Revelation
Chapter 22 Verse 13 (NASB)
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13. "I am the
Alpha and the
Omega, the first and the last, the
beginning and the end."
"I am THE ALPHA and THE
OMEGA,
This is one of the names of Jesus Christ (Revelation
1:8 and Revelation
21:6). We recognize Alpha and Omega as the first and
last letter
respectively in the Greek alphabet. Now, alphabets in
occidental
languages are used to construct words and sentences. That
is, they are
used to communicate. Colossians
1:15-16-23 indicates that Christ was at
the creation of the original earth. It is no accident that
God SPOKE
the creation (Genesis
1:3-6-9-11-14-20-24-26-29-31) into being. In a
similar manner, it is no accident that this Revelation was
communicated
to John (Revelation 1:1). In
fact, the second to the last
verse in this
Revelation is Jesus SAYING, "Yes,
I am coming quickly."
John's first encounter with Jesus in this Revelation finds
Jesus
touching John with His right hand, the hand of authority,
and
comforting John with these same words (Revelation
1:17). Just as THE
ALPHA and THE OMEGA was an alphabetic ordering, THE FIRST
and THE LAST
is a numeric ordering. When Jesus talked about the
difficulty of making
Him the master of our lives, he often ended the discussion
with words
referring that the first will be last and the last will be
first (Mark
10:17-31, Matthew
20:1-16, and Luke
13:22-30). Humans have an inborn
need apparently to know where they fit within society. But
here Jesus
is saying that He fits next to each of us who are residents
of the new
Jerusalem (Revelation
21:2-3,9-10). He is the bridegroom to each of us,
THE FIRST and THE LAST.
THE
BEGINNING and THE END."
Here we are presented with a conceptual difficulty. Jesus as
part of
God and equal to God is forever. That is, He has no
BEGINNING and no
END. So this phrase must refer specifically to Jesus Christ
as the Son
of Man. He assumed the character and nature of man (Philippians
2:1-11). He had a BEGINNING (Luke
2) as man, and He had an END as man (Luke
23:44-49). In between His human BEGINNING and END, He
was tempted
in every way as mankind is or has been (Hebrews
2:14-18 and Hebrews
4:14-16). Furthermore, He overcame His human ending
and conquered
DEATH (Revelation 1:18).
We can say that Jesus communicates in God-speak (John
14:1-10-11), He occupies all from THE FIRST to/through
THE LAST,
and He experienced all of human life. Thus He, as revealed
in this
book, can redeem the earth (Revelation
5:5)
and provide our forever home (John
14:1-2-11).
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"Scripture taken from the NEW
AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman
Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975,
1977, 1995 Used by permission."
References to the Revelation of Jesus Christ are in bold
italics. All other references are in bold
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