JESUS: THE ETERNAL ALPHA AND OMEGA

In John’s Apocalypse, we find both God and the risen Christ declaring themselves to be the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End:

“Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’… When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” Revelation 1:7-8, 17-18

“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.’” Revelation 2:8

“And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son.’” Revelation 21:6-7

“‘Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end… I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.’… He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” Revelation 22:12-13, 16, 20

These titles are intended communicate the fact that God is an uncreated Being who endures forever, and has therefore been there from the very start of creation and will remain with each subsequent generation till the end of age. To put it simply, these divine appellations describe God as the uncaused Cause of all creation who sovereignly guides and sustains everything that exists.

This is precisely how the book of Isaiah interprets the phrase “the First and Last”:

“Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am He.” Isaiah 41:4

“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it, let him declare and set it forth before me. Who has announced from of old the things to come? Let them tell us what is yet to be. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” Isaiah 44:6-8

“Hearken to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am He, I am the first, and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.” Isaiah 48:12-13

As such, that Christ refers to himself in this manner means that the risen Jesus is claiming to be the uncaused Cause of all created existence, the One who along with the Father is sovereignly overseeing and preserving the entire creation!

In other words, these divine ascriptions affirm that both the Father and the Son exist as the one true Almighty God who has no beginning and whose existence never ends!

Even the renowned agnostic/atheist textual critic of the New Testament and best-selling author Bart D. Ehrman admits that this is how God and Christ are being portrayed in the Apocalypse. He writes:

“In any event, John is on Patmos, where he has his first vision, of Christ himself. John indicates this happened while he was ‘in the Spirit’ on ‘the Lord’s Day’ (1:10). This is the first time in Christian literature that Sunday is called the Lord’s day–named that because it is the day the Lord was raised from the dead. Being in the Spirit may indicate that he was deep in prayer or had even gone into a kind of trance. John hears a voice of telling him to write letters to the seven churches and turns to ‘see the voice’–an odd expression (how do you see a voice?), but not unprecedented. On turning, he sees seven golden lampstands and ‘one like a son of man’ walking among them. This is a clear reference to Christ, who in the early Christian tradition was identified as the ‘Son of Man,’ in reference to a passage found in John’s visionary predecessor, Daniel (Daniel 7:13-14; see Daniel 10:5-9).

“The vision of Christ in 1:13-16 is quite stunning. Right off the bat we encounter an amazing array of images. He is clothed in a long robe with a large golden waistband; later in Revelation, this will be the attire of mighty angels who bring destruction on the earth (Revelation 15:6). His hair is white as wool or snow, showing he is ancient; his eyes are like a flame of fire, showing his piercing judgment. His feet like fine bronze, showing his magnificence. His voice is like a rushing river or waterfall, showing the power of his speech. In his hand are seven stars, which I will explain later. And from his mouth comes a two-edged sword, an image used elsewhere in early Christian literature to denote the word of God (see Hebrews 4:12). His face shines with the brilliance of the sun.

“John’s response to this startling vision is what you might expect. He faints. Christ restores him with a touch and tells him there is no reason to be afraid. He, Christ, is the “first and the last” (a phrase later used of God himself), the one who was alive even though he died, who now has the power over Death and Hades, the realm of the dead…” (Ehrman, Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End [Simon & Schuster, New York, NY 2003], pp. 29-33; bold emphasis mine)

First, Christ identifies himself by one of the images used elsewhere in the book, saying, for example, that he is the one who holds the seven stars and walks among the seven lampstands, or that he is the first and last, who came back to life from the dead. (Ibid., p. 33; bold emphasis mine)

Despite what is sometimes said, it is a mistake to think that Christ first appears in Revelation as the Lamb, as if this were the guiding image of the narrative. On the contrary, Christ first appears as the cosmic judge of the earth, the “one like a Son of Man” (1:13), whose coming in Scripture leads to the destruction of the enemies of God and their rule (Daniel 7:13-14). In John’s opening vision of Christ (1:12-16), he is dressed in a white robe and gold sash, just as the mighty angels who will later pour out the bowls of God’s wrath (15:6). But he is FAR MIGHTIER than these earth destroyers. His hair is white, not to show that he is old and decrepit, but to reveal that he is the One who has ruled FROM ETERNITY PAST (see Daniel 7:9), the “alpha and the omega” (22:13). Most important, he has a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. I noted earlier that this may represent him as the one who speaks the Word of God, but for John this Word is not a peaceful, soothing communication to calm the souls of those on earth. It is the word “judgment.” Later Christ tells the Christians they should repent or “I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth” (2:16). (Ibid., pp. 160-161; bold and capital emphasis mine)

“And not only at the book’s end. The idea that God AND HIS CHRIST HOLD ABSOLUTE POWER permeates the book from the very beginning. In the opening lines, Christ is described as ‘the ruler of the kings of the earth’ (1:5), who by dying received the ‘glory and dominion forever and ever’ (1:6). With his own first words, God proclaims his universal dominance: ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’ (1:8). The English word ‘Almighty’ is a bit weak for the Greek term used here: Pantokrator, a rare word, or at least it was before the book of Revelation. The word almost never appears in Greek before the New Testament and only once in all the other twenty-six books of the New Testament (2 Corinthians 6:18). But John uses it nine times. It means something like ‘the one who exercises his power over all things.’ That is, of course, what ‘Almighty’ means, but that more common word gets used so often that its force has been tamed. The Pantokrator is more powerful than anything in existence… Thus, the book of Revelation is all about levels of domination. God the Father is Pantokrator (All-mighty). Christ who implements God’s will is the conqueror of earth, the Lord of lords and King of kings…” (Ibid., pp. 192-193; bold and capital emphasis mine)

The views expressed by Dionysius struck a chord with many church leaders in the east–not surprisingly, since they were reading the books of the New Testament in Greek. (The west mainly used Latin). It was well over a century before the book came to be accepted more widely as a part of Scripture. This acceptance was driven by several factors. For one thing, Revelation proved useful for orthodox thinkers during the great theological controversies of the fourth century. The most significant debate involved the nature of Christ: Was he a divine being who was subordinate to God the Father, a second-level divinity who came into existence at some point in eternity past? Or was he completely equal to God the Father in power and fully eternal? The latter position eventually won out, and the book of Revelation PROVED USEFUL TO THAT END. As I have noted, God identifies himself as “the Alpha and Omega” twice in the book (1:8 and 21:6). But Christ does as well: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (22:13). If both God and Christ claim to be the beginning and end of all things, they are, then, EQUAL AND BOTH FULLY ETERNAL, at least in the argument of the orthodox theologians. (Ibid., p. 198; bold and capital emphasis mine)

Ehrman is not alone in holding this view.

I now quote from noted Evangelical scholar Michael F. Bird, who concurs with Ehrman that Jesus in Revelation describes himself as the Alpha and the Omega. However, Bird makes some interesting observations related to specific NT texts that deal with Christology, which are worth citing at length:

To begin with, Jewish language for God made much of a distinction between the one God and “all things,” which is based on an ontological distinction of Creator and creation that found its way into the New Testament (1 Cor 8.6; Rom 11.36; Heb. 1:2-3; 2.10; Col. 1.16-17; John 1.3).⁴³ Paul does not consider Greco-Roman deities/daemons to have a “nature” (physis) or “being” (ousin) comparable to God (1 Cor. 8.4; 10.20; Gal 4.8). He contrasts idols with the “true and living God” (1 Thess 1.9; 2 Cor 6.16) and the images of mortal humans and animals with the “immortal God” (Rom 1.24; cf. 1 Tim 1:17).

In addition, Paul makes what are effectively ontological claims about Jesus by stating that Jesus exists in the “form of God” and is “equal to God” (Phil 2.6).⁴⁴ Udo Schnelle believes such a text marks “the beginning of thinking of God and Christ as equals.”⁴⁵ Adela Collins takes Phil 2.6 to “mean that he [Christ] was god-like in appearance or nature, that is, a heavenly being as opposed to a human being.⁴⁶ Put differently, Jesus exhibits the outward display of God’s being and glory, which itself expresses the inner reality of God’s nature.⁴⁷ Or, in Plutarchian language, the divine offspring is an image (eikon) and copy (mimema) of the divine being (ousia/ontos).⁴⁸ Josephus (Ag. Ap. 2.190-91; 248) connects God’s form (morphe) with God’s “nature” (physis) and “magnitude” (megethos). Philo and Justin believed that the “form of God” expresses the divine nature, which makes human deification and idol worship utterly inappropriate (Philo, Legat. 80, 95, 97, 110-11; Justin, 1 Apol. 9.1). It should be remembered that across Phil 2.6-11 is a combined affirmation of Christ’s preexistence, his divine being in terms of possessing the “form” and “equality of God,”⁴⁹ and inclusion of Christ within the monotheistic rhetoric of Isa 45.23. That Jesus exercises divine functions and receives a form of worship is merely the window dressing to the more astonishing claim that he shares in what sets Yahweh apart from other gods and creation: he shares in the divine name and exclusive monotheistic devotion. There is a Verbindungsidentität (shared identity)⁵⁰ between God and Jesus only because there is also a Verbindungwesen (shared being)…

An absolute sense of divinity seems present in other parts of the New Testament and early Christian literature. John the Elder refers to Jesus Christ as “true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20), which postulates Jesus Christ as possessing an absolute form of divinity. The terminology “true God” came to influence the later church, for whom “true God” designated absolute deity apart from demons and lesser deities (see Justin, Dial. 55.2; 1 Apol. 6:1; 13.3; 53.6; Irenaeus, Haer. 3.8.1; 4.20.1; Minucius Felix, Oct. 26; Athanasius, Inc. 16.1; 45.4; 47.3; 55.5). The author of Hebrews delves into ontological categories with his vivid description of the Son as “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Heb 1.3). Jesus is ontologically different from the angels as one who is above them as a divine being while also below them as a human being (Heb 1–2). The author later declares that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13.8; cf. 1.8–12), and this amounts to language about the future eternity of a true God. If the language of divine sonship and begottenness (Heb 1.2, 5, 8;4.14; 5.5) is combined with preexistence and eternality (Heb 1.1–14; 7.3, 28;13.8), it yields something analogous to eternal generation. (Bird, Jesus Among the Gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World [Baylor University Press, Waco, TX 2022], I. Jesus and Ancient Divinity, 2. The Search for Divine Ontology, pp. 59-62; bold emphasis mine)

And:

John the Evangelist portrays Jesus as the preexistent Word (John 1.1-2; 17.4-5), set apart from “all things” as the instrument of creation (1.3), sent by the Father (5.26-27; 8.16-18), from heaven (3.13; 6.33, 38, 50-51), who takes on human flesh (1.14), becoming the “son of Joseph of Nazareth” (1.45), who is “one” with the Father to the point of mutual indwelling (10.30, 38; 14.8-11, 20; 17.11, 21-23), equal to God (5.18), possesses “life in himself” (5.26), makes himself God (10.33-34), who returns to the “glory” that he had with the Father before the creation of the world (17.5, 24; 20.17), who is honored as the Father (5.23), worshipped by a supplicant (9.38), and confessed by Thomas with the honorific acclamation of “my Lord and my God” (John 20.28). True, the accent falls on an economic Christology whereby the “only true God” is known exclusively in the mediatorship of the “only begotten” Son (1.14, 18; 17.3), with emphasis on Jesus as the agent of revelation (1.18; 15.15; 17.6, 26) and salvation (3.16; 4.42; 5.24, 34; 12.47) par excellence. However, the journey from divine arche to inhabiting flesh in the world, and then going back to heaven is couched as a narrative of messianic revelation as much of ontological transformation of a divine being into human existence. Indeed, the jarring Johannine combination of divine oneness, creator-creature distinction, preexistence, perichoresis, begottenness, messianic testimony, incarnation, glorification, receiving worship, divine functions of judging and saving, presses into a theological and ontological direction that makes the Johannine Jesus’ divinity absolute if one is to describe who Jesus is and how he is divine.⁵⁹ According to Frey, the language describes “the Logos/Son sharing in the ‘quality’ and ‘divinity’ of the one God⁶⁰ and the Logos possesses ‘divinity in the sense that the Logos CLEARLY BELONGS TO THE REALM OF THE CREATOR, UNCREATED. He is divine in the sense THAT HE IS UNCREATED.”⁶¹ Or, as Ruben Buhner puts it, “the first two verses of the Gospel of John deal with the Beginning before beginning. The Logos itself thus appears separate from the works of creation, as absolutely pre-existing, THAT IS UNCREATED.”⁶² (Ibid., pp. 63-64; bold and capital emphasis mine)

Once more:

John the Seer’s apocalypse contains two strategically placed announcements where the Lord God says of himself: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the one “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty,” and “the beginning and the end” (Rev 1:8; 21:6). Quite amazingly Jesus later refers to himself with the same theophanic language, saying “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev 1:17; 22:13). This is allusive of Isaianic monotheistic rhetoric, such as “I am the first and the last; besides me there is no god” (Isa 44:6; cf. 41:6 [sic]; 48:12). Similar sentiments were extant in Hellenistic Judaism, where God “is the beginning and end of all things” (Josephus, Ant. 8.280; Ag. Ap. 2.190; Philo, Plant. 93). It is reminiscent too of the Derventi papyrus (ca. 350 BCE) containing a person declaring that “Zeus is the beginning, Zeus is the middle, all things are filled by Zeus,” and Plato’s remark that “God … holds the beginning and the middle and the end of all things” (Plato, Leg. 4.715e; cf. Irenaeus, Haer. 3.25.5; Hippolytus, Ref. 19.6; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.22; Origen, Cels. 6.15; Sib. Or. 8:375-76).⁶⁷ By using these words, the Seer stresses the absolute sovereignty and power of both God and the risen Jesus,⁶⁸ but also identifies Jesus with the God “who transcends time [and] guides the entire course of history because he stands as sovereign over its beginning and its end.”⁶⁹ (Ibid., p. 65; bold emphasis mine)

And finally:

“… Nonetheless, the identification of Jesus as the mediator of creation is incredibly significant. Greco-Roman philosophers could speak of a divine creator, yet the supreme gods, Zeus and Jupiter were not ordinarily attributed a creative function; they were progeny of the old gods, Kronos and Saturn. The Olympian gods were not creators of the world as much as the most powerful forces permeating the world. While very few intermediary figures were attributed a demiurgical role or a mediating function in creation, it was not unprecedented. Wisdom and angels were sometimes given creative role, as was Plato’s demiurge with the young gods and Philo’s Logos. Even the Babylonian deity Marduk is among divine beings who create. Yet even these creator-gods and demiurgical figures are themselves created beings, and that is the difference. To attribute a creative function to Christ would not itself make him species unique or require his promotion within a divine hierarchy. However, when Christ is considered eternal, placed above angels and powers, and attributed a creative function, that is the telling point. Thus, when the early Christians confessed Jesus as the one by or through whom ‘all things’ were made (1 Cor 8.6; Col 1.15-18; Heb 1.2; Odes Sol. 16.19; John 1.3; Rev 3.14; Keryg. Pet. 2; Herm. 3.4; 91.5; Diogn. 7.2; Justin, 1 Apol. 6.3; Irenaeus, Haer. 4.11.1), with absolute preexistence and EVEN ETERNALITY (John 1.1-2; 17.5; Pol. Phil. 14.3; Diogn. 11.5), and differentiated him from and above intermediary figures (1 Clem. 36.2; Mart. Pol. 14.1; Herm. 59.2; Ascen. Isa. 4.14; 9.28; Irenaeus, Haer. 1.22.1; 3.11.1-2; 4.7.4; 5.18.1; Epid. 10; 40; 94; Gos. Pet. 39-40; Athenagoras Leg. 10.2, 5; 24.2; Diogn. 7.2-4; Justin, 1 Apol. 52.3; Tertullian, Carne 14.1-2; 6.3; Ps.-Clem. Rec. 1.45; 2.42; Hom. 18.4; Origen Cels. 5.4-5), they were placing him ON THE SIDE OF THE UNCREATED CREATING GOD in distinction from created creator-deities and their creation. (Ibid., pp. 385-386; bold and capital emphasis mine)