Read with Me
Revelation 1:8 (HCSB)
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the One who is, who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.”
Listen with Me
Into the midst of John’s opening narrative, God’s voice is suddenly heard – not as a whisper, but as a shout.
God first declares Himself to be “the Alpha and the Omega”. This phrase is the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, equivalent to “the A and the Z” in English, but it is rich with meaning.
First, it testifies to God’s all-inclusiveness. It means that He is everything, not in some pantheistic way (God is everything, therefore everything is God). Instead, it expresses the reality that God is the origin behind everything that exists and is the basis for its continued existence, as John wrote about Jesus in John 1:3-4: “All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men.”
Next, it shows that God was before all things, just as alpha is the first letter of the alphabet. And He will be the final reality just as Omega is the final letter of the alphabet.
And just as Alpha and Omega in a sense define the limits of the alphabet and “contain” all the rest of the letters, so God defines the limits of all reality, not just the physical realm of the earth and the universe, but also the unseen spiritual realms. And everything that exists is contained in and ultimately defined by God’s own existence.
The phrase “who is, who was, and who is coming” was used by John in 1:4 to convey God’s blessing to the recipients of this letter. It communicates God’s timeless nature.
God is the one who created time, even though he lived outside time for all eternity before He created it. Time is an element of the physical universe, not of God’s nature. When God puts an end to the physical universe, time will cease to exist at that moment, God Himself will continue to exist and to move in timeless eternity, as will all who have entered into relationship with him through faith in Jesus.
Finally, God identifies Himself as the Almighty One. There are many powerful people in the world, and many powerful forces. And their magnitude is often measured by comparing them to all the others. But God’s might, His power, is such that it cannot be compared with anything else, because He created all those other things. His power spoke into existence the whole star-filled universe. It is by His power that everything in the universe operates in logical and ordered ways that can be discovered by scientists. It is by His power that everything lives and dies. No one and no thing can compete with God, and no one can ultimately defy His will without destroying themselves in the process. He is not merely mighty. He is the Almighty.
Pray with Me
Father, even with all these very clear words, I realize that we are seeing only the hem of Your robe. You are beyond anything that we can understand, beyond anything we can even imagine. How amazing that You once lowered Yourself from all that power and glory to become a man, and even to suffer and die, all so that we can experience a little of Your reality here and now, and so that we can see You face to face and live in Your timeless glory when our earthly lives are done. You truly are worthy of all glory and all praise, now and forever! Amen.