We all know that Adam and Eve’s story does not end happily.

Through their disobedience, they were cast out of the garden — and they and their descendants were doomed to use their newfound knowledge of good and evil for fallen, destructive purposes. The first child, Cain, became the first murderer, killing his brother Abel in anger.

The good news is that God does not leave us this way. If our Great Story began with a wedding and separation, it ends with reunion and an even grander wedding: A grand reunion between God and man. At the beginning, the first Adam marries his bride, Eve; at the end, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, takes His people as His Bride. Everything that has ever blighted the human race will be gone forever.

The Bible closes with the ultimate happy ending:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”