In addition to his three epistolary letters, the Apostle John gave us two great major works, the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse, which is known more commonly as the Book of Revelation. Both books contain depths that cannot be exhausted in a single lifetime. Yet the Lord has placed treasures within them for the good of his people, and with his help we may discover riches that strengthen faith, deepen hope, and stir love.

In recent years I have been blessed as I have explored the possibility that John’s Gospel and his Apocalypse share striking and intimate connections. Dr. Warren Gage has explored this hypothesis in his book John’s Gospel: A Neglected Key to Revelation? where he traces remarkable links between the two. Other authors and scholars have recently explored avenues that interact with Gage’s work and further the conversation. While we need not embrace every proposal, their work can help us see fresh dimensions of the unity and beauty of Scripture.

Chiastic Structure

Before we consider these connections, a brief word on structure will be helpful. A chiasm is a literary pattern far more familiar to ancient readers than to modern ones. It is a way of shaping a story, speech, or letter so that it ascends toward a central point of emphasis and then descends by visiting the same themes in reverse order.

There are many advantages to communicating this way, one of which is that we gain new insights on the same themes in light of the larger unfolding of the story being told.

Gage proposes that both books unfold in a chiastic pattern, and that they do so in a corresponding way. In other words, the end of Revelation mirrors the beginning of the Gospel, and the end of the Gospel mirrors the beginning of Revelation, a phenomenon he calls “parallel correspondence.”

If this is so, then the center of each book becomes especially significant. And indeed, in both John 12 and Revelation 12 (almost precisely the middle of both books), we find striking points of contact. In Revelation 12, the enemy of God and his people, the Dragon, is cast out of heaven, and in fury turns his attention against the saints on earth. At the same time, a young child is born, who is caught up to God and his throne. How unexpected: The creature that symbolizes strength and terror loses his place of power, while the newborn child, a symbol of weakness and dependence, is exalted to heaven.

John’s Gospel is key to understanding this paradox. At the very center of that book, Jesus announces that his hour has come. It is his time of suffering, crucifixion, and subsequent glory. He declares:

Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:31–32)

Here the same themes emerge: the dark ruler of this world cast down, and the One who has walked in humility being made ready for his ascension into glory and blessedness. Yet Jesus’s being “raised up” refers not just to the ascension but to being crucified on a Roman cross, which is an image of weakness, shame, and apparent defeat. In both books, victory is won through suffering, exaltation through humiliation, and the triumph of God’s kingdom through the seeming weakness of the Lamb.

The Great Reversal

This “great reversal” is the story being told in both John and Revelation. It is the story of the Scripture itself, the story of Christ and his people. It is the story of sinners drowning in sin and despair, then somehow being rescued by the One who descended into unfathomable humility and was unexpectedly exalted to the highest place.

In other words, the story of the Savior directly connects to the story of the saved. His suffering before glory reminds us that we must follow his Lordly example. The way of the cross is the way to life.

When we connect this pattern to the central emphases of John and Revelation, the picture becomes even clearer:

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” . . . these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:29, 31)

To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Rev. 2:7)

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” (Rev. 14:12–13)

John writes so that we might believe, Revelation is given so that we might endure in that belief. We are encouraged to both believe and endure as we take our place in the story God has written and is writing in the world.

I would like to explore a few themes that are deeply enriched by searching both John and Revelation together.

The Bridegroom Comes for His Bride

As we have seen, in the chiastic structure, the “ends” of John and Revelation correspond to their “beginnings,” and nowhere is this clearer than in the rich matrimonial imagery of Jesus and his bride.

In John 3, John the Baptizer identifies Jesus as the Bridegroom, implying that he has come for his bride. Yet this theme remains largely undeveloped in the Gospel itself. Only at the end of Revelation do we meet the bride who comes out of heaven, adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2).

Behind John’s declaration in chapter 3 stands the glorious opening chapter of the Gospel, where the Bridegroom’s journey is first revealed: He has come all the way from heaven in order to find this bride. There we read that the eternal Word tabernacled among men (John 1:14), another picture that finds its fulfillment in Revelation 21:3: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with man. He will tabernacle among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them” (Gage’s translation).

Gage observes, “The opening chapters of the Gospel and the closing chapters of the Revelation tell the story of the Son of Man as a Heavenly Bridegroom who leaves His Father’s house to dwell among mankind in search of a bride” (100).

The attentive reader will notice how both books echo the opening chapters of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1), then in Revelation 22:2: “on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month” (emphases added). This theme of bridegroom and bride is also rich in Genesis symbolism. Jesus is showing us that it is not good that man should be alone. Here is the true Man, the perfect Man, who has come to be united to the bride whom he loves, and she will find her everlasting joy in the One who came for her.

We were not made to be alone, and these two books tell us that not only will you not be alone, but for all eternity you will be with the only One who can satisfy, and, amazingly, he came for you because he loves you. This is a Savior whom the saved can do nothing but love. But indeed, we love him because he first loved us.

A Woman Finds Her Savior

Another interesting thread has to do with women who are brought out of earthly (often sexual) sinfulness into divine redemption, who then live unto the joy of salvation.

We begin with the well-known story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Her past is marked by a web of sin, presented to an almost ridiculous degree: “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (v. 18). Divorce, adultery, fornication—all are piled together in a way that often provokes a visceral reaction of disgust from the religious. But surely John has not introduced her so that we might despise her.

Jacob is mentioned twice in the passage: Jesus meets this woman at “Jacob’s well,” and the woman questions whether Jesus might be “greater than . . . Jacob.” Though not at the same well, we remember that Jacob first found his lovely wife Rachel at a well in Paddan-aram (Gen. 29) and that Isaac’s wife Rebekah was also found at a well (Gen. 24). Wells are places where matches are made. What if here John is giving us a picture of the heavenly Bridegroom and the bride?

But could it be? The holy and spotless Son of God, keeping company with such a woman? A text like this summons us to the well of God’s mercy and grace, the one who gives the water of life freely to the thirsty. What mercy runs to meet the sinner!

Revelation reinforces this theme. If the two books unfold chiastically, then on the “descent” of Revelation we should expect a counterpart to John 4. And indeed, we find a woman—though not the one we might expect. Revelation 17 introduces the prostitute of Babylon, defiled through her immorality with the kings of the earth. She is not redeemed like the Samaritan woman. And yet, in the very next chapter, we hear a surprising call: “Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues’” (Rev. 18:4). Here is the gospel invitation: leave behind the woman of the great city, come out of her corruption, and be washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. Come and be made ready for the Savior, as a bride adorns herself for her husband.

This theme reminds us of that grand and glorious gospel truth: We who make up the Bride of Christ have our origin in Babylon. But, just as the woman at the well, we have “come out of the city” to meet the Savior and receive the waters of life.

The two women of Revelation correspond to the “two” women we meet in John 4: there is the woman who came to the well with five divorces and a mess of immorality, and the woman who leaves as a picture of this: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Gage captures this beautifully:

Christ redeems the Samaritan woman, in spite of her impure past, and transforms her into a picture of the bride of Jesus. Her thirst having been satisfied (John 4:28), she leaves the One she loves at the well, going back into the village to share with everyone the love she has found without cost. And so she calls for the people, any who thirst for living water (John 4:10), to come out of the city to meet Jesus, who gives so freely by the well of waters (John 4:29–30). In this she conforms to the picture of the bride in Revelation, who invites all who thirst to come out of the city (cf. Rev 18:4) and partake of the water of life without cost (Rev 22:17). (59–60)

Our origin is within the world, within the filth, but as we come to the well of living water, we are forever changed, and forever we live and exist to put his excellency and the power of his grace on display.

“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did,” the Samaritan woman says (John 4:29). For those who know themselves, such a statement is not immediately comforting. And yet, in Christ, that is precisely where comfort is found. He tells all that we have ever done, and then he cleanses us of all we have ever done, and all we ever will do.

The Bride Who Hears Her Name

Finally, the Gospel ends with another redeemed woman, Mary Magdalene, discovering the risen Savior. Luke tells us she had been delivered from seven demons, redeemed from deep darkness to become an instrument of light. And in John’s Gospel, it is Mary Magdalene—whose testimony would not stand alone in the public square—who first encounters the risen Christ.

Why all the attention on this woman lingering in the garden and then encountering the risen Lord? With our John-Revelation lens more fully developed, we might expect this to be a capstone picture of the heavenly marriage to come.

Thinking that the tomb has been raided and the body of her Lord has been stolen, Mary stands outside the tomb weeping.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” (John 20:15–16)

With a single word, the risen Lord turns her sorrow into joy, and her weeping into laughter. He calls her by name. The One who conquered death reveals himself not first to a king, a priest, or a council of elders, but to a redeemed woman in a garden, a glorious echo of Eden and a foretaste of the new creation.

If John and Revelation correspond, we should expect a parallel, and we find it in the promise of Revelation 21: “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” (v. 4).

What Mary tasted in that moment is what the Bride will know fully on the last day. When we are united to our Bridegroom and behold the immeasurable riches of his grace, he will sweep us up, as the one he came to find, the one he came to save, and he will wipe away every tear from our eyes. As Mary did, we will joyfully cry out, “Rabboni!”

Let Geerhardus Vos give the final word, as he writes:

He shall also come again to show Himself to us as He did to Mary, to make us speak the last great “Rabboni,” which will spring to the lips of all the redeemed, when they meet their Savior in the early dawn of that eternal Sabbath. (Grace and Glory, 107)

The author is pastor of First OPC of South Holland in South Holland, Illinois. New Horizons, April 2026.