"I am the Alpha
and the Omega, saith the Lord God, which is and which was
and which is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8).
"And He said
unto me... I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning
and the End" (Rev. 21:6).
"I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and
the End" (Rev. 22:13).
One of the titles
which the Lord takes to Himself in resurrection is:
"the Alpha and the Omega". The Lord Jesus here
presents Himself as "the Living One", Who was
dead, and is alive again - alive for evermore (Rev.
1:18). Those two letters, Alpha and Omega, are, as we
know, the first and the last letters of the Greek
alphabet. The one is the same in form as the first letter
in our own alphabet; the other is unlike any of our
letters. Alpha and Omega - First and Last. In every
alphabet there is something which corresponds to an 'A'
and a 'Z', an Alpha and an Omega, a beginning and an end.
It does not matter how complicated the alphabet may be,
or if it only contains a poor twenty-six letters as in
English: everything is bounded by the 'A' and the 'Z',
the Alpha and the Omega. You cannot get anything outside
of that; all is within that. The Alpha and the Omega
comprehend all speech; there is no speech possible in any
language outside of what comes between those two letters.
All that can be said has to come between their compass;
outside of their compass nothing can be said.
No
Knowledge Of God Outside Of Christ
Now Jesus says that of
Himself: "l am the Alpha and the Omega."
The Word of God tells us that Christ is the fullness of
God, and that God will sum up all things in Him. What is
more, it shows us that God will never speak to anybody
outside of His Son, Jesus Christ. He has bounded all His
speech to man by His Son; He has made Christ the compass
of all; He has nothing to say, and He will say nothing,
outside of His Son. "No one cometh unto the Father,
but by Me," said the Son (John 14:6). "And no
one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any
know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the
Son willeth to reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). The
Apostle who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews began by
saying: 'In old times, God spoke in fragments and in
parts and in various manners, by different men and at
different times; but at the last He summed up all that He
had to say in His Son. In the end, He has spoken to us in
His Son, Whom He has appointed Heir of all things.' All
that God will say, and all that God can say, to us, will
be in Jesus Christ.
"I am the
Alpha". The very first syllable of the knowledge of
God is the knowledge of Jesus Christ. It begins with A;
it is the first lisp of a babe. "God sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba,
Father" (Gal. 4:6). The first syllable of the
Christian life begins with 'A' - 'Father'. We do not know
the Father until we know Jesus Christ: He it is Who has
revealed the Father. The beginning of all knowledge of
God as Father comes to us through Jesus Christ. What He
said in His prayer was indeed true: 'I have manifested
unto them Thy name' (John 17:6) - and that name was
'Father'. Do you want to know God? Do you want to know
Him as Father? Do you want to know what He has to say to
you, to make known to you? Do you want to know all or any
of the vast wealth God would reveal to you? You can only
know it in Jesus Christ; you can only know it in Him Who
is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.
There is no knowledge without words made up of letters
(except perhaps for our Chinese friends!), and all the
letters are between these two. There is no knowledge that
is knowledge indeed, knowledge that is life eternal,
except in Jesus Christ. "This is life eternal, that
they should know Thee the only true God, and Him Whom
Thou didst send... Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). There
is no knowledge outside of Jesus Christ.
And there is no
communication from God outside of Jesus Christ. Set Jesus
Christ aside, and God is silent - He has nothing to say
to you. If you fail to give His Son His place, God is
just dumb; He will communicate nothing. The more you
honour the Son, the more the Father will come out to you
and communicate with you.
All
Need Comprehended In Christ
Secondly, Alpha and
Omega not only comprehend all speech - they comprehend
all need. You do not want anything outside of 'A' and
'Z'; you do not need to create any new letters; it is all
there. It does not matter what big words you use - and
there are some big words these days! - it does not matter
how big the words, how long the sentences, or how great
the utterances: you can meet the need of the biggest
word, the longest sentence and the fullest utterance
between Alpha and Omega. For all these big new words, you
have no need to create new letters: all that you need are
here.
We are told by the
Apostle Paul that "in Him" - that is, in Christ
- "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead"
(Col. 2:9); "all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge" (2:3). "It was the good pleasure of
the Father that in Him should all the fullness
dwell" (1:19). We are very fond of that word of
Paul's to the Philippians: "My God shall fulfil
every need of yours according to His riches in glory in
Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). Every need supplied on
the scale of His riches in glory - can we fathom this,
can we compass this? - but every need met according to
that in Christ Jesus. In Him is all we need; He is Alpha
and Omega. When Jesus says: 'I am Alpha and Omega', He is
saying: 'I am all you need. You never can have a need,
you never can invent or imagine anything for which I am
not sufficient. No situation can arise that exhausts Me:
in Me all the fullness dwells. I am Alpha and Omega.'
Christ:
Agent, Pattern, And Goal Of Creation
Christ is the first and
the last in creation, so says the Word. In that letter to
the Colossians, to which we have just referred, the
Apostle tells us clearly and precisely that "in Him
were all things created", and that "He is
before all things" (1:16, 19). The Apostle John, at
the beginning of his Gospel, tells us the same thing,
that "all things were made through Him" (1:3).
He is the beginning in creation. In the Letter to the
Hebrews, we are told that the ages were made through Him,
they came into being through Him (1:2). In this book of
the Revelation, we read: "These things saith the
Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the
creation of God..." (3:14). He is the Alpha and
Omega in creation: here He is the Alpha, the very Agent
and Instrument of creation.
He was creation's
design, for all things were made to be a temporal and
material expression of spiritual and moral realities in
the Son of God. If we had eyes and understanding to see
the deeper secrets of an unfallen creation, a vast
universe from the hand of God, we should see, in
everything, something that speaks of the Son of God - His
spiritual, His moral character, and His supreme place in
the whole system of God. He is the pattern of creation:
"of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all
things" (Rom. 11:36); and He is declared to be the
completion, the finish, of the creation of God. He is the
Alpha and the Omega.
Christ:
First And Last In Redemption
All this is by way of
setting the Lord Jesus in His rightful place in God's
universe. But we may feel that it is not very helpful to
us. What comes nearer to us is this: that He is the Alpha
and the Omega in redemption. He is the First and the Last
in redemption. In that letter to the Hebrews again, we
have this familiar word: "Looking unto Jesus the
author and perfecter of our faith" (12:2). He is,
then, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega,
of redemption.
Christ is, of course,
the beginning of redemption in this simple sense, that
there is no redemption until we come to Him. Just as
there is no speech, no communication, no knowledge until
we come to the alphabet, so there is no redemption until
we come to the Lord Jesus. There is just nothing before
'A'; there is nothing before Alpha: that is just where
everything begins. And what is true in language is true
in redemption: there just is no redemption, there is no
salvation, until we come to the Lord Jesus. But when we
come to Him, there is a new beginning. It is the
beginning of everything - a whole new compass and range
of possibilities, whether of communication, of knowledge
and understanding, of wisdom or of pleasure.
What a wealth there is
in Christ! What a wealth there is in Him as the Redeemer!
When you take Him as the beginning, the Alpha, of
salvation, what a marvelous world opens up! When you pick
up a dictionary, and begin to turn the pages, what a
world opens up! As you go on and on, through the many
thousands of words, in all their different shapes and
forms, what a world is there! I cannot understand any
person who cannot revel in a dictionary! But you see what
I am getting at. When you come to Jesus as the Alpha, a
new and vast and wonderful world begins to open up, a
world that you never thought of. It is like coming upon
new words in the dictionary - words that you never knew
were there, and that open up to you altogether new
vistas. It is like that with the Lord Jesus: when He
becomes your Beginning, an inexhaustible world opens up.
Wealth, fullness, riches of knowledge - there are
limitless possibilities when you begin with 'A'.
And there is no end to
it! Just as there is something more being added every
year to the dictionary, so it is in the Christian life. I
am not exaggerating. My experience through the years, and
perhaps especially in recent times, is that Christ is
just inexhaustible. There is more and more and more
coming, all the time, that we did not know before. But it
all began when we began with Him, and it has gone on ever
since, and it is going on for eternity; for the Word
says: "Of the increase of His government... there
shall be no end... upon His kingdom" (Isa. 9:7). No
end! What a kingdom of fullness His is! But we have to
begin with Him, we have to make Him our beginning before
we can have any of it. He has got to be our 'Alpha'. But
when once He is that, I say again, a new world opens up;
a new fullness - and such a fullness! - begins to
disclose itself. It is all in Him as our Redeemer.
This is what we have in
the first chapter of the Revelation: titles of the Lord
connected with Him in resurrection. And then we have
words about what He has done in redemption. He 'purchased
unto God with His blood...' (Rev. 5:9); He "loosed
us from our sins by His blood; and He made us a kingdom,
priests unto His God and Father" (ch. 1:5,6). It is
the work of redemption which has opened up everything new
- wonderful fullness! He is the Alpha of Redemption.
"The
Author..."
Christ is not only the
Beginning: He is the Beginner. It says here "the
author": "looking unto Jesus, the author and
perfecter..." (Heb. 12:2). He is the Beginner - the
One who takes in hand this matter of beginning all over
again and bringing us into a world that we have never
known before. He is the initiator of it: it is in His
hands: He does it. He has taken the initiative in our
redemption; that is the point. I am so glad of that - so
infinitely glad of that. With all that may be said about
our quest - man's quest for God, man's search for God -
that is nothing compared with God's search for man. What
Jesus has come to reveal, and has revealed, is that God
is the Seeker. Those wonderful and familiar parables
about lost sheep, and lost pieces of silver, and lost
sons (Luke 15), and other lost people: they are all meant
to show us that God is the Seeker, that the initiative is
with God. "The Son of man came to seek and to save
that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).
Yes, He began this
thing: you and I would never be rejoicing in salvation if
He had not begun it. He said: 'Ye did not choose Me, but
I chose you" (John 15:16) - and that is why we are
now numbered among His saved ones. And if we are now
among those that belong to the Lord, it is simply because
He sought us. Whether we were seeking or not, He was the
Seeker; He was the Beginner; He began. No one else can
begin to redeem us; no one else can save. 'There is no
other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved'
(Acts 4:12); only His Name. There is no beginning of
redemption without Him.
"...and
Perfecter"
And Christ is the Last,
the Omega, the end - in this sense, that, when He begins
a thing, He finishes it. 'The Lord', says the Word, 'will
perfect that which concerns us (Ps. 138:8). "He
which began a good work in you will perfect it until the
day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). He finishes what
He begins. And He is not only the Beginner and the
Perfecter, but Himself the Beginning and the Ending - the
Finish. God is working all things to the end that we
should be "conformed to the image of His Son"
(Rom. 8:29). Christ stands, so to speak, right at the
end; and God is moving and working in us, His people, in
relation to that One who stands at the end, that we
should be conformed to His image. The servant of God
cries: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy
likeness" (Ps. 17:15). It is that likeness that is
the end: Jesus Himself is the End. All things under
Heaven's government are working towards conformity to
God's Son.
Christ
Makes Sense Of Life
Furthermore: Christ, as
Alpha and Omega, makes sense of life. I might have a tray
with all the letters of any alphabet jumbled up in it. If
I know what the letters are, and I know what I want, I
can put them in an order so that they make sense. They
express exactly what I want to express. All this that
comes between 'A' and 'Z', between Alpha and Omega, makes
sense when it is put in its right place. There are many
people today who cannot make sense of life at all. The
struggle of many is to try to make sense of life: What
does it all mean? What is the explanation of it all? It
seems all a jumble, a confusion, an enigma. Jesus makes
sense of life: He puts the jumble into an order.
That is a description of
the Divine design, the great purpose of God: to provide
an explanation of everything. Yes, in Him we have the
answer to our life's problems; in Him we have the setting
in order of lives disrupted and confused. Has that not
been true of so many? Men and women whose lives were all
mixed up and confused, distorted and twisted, without any
seeming design or pattern, meaning or explanation; they
could not make sense of anything. And then they came to
the Lord Jesus, and life made sense: a design, a pattern
came in, and they came to realize what it all meant, what
they were for. That is the testimony of those who are
truly His. In the Lord Jesus, we have found a pattern, a
design, for life; we have found a meaning in life, an
explanation of life. He can bring into life a clear
pattern, a new understanding. In Him, as Alpha and Omega,
we have all that we need to make sense.
Let me repeat: Until you
have your letters, your basic characters, there is no
beginning, and there will be no sensible, meaningful end
at all. Jesus just supplies that need - a beginning and a
sensible end. He leads somewhere! When you and I at last
reach the end, the end in glory, it will truly be a
meaningful end, will it not? It will be an end that
justifies everything, that gives meaning to everything,
that explains everything. The thousand 'why's' of
lifetime will be answered, will all be explained. Why
this experience and that? Why this sorrow and that? Why
this disappointment and that loss? Why these strange ways
in our life? It will all be answered in the end - and
Jesus Himself will be the End! Yes, it will be a
'sensible' end. We shall have no quarrel with God then,
because Jesus will have put it all straight, and brought
us to an end beyond our wildest expectations and
altogether beyond our merits.
God
Speaks To Us, And Through Us, By Life
Thus we may understand
why, in the Bible, Jesus is called "The Word of
God" (Rev. 19:13). God speaks in Him and by Him;
always and only, and finally, in His Son. Perhaps you
say, 'That is all very interesting, but after all, how
does He speak? Are we to hear Him with our ears?' No. If
you come back to the context of these titles, you will
find that it is resurrection life. "I am... the
Living One;... I became dead, and behold, I am alive for
evermore" (Rev. 1:17, 18). How does He speak? How do
we know Him? How is life delivered from its tangle and
confusion and brought into pattern and meaning? By His
becoming our life! He makes us partakers of His own risen
life. He puts that life into us which is an ordered life,
a life of wisdom and understanding: a life, not of
confusion, but of pattern. It is a life-power within
us.
When His life is within,
that life answers the questions, explains things, gives
meaning to life. And while, to natural ears, life may be
inaudible, life is really a very, very powerful speaker.
It speaks louder, much louder, than words. Some poor
suffering child of God may not be able to say much in
coherent speech, but you have only to be with them for a
very little time, and the life speaks to you. The very
life that is in them speaks far more powerfully than
words. It is the life that is within us which is the
communication, the explanation, the wisdom of God: the
power of that life working in us. By that life, God
speaks to us, answers our problems.
So often, the answer of
God to us is not in something that He says, but in
something that He does - in some new touch of life. It is
strange how, if we get that new touch of life in our
inner man, we cease to worry about the problem - the
problem is solved! We may not have got the answer to our questions,
but we have got the answer: it is in life! It
does not matter about the problem now; it is answered in
this new touch of life. Life is God's way of speaking to
us.
And life is God's way of
speaking through us. People may come into a meeting, and
they may have no idea what the speaker is talking about;
and yet they might go away and say - 'I didn't understand
a word, but... but... there was something there!' They
may not be able to describe it, because they are not
familiar with the language and the phrases and the
terminology. But they feel that they meet something there
- something that answers to a need. Well, if they only
knew, they would say: It is life, life, life! And that is
the way that God really speaks. We would sooner have it
that way, would we not, than that people should be able
to understand a lot of words and phrases, and not feel
the impact and registration of life. Better, of course,
if both; but if we have to choose, better this way - that
they go away and say: 'There is something there that you
cannot get away from; I can only say, it is God!' And
what they mean is - it is Jesus Christ, the Living One!
That is the way God
speaks through us. Oh that we may be, in this sense, the
voice of God, the speech of God: the expression of
Christ, Who is the Alpha and the Omega.
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jan-Feb 1958, Vol 36-1