Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. We are going to start Revelation 21 as we come to the close of our Trinitarian Commentary tonight. I hope you all have enjoyed it. In addition to the usual prayer requests, I ask that you pray for a friend of mine who was in a car accident tonight. He and the other driver are fine, but I hope he’ll take this as a wake-up call to turn his life around. I ask for your prayers also for my continued Christlikeness as I submit my will to be in alignment with that of the Potter. Second, for my financial situation. Third, I ask for your prayers in a related area of my life. For now, let’s get to Revelation 21:6.
6He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
This is something that we noted at the very beginning of the book. When we got to Revelation 1:8, we saw that the Lord God identified himself as the Alpha and Omega. It is fitting that as we come to the conclusion of this book, that the same title is repeated for God.
The title indicates the eternality and infinity of God. He is outside of time. The beginning and end find their being in him. He cannot be bound by space. He cannot be bound by time. Before there was anything else, there was him.
This would be different from the Greek deities who had their origins in time. Zeus had a father and a mother, for instance, and he was the father of many other gods. The gods of the Greek system, which became the gods of the Roman system, were parts of the world. They were bound by the universe much like men were. The gods could do things that men couldn’t, but they were still part of the universe. The God of Israel revealed in Christ is not and was not and never will be.
As applied to Christ, it would mean that he is one without beginning and end and it is noteworthy that he is described in a similar way in Revelation 1, an idea that we will look at later on in this series. In Revelation 1:17, Jesus uses the term “First and the Last” to describe himself.
The term is also used to indicate further God’s sovereignty in the context of Revelation 21. He is in charge of who gets in and out of the city and he has not been surprised by anything. Those who are wicked are not allowed in. God also has the last word on all matters.
We today need to realize what a blessing this would have been for early Christians first reading this book. God was in control of time. He is not surprised by anything. He will bring about all things for his intended purpose. The victory of the Lamb is that he does take the bride to be with him, and so shall we be someday.
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