Today we’re starting a new series called “The Aleph Tav.” About 6 weeks ago, during our praise and worship time, I really felt like the Lord said to me, “Your next sermon series is called ‘The Aleph Tav.’” This is something I’ve been learning but haven’t really been prepared to preach or teach about. Well, I’m still learning, but here we are! Taking steps of faith in what we feel is the direction of the Lord.

The key passage is this one:

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 22:12-13 (ESV)

The Apostle John ends his incredible Revelation of Jesus Christ with this word from Jesus Himself in Revelation 22. 

Jesus reveals that He is also Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and end, which is a phrase that only the Lord Himself could say.

I mean, we even get this in the first chapter of Revelation:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8 (ESV)

If Jesus calls Himself Alpha and Omega, He is declaring Himself to be the Lord God. This is no surprise to us, because we believe Jesus is God. God is made up of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Every person of the Trinity is God Himself. God is not divided; He’s three-in-one.

God is The First and The Last

And just to be clear that this is a God-statement, we’ll reference 4 verses in Isaiah where God makes this truth abundantly clear:

“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 (ESV)

“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.” Isaiah 43:10 (ESV)

“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.’” Isaiah 44:6 (ESV)

“Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.” Isaiah 48:12 (ESV)

God has no beginning and no ending. He is eternal. He is infinite. He has always been, and He will always will be. It’s sometimes difficult for our minds to understand this truth, but we just accept it in faith, like we do other things.

You know, I was talking to Cherise the other day, and I was telling her this: If you forget that God is all-knowing and just realize the thousands and thousands of years of experience that He has, it’s pretty astounding! Who wouldn’t want to get counsel from someone who literally has thousands of years of experience working with people?

Alpha and Omega

Well, in getting this revelation from, you know, the book of Revelation that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last… Jesus is God.

So where does Alpha and Omega come from, and what does it mean? Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet. And there’s a reason we call it the “alpha-bet” because the first Greek letter is alpha and the second letter is beta. Put those together and you get alphabet. It’s kind of like us saying we know our “ABC’s,” except in Greek it’s just our “AB’s” or alphabet.

Does that make sense? If Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” in English, it would sound like this, “I am the A and the Z.” He declares to us that He is the first letter in the alphabet as well as the last letter in the alphabet. And let me give you a little bit of a hint: Jesus is every letter in between too. 

Did you ever think of Jesus as a letter in the alphabet? Do you go around saying to Jesus, “What’s up Z?” (Or if you are British, “What’s up Zed?”)

Perhaps you remember the movie Men in Black, where all the agents in black were given letter names. When I first watched the movie and heard the name, “Zed,” I wondered why everyone was given the name of a letter, except the one guy who was named Zed. Sometime later I was educated that our northern brethren refer to the letter “Z” as the letter “Zed.”

Anyway, referring to people as letters is not foreign to us.

The Word

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He [Jesus] was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” John 1:1-4 (ESV, brackets mine)

This statement, again a revelation from the Apostle John, shows us that Jesus is the Word. The Word was and is with God. The Word is God.

Words are made up of subcomponents. These subcomponents are called what? Right! Letters! 

If Jesus is the Word, then He’s made up of letters. If Jesus is made up of letters and in Jesus is life, that means the letters of Jesus are living letters. They’re alive because they’re Him. He is the Word; the Word is Him. He is the letters; the letters are Him. Jesus is the language of God.

When God spoke in Genesis chapter 1, Jesus was there doing the creating. We learn from Colossians 1:

“For by him [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:16 (ESV, brackets mine)

Jesus is the Creator. Jesus is God. He was there in creation, in the midst of all of it.

Let’s read Genesis 1:1 together:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 (ESV)

Jesus was not absent from Genesis 1:1. He was there in the beginning with God, creating the heavens and the earth.

We are going to pause here for this week. Next week we will talk about what Aleph Tav means and how that relates to the Alpha and Omega we talked about this week! It’s going to be so interesting!