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"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending" (Rev. 1: 8).
"These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the
creation of God" (Rev. 3: 14).
"It is done, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 21: 6).
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last"
(Rev. 22: 13).
With these glorious truths must be included the testimony of the apostle Paul:
"He is the head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Col. 1: 18).
Let us examine these references more carefully. Rev. 1: 8 associates the title, "the
beginning", with the great age-abiding name Jehovah: "The Lord which IS, and which
WAS, and which IS TO COME." Here, in this Name, all time is comprehended, past,
present and future, and He is the "Almighty", so that what He "began" to do at the
creation of heaven and earth, He will "finish" in the day of God. The "beginning"
implies an end, or goal. In Rev. 21: 6 the goal is reached: He that sat upon the throne
said, "It is done." When we ponder Rev. 3: 14 with Gen. 1: 1, to what other
conclusion can we come than that Christ is there in Gen. 1: 1, the "beginning of the
creation of God", and in Him, the "first", creation will at length reach its goal, for He is
also the "last", and He is the "Amen", the faithful witness to the onward movement of the
ages.
In Col. 1: 18 there is a limitation. He is there seen, not so much in His relationship to
creation, as to the church. True, all creation is the work of His hands (Col. 1: 16, 17), but
it is there in the background, while the new creation, already seen in the church, which is
the body, sets forth in miniature the creation to come. Christ is undoubtedly "The
beginning" of that new creation, which has as its goal what is vividly expressed in
Col. 3:
"The image of Him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew . . . . .; but
Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3: 10, 11).
This, in its turn, exhibits the goal that is implied by the opening words of Gen. 1: 1:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth . . . . . Then cometh the end
. . . . . that God may be all in all" (Gen. 1: 1 with I Cor. 15: 24-28).
Christ is "all and in all" to the church of the mystery: God shall be "all in all" when
the complete new creation is laid at His feet. So, the words "It is done" of Rev. 21: 6
refer to the works of Rev. 21: 5: "Behold, I make all things new." We observe also
that in I Cor. 15: Christ is the "firstfruits", a word which we have seen is implicit in
Gen. 1: 1.
We return to Gen. 1: 1, and with increasing wonder look at those opening words, "In
beginning", could be expressed idiomatically, "As a beginning", demanding, some time