Revelation 1:7-8
7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
As we continue, we see once again that John wove together his own testimony with the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ that God had given unto Him.
In verse seven, John alludes to a time in his own past when the Lord was taken up from His disciples outside Jerusalem. Approximately thirty years earlier, Luke spoke of it in Acts 1:9-10.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
John states that the Lord will come again “with clouds.” He makes it very clear, however, that when the Lord comes in the clouds again, he will not be at all as He was that day when He was taken up from them. John says that…
…and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
When He returns, John tells us that Jesus Christ will be seen by all,[1] and that all mankind will “wail” because of Him. In the thirty years [or so] since Luke wrote, John has grown in his understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ. He clearly sees Him now as One that the world will tremble at when He comes.
This matters a great deal. As we have already suggested, the low concepts that Christians have today about Jesus in the manger, or on the cross, or as the One that seeks and saves those that are lost…these concepts are fine as far as they go, but they are too low for holding to Him in faith when Christians face the final days of the churches on this earth. We will see a great deal more of this same truth when we consider the final nine verses of this first chapter of the Revelation.
In verse eight, John quotes the Lord Himself again.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
The Lord Jesus Christ here uses the first letter of the Greek alphabet [Alpha] and the last letter of the Greek alphabet [Omega] as a means of stating something beyond human comprehension about Himself. I greatly appreciate what J. A. Seiss said about this.
"Our Saviour claims to be what letters and language were meant to be, namely the expression of truth… He is THE WORD.—the embodiment of all Divine verities from first to last…the only communication from the absolute to the created."[2]
Mr. Sells, my early Bible teacher said that the Lord was saying, “I am the “A” and the “Z,” and everything in between!” This, for me, points to that amazing statement in Colossians 1:18:
…that in all things he might have the preeminence.[3]
For the “casual” reader of The Revelation, these declarations by Jesus Christ create a “make or break” situation. He is claiming to be nothing less than the expression of everything that is true only of God. The apostle John clearly knew Him in this manner, and paid a high price for his testimony to Caesar that Jesus is the LORD.
[1] We are told that even those “which pierced him” shall see Him when He comes! What must this mean? [2] J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1979), 33. [3] Many years ago I was led of the Lord to claim this portion of Colossians 1:18 as my “life verse,” the one verse that I hoped would express the ongoing truth about my entire life and work.