Today we’re continuing our series called “The Aleph Tav.” Remember, Aleph Tav is where we see Jesus in the Old Testament.

The key passage for this entire series 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.

Remember, alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. A and Z are the first and last letters of the English alphabet, so Jesus could have said, “I am the A and the Z,” in English. 

Or if Jesus was speaking Hebrew, He would say, “I am the Aleph and the Tav.” 

And we talked about how there are aleph-tav’s scattered throughout the Old Testament Scriptures that show the “strength of the covenant,” which is what the Hebrew letters aleph and tav put together would literally mean. And who is the strength of our covenant? It’s Jesus Himself.

As a side note, this is not a popular belief. My feeling is that there are a lot of Hebrew scholars out there who are not Christians who are NOT interested in finding the so-called “Christian” Messiah in the Old Testament Scriptures. But Jesus is their Messiah too.

And you don’t have to believe that the presence of aleph-tav in the Old Testament is indicative of Jesus. But hopefully through this series, you’ll be able to see where Jesus shows up all throughout the Old Testament, and that’s He shows up in more places than we have previously realized. 

Jesus is the Beginning and the End. He is all throughout Scripture.

Prophecy of the Messiah, Genesis 3:15

One of the first prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament, if not THE first prophecy, is found in Genesis 3:15. We’re going to use other parts of the Bible to shed some more light on this prophecy, and then we’ll see if any aleph-tav’s show up to provide additional insight.

“I will put enmity between you [serpent, satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (ESV, brackets mine)

We see from several places in the New Testament, that this serpent was, in fact, the devil himself. 

It becomes pretty clear from Revelation 20 the identity of this serpent:

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:1-2 (ESV)

I won’t read it, but you can also find a reference to the devil being in the Garden of Eden in Ezekiel 28.

And we also know from New Testament Scripture that Jesus is the woman’s offspring, because He was born of a virgin. 

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14 (ESV)

We know who the virgin was; it was Mary. We know who the Son was; it was Jesus, literally given the name “God with Us.”

And the Hebrew word translated “sign” in that verse, is an aleph-tav with a vav in the middle. The strength of the covenant with a nail through it is the sign of the Messiah. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Going back to the prophecy from Genesis 3:15:

“I will put enmity between you [serpent, satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring [Jesus, church]; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (ESV, brackets mine)

How did Jesus bruise the head of the devil? Definitely through his sacrifice for us on the cross and through the resurrection. He destroyed the stronghold of sin in our lives as well as the stranglehold it had on us. 

The Apostle John writes:

“Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8 (ESV)

Jesus bruises the head of the devil by destroying his works. 

And how did the devil bruise the heel of Jesus? Through the horrible crucifixion. Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be wounded for our healing.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5 (ESV)

We know from every one of the gospels that this happened to Jesus. 

But Jesus overcame this crushing through the power of the Spirit in His resurrection. And even before his death and resurrection, He foreshadows this sort of authority by delegating this authority to his disciples. He says:

“Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.” Luke 10:19 (ESV)

Jesus has the authority over the kingdom of darkness [serpent and scorpions], and he can and does delegate that authority to us, His disciples, even as He did for the disciples when He walked this earth.

And another of my favorites:

“And they [the Church] have conquered him [the accuser] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Revelation 12:11 (ESV, brackets mine)

Now, going back to Genesis 3:15, we see how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy and continues to fulfill it through His Church:

“I will put enmity between you [serpent, satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring [Jesus, church]; he shall bruise your head, [vav-aleph-tav-heh] and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (ESV, brackets mine)

What’s cool to me, is that the phrase “and you” is actually a Hebrew word that contains the aleph-tav in the middle of it. Using the meaning of the letters, similar to how we looked at Genesis 1:1 two weeks ago, you see the nailing of the strength of the covenant, – that’s the vav-aleph-tav. 

Then the Hebrew letter Heh is used to signify God’s glory or a revealing or a sign. Like Yahweh’s name, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, where two letters Heh’s are in His Holy Name, the presence of the letter Heh along with vav-aleph-tav is significant.

So, if you’ll allow me to insert these meanings, we get a pretty clear picture of the operation of Jesus in this verse:

“I will put enmity between you [serpent, satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring [Jesus, church]; he shall bruise your head, [vav-aleph-tav-heh: through the nail of the strength of the covenant for God’s glory] and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (ESV, brackets mine)

Is this a stretch? For some, yes. For me, it just shows that Jesus is there in the midst of this incredible prophecy, showing how He from the very beginning had a plan to conquer the enemy’s plans.

And even Scripture proclaims that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation or creation of the world:

“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” Revelation 13:8 (NIV)

So all along, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had a plan for our salvation and to destroy the works of the devil.

Before we move on, I just wanted to point out who was speaking the prophecy in Genesis 3:15. Here’s what we see in Genesis 3:8:

“And they [Adam & Eve] heard the [aleph-tav] voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool [spirit] of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.” Genesis 3:8 (ASV)

Who’s voice did Adam and Eve hear in the garden that day? It was the voice of Aleph-Tav, Jesus Himself, walking in the Spirit of the day, speaking on behalf of Father God. The Trinity shows up seeking relationship with Adam and Eve right after they had sinned.

Let this be a good lesson for us: even after we blow it, even after we sin and mess up, God doesn’t stay away from us. He draws near. We don’t need to hide ourselves from Him. We draw closer to Him through this process. Our sin reveals the places in our lives that need even more of His Presence and Power around! It reveals the places in our lives that need His healing touch. So invite Him in. He didn’t reject Adam & Eve. He moved closer to them. And He showed them that He had a plan all along, taking their failures and the failures of future humanity into account already in His plans.