Before I isolate and focus on the unity of the Christian narrative, I’d like to address the history of the various religious eras. While these were inherently disclosed in the Daniel 2 prophecy, people tend to focus more on the prophetic fulfillment and the empires rather than the focus of the general populations world views and how those led to the empires that fulfilled them in totality. The picture below highlights the various eras:
In essence, there are three eras in the realm of human religious history. These are the eras of head (mind/spirit), body (societies), and legs (soul/worship). If you recognize the eras, it helps assert some fundamental truths, particularly how only after Christ where salvation was possible (it was faith prior) and that in judgment it will be more bearable for Sodom than those who denied salvation.
The Babylonian era is the first society post flood built on the principles that Nimrod established in Babylon. They drew upon the earlier principles of religion in the pre-Noahic age. They were essentially the same mind as the pre flood civilization. While the Genesis account is relatively vague on pre-Noahic history, we know man was in a fallen state, murder occurred based on pride/jealousy, sons of God intermingled with daughters of men, and that the heart of man was evil continuously. From the Book of Enoch, we can gather God was called the Lord of Spirits, angels procreated with women and created Nephilim, and men were continuously evil. So what was the religion?
Most writings on the time point towards esoteric magic and the mind seeking the state of Godhood. These practices are seen today in managing chakras, meditating towards elevated levels of consciousness, the practice of magic, or seeking the status of being your own God. In the modern day, these practices seem archaic, but I imagine with the help of fallen angels, the power of sorcery was of much greater power then. It would be based off the initial lie that we could be like God and define good and evil as we desire, but also gives more clarity why God commanded to not use His name in vain (self seeking, I am god). This would have inherently led to the same moral hazard of naturalism, as everyone’s relative ideal would be against the others.
Post flood things changed. I’d assume the lesser banishing ritual practiced by magicians no longer controlled the waters and Gabriel was free to accomplish Gods work revealing the future of men to prophets like Daniel and Ezekiel. We know Michael protects the Jewish people from fire via Daniel 12:1 (and he is used in the banishing ritual), so essentially he will be released in the time of Great Tribulation. However at the end of Babylon, or the era of mind, people were divided into different nations and tongues and the era of body (or nations) began, many groups of people under one mind (king or kingdom). I’d imagine many nations continued on the path of independent spirituality based on Nephilim (as tribal people and pagan areas had polytheistic religions), but we know Israel followed a different path. They followed similar laws (the Code of Hammurabi and the American legal code are actually more tenuous than the 10 commandments from Moses), but their practices of purification were less about indulgence and were more about abstinence (compare Saturnalia to Passover and fasting to see how Israel was different). This climaxed in Greece and was eventually split in Rome when the practices of Rome and democracy hit its apex.
In this era, we had society operating much like Epcot in Disney. People congregated in the nations where their identity lied. No one really questioned their ontology, they just did as their parents taught them. Everyone paid homage to their empiric ruler, but there was really a hodgepodge of value systems. Even Israeli elites bowed their knee to the Romans until the time of Christ. However, when Christ came down he paradoxically changed all understanding up to that time. He asserted that you cannot serve God and money, you are either a slave or a servant, and that a student cannot be greater than his teacher. Instead of ruling like a conqueror, he healed people, taught them wisdom and took on the archetype of sacrifice in mental, physical, and spiritual realms. In essence, he broke the spiritual veil that Gnostics were trying to do since creation. Piercing darkness with good can occur, since white lies and selfish charity (for recognition or praise) can occur. Piercing good with evil is contradictory, hence the lie of going so far into darkness in order to experience light doesn’t work. From that time on, all knowledge was available and we started the final era.
We are currently in the era of the legs and feet, the time of soul and worship. People know the ideal (Christ) and the fallacy of the non ideal (Babylon), so their soul or drive for life either goes towards service or slavery (idolatry/self). Servant minded people can work for others in a slave based system, but slaves cannot be servants because their soul or drive is for personal gratification or slavery to a different ideal. We see the same drive to nations and personal ideals as was the case in prior eras, but there is more freedom of thought available than any period of time. This will be discussed further when we address witchcraft and sorcery, but needless to say given the number of world views present now, the blindness of many to question narratives, and many believing everything they see and hear on the news and Google creates what Phil Collins and Disturbed titled “The Land of Confusion.” I would imagine we are close to the end of this age given how technology and driven narratives are lending to a hive mind mentality where people simply process data rather than understanding ideas and systems of control. Only time will tell, but I cannot imagine post the world’s recent year long shut down that systems will have any option rather than unity during disparity, which seems like a futile exercise. From what I gather, even non Christians are questioning the nature of reality and narratives, which is usually a sign that something is off.
