Before we consider the messages from the Lord to the seven churches described in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, there is one further point from chapter 1 which I will consider here, because to me it is an important part of Jesus’ message to all churches and all people. This concerns verse 8: ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty’, and the beginning of verse 11: ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last’, and verses 17-18: ‘Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.’
More than once I have heard unbelievers say, ‘If there is a God, then based on what I see in the world, he is not a God I would want anything to do with.’ (In fact, it was said in stronger terms than that.) In chapter 1 of Revelation, Jesus answers this objection. He makes it clear that while he does indeed now exist, as he has done and always will, his identity is particularly revealed in ‘the beginning and the ending’. In relation to the world, we can then see that the beginning is described in the Bible in the book of Genesis as the wonderful, perfect and unblemished creation, with all of it ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). Adam and Eve were without sin, having all liberty, and in fellowship with God. As for the ending of the world, this is described in most detail in the Bible in the book of Revelation, though there are important references and descriptions in other books of the Bible. Without trying to reduce that material, which is the subject of this series of essays and by no means exhaustively covered by it, to a few sentences, some salient points may give some suggestion of how Jesus is identified with ‘the ending’.
As will be discussed in further essays of this series, God, through Jesus Christ, is described in Revelation as executing judgement on the ungodliness of the world. Furthermore, Jesus deposes and expels, in practice and forever, Satan and all ungodly authority from the world. And in chapter 21:3-4 we read, ‘And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’ This, then, is the world that reflects the character, and person, and purpose of its creator, Jesus Christ. Not the temporary state of the world we now see, to which God has ordained a season, but which in many ways does not immediately reflect the character of God.
Again, the above point is not only an admonishment to those of the current age who would seek to tarnish the name of God with the present ungodliness of the world he has made, but it has particular relevance to believers in the time of John. For having received the wonderful, and then very new doctrines of Jesus Christ, and some having even seen Jesus in the flesh, or knowing those who had, they could rightly wonder to what extent the world would soon at that time be transformed into an entirely different, and much more godly place. How, in other words, would the new doctrines take effect, and when? But seeing the continuation of gross injustice and oppression, terrible suffering, and the denial of God among those of the world around them, it would be understandable if some were discouraged. (Those who oversaw the crucifixion of Jesus, or their successors, remained in authority; persecutions of the Church are described in Revelation chapters 2 & 3, in the book of Acts and the letters of the apostles; and the Jewish temple was destroyed by Romans in 70AD; but these historical themes, I suggest, are just some reflections of a tormented society, and Church, in which early Christians suffered daily personal abuses from a despotic colonial regime (the Romans and their collaborators), corrupt religious elites (the Pharisees and Saducees) and each other (as mentioned in the letters of the apostles).
For if the visitation of Jesus Christ himself, the Son of God, and his greatest of all sacrifice, and resurrection, and the redemption he brought, the significance of which they were then beginning to learn more fully, and not to mention the many other astonishing teachings Jesus brought, and the miraculous power he not only demonstrated but bestowed upon his followers – if all of that could not soon transform the world, the light of hope in some might be tested.
Jesus’ declarations, therefore, that he is ‘Alpha and Omega’, the ‘First and the Last’, and the ‘beginning and the ending’, followed by the descriptions in Revelation of what that ending will be like, must have been a great reassurance to the disciples of the day, even while it also called them, as it calls us, to brace and steel ourselves for a greater battle and longer endurance than we might have hoped. But to know that the ending, when it comes, will be more than worth waiting for, far above and beyond all we could ask or think. And it will be forever. Amen, and hallelujah!
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