The Complete Works of the
First and the Last
One of my favorite words associated with the book of
Revelation is the word, “complete”. While the word itself is only used a couple
of times, the essence of the book is to tell us of God’s promised work to
complete what he has started. As Paul wrote, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring
it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[1] The Revelation gives us ample pictures of how God
will do this.
At the beginning of the book of Revelation God reveals
himself as, “’I am the Alpha and the
Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the
Almighty.’”[2] At the end of the book of Revelation God declares
himself as, “I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end,”[3] and, “I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”[4]
Woven through the rest of Scripture is a whole library full
of numbers that add up to this consistent message: God will complete what he
has started. The work God began in us is good, it is the work of the first and
the last, the beginning and the end, so it will end as certainly as it has
begun.
In fact, the gift we have in the first coming of Christ is
a gracious evidence of how God begins and ends something. He began everything
with creation as recorded in the beautiful account of Genesis 1, and brings it
to its grand end in the amazing pictures of the closing chapters of the
Revelation. In between, to give us hope and faith along the way to this
fulfillment, we have the prophecies and fulfillments surrounding the first
coming of Jesus Christ. What God promised he fulfilled, simple as that.
In a sense, I see God starting something he intended to finish.
However, because his work would need to deal with sin, death, hell, and the
grave, things would get messy. God’s children would face too many obstacles to
faith for God to leave us on our own. He had to do things in space, time, and
matter that would affirm the things he was doing in the spiritual realm, things
that would guarantee our eternal joy in his presence.
At the same time, in order to begin a work of creation that
would result in God having a people in his own image and likeness in the end, there
would need to be a grand scheme of redemption to get us out of sin, and back
into the likeness of God’s Son. This work would need to have a beginning and
end that fit into the larger beginning and end of God’s creative work.
So God, in his inestimable wisdom and knowledge, began
telling his people that he would fully deal with sin in such a way that he
would have this people that belonged to him, who would, in the end, be like his
Son. This began by telling the serpent that the offspring of the woman “shall bruise your head, and you shall
bruise his heel.”[5] It moved into the imagery of Noah’s ark, Moses leading
Israel into God’s deliverance, all the way through the prophetic descriptions
of a Messiah who would come and save the people of God. In essence, God
repeatedly spoke of what he had started, and how he would bring it to
completion.
When we consider the intricate records of the life,
ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have an enduring message
of hope to the Church that is waiting for the return of our Savior. The point
of Jesus’ return is to execute his judgment on the earth that had refused him, and
fulfill everything promised to his brothers.
While we wait for the day of Jesus’ appearing, we have this
wonderful revelation that is affirmed and proven so many times that faith and
hope should be the easy fruit of all that God has revealed. Jesus is both Alpha
and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. [6] We must see him this way in order to wait in hope
that the things he began in us he will finish.
In other words, we do not only think of Jesus as there in
the beginning and there in the end. We do not limit our beliefs to his eternal
nature. Rather, we receive this wonderful picture that Jesus is the beginning,
and so he started everything we see in creation, and he is the end,
purposefully bringing all things to the grand conclusion he has promised.
And, to help us along in our faith, he has promised, kept,
fulfilled, and recorded everything to do with his coming in redemption so that
we would know that he will equally fulfill everything to do with completing the
work he has started. Even the beautiful imagery of the 144,000 of Revelation 7
says this very thing. Jesus will not fail to bring home all the Father has
given him.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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