
The word “end” has at least two meanings in English: the point that marks the boundary or limit, such as the last point in a series, and the purpose or goal. Of course, these two meanings are not necessarily mutually exclusive. When speaking of the end, Latter-day Saints often use a phrase that is worded in a somewhat unusual way: we speak of knowing the beginning from the end. (See, e.g., Elder Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience 38.) This not a scriptural phrase. The closest scriptural phrase is “knowing the end from the beginning” (cf. Isaiah 46:10 and Abraham 2:8). Nevertheless, its meaning is significant. It says more than we may notice. There are various ways of understanding that phrase, but one is that we know the beginning by means of or because we know the end: the end defines and gives meaning to what comes before it. If we remember that in numerous places in scripture the Lord identifies himself as both the beginning and the end (e.g., Revelation 21:6), we can understand the phrase to imply that we understand who Christ is as Creator by understanding him as the Being who will be revealed at the Second Coming. On that understanding, the book of Revelation is important to us because, as the first verse of the book says, it is a “Revelation of Jesus Christ,” meaning not only a revelation that he gave,…