Israel flee the persecution of Egypt.
             14. Jewish Kingdoms: The tribes are organised into a political kingdom.
               15. Jewish Persecution: Disobedience in Israel causes them to be scattered by the great empires of the time.
                  16. The Life of Jesus Christ: Christ is born, performs his ministry and the Atonement, and is Crucified in the Meridian (middle) of time. This is the beginning of the 5th Dispensation.
               15. Christian Persecution: Early Christians begin to apostatize, persecution comes from the greatest empire of the time, the Roman Empire.
             14. Papal Rule of Europe: The Romans accept and begin to enforce Christianity. It becomes political power.
            13. The Reformation: After the church became corrupt righteous people began to flee persecution.
           12. The American Revolution: Our nation is "baptized" or purified in the blood of the wicked. 
          11. The Restoration: The Church is Restored. The Later-day building of Zion begins.
         10. 6th Dispensation: Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, opened in the restoration by Joseph Smith.
        9. Wickedness: "Comparable in wickedness to the days of Noah" (Ezra T. Benson) 
       8. Satan's "Church": Satan has a strong hold on the world by his earthly kingdoms, which are built on Secret Combinations.
      7. Levite Sacrifice: "This [the priesthood] shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness." (D&C 13: 1)
     6. 7th Dispensation: The equivalent of Sunday, the dispensation of Christ.
    5. The Earth is Glorified: The earth is renewed (restored) to it's Celestial Glory through the Atonement.
   4. The Millennium: The earth returns to peace, Satan is bound, and Christ reigns personally on the earth.
  3. Satan is Loosed: For a time, Satan is released on the earth, he makes one final battle on the saints, and is defeated! 
 2. The Final Judgement: The final decision of all our choices in the counsel and on Earth. Different glories assigned. 
1. Eternal Life: We continue in our kingdoms forever...


Obliviously this is not even close to an all-inclusive list of historical events. But I hope you've come to some of the connections in reading these. Allow me to share some of the things I've seen here.

Ah-has and Connections:

Remember

First off, let me begin by saying that even if we know the past, we are destined to repeat it. Those who do not know the past are destined to repeat it, and those who know the past are prepared to repeat it.

This brings us an important connection with this month's study on the word "remember". Let me direct your attention to the Hebrew meaning of Remember. To remember something in Hebrew is to recall something and then act upon that recollection. And is that concept not chiasmus? Something before which appears again later, or something in the past which is remembered.

How important is it then, to study history (especially the Old Testament) with the perspective of looking for the future? The Lord works in mysterious ways, one of which are chiasmuses. By learning one way He works, we can better prepare for His coming. Does this put a new perspective on the "always remember him" part of the covenant we make each week?

"One Eternal Round"

Doctrine and Covenants chapter 35 verse 1 says: "Listen to the voice of the Lord our God, even Alpha (First letter) and Omega, (Last letter) the beginning and the end, whose course is one eternal round, the same today as yesterday, and forever." 

How fascinating that Christ refers to Himself as the First and the Last letter, when we know that God works in a manner where the first and the last things are the same? This, for me, puts a whole new perspective on the other line, one eternal round. A round is something that returns back to itself, wouldn't it be interesting to format our chiasmus in a circle? 

Fill in the Blanks

Is there any cycles such as the Pride, Tytler, or Fourth Turnings which we could overlay here? Obviously this cycle only happens once for this world, but does it manifest it's self in smaller versions? I don't know, but it's food for thought. 

Triangle!

So like every good thing, our chiasmus has to relate to a triangle, right? (did anyone catch that Pythagorean pun?) So lets analyze it from a more angular point of view. 

It's quite hard to find a good connection for the bottom line of the triangle, but the one I did find is that it is a foundation. God governs the whole equation. It's important to remember that everything is under the constant care of our father. This is the foundation of any study of the plan. After all, it is His plan. 

Were we to make it into a visual, it would look something like this:

Shows some parallels to our lives, doesn't it? 

There are also many things to be learned from this. What cycles or patterns do you think show this? Can this be related to my diagram of Faith, Hope, and Charity as a triangle leading us to Christ?

Conclusion:

To sum it all up, God works in mysterious ways, but when we seek diligently those mysteries can be unfolded unto us. One such mystery is how He uses patterns in His plan. If we can learn to remember what He has shown us in the past, we will be prepared for what is to come. 

Thank you for reading all the way, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.