The Bookends of the Bible: Genesis 1/2 and Rev 21/22

I get excited every week preparing to teach from the Bible study Learning God’s Story of Grace. This study was deeply informed by many excellent teachers, among them Scotty Smith. Reading back through his fabulous book on THE STORY, Restoring Broken Things, I found this wonderful quote:
“To understand God’s purposes, we need to return to the biblical story. One of the most important aspects of this story relates to God’s work relative to the presence of sin in the world. The biblical story has four unique chapters: Genesis 1–2 and Revelation 21–22. These chapters are unique in that no sin is present in the places and events described. Genesis 1–2 gives us a picture of God’s creation design, what the world was like before sin entered the scene.
Revelation 21–22 gives us a picture of God’s future intent, what the world will be like once redemption has been fully completed with the consummation of the judgment of sin and the evil one. These four chapters serve as bookends to the rest of the biblical story. The rest of the story is about the redemptive work of God in a sinful and fallen world. The story of re-creation relates the redemptive work of God to creation design by showing how he is restoring to right relationship that which was broken.” (Craig Van Gelder The Essence of the Church, 89–90)