Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 546
Revelation 22:13.
EVERY Sunday school child knows that there is no great mystery hidden in the words, “Alpha and Omega.” We have here the names of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, so that the sense would be, “I am A and great O,” in the Greek, or in plain English, “I am A and Z.” “Jesus is the Alpha and Omega: A and Z: the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
Our text demands no preface. Indeed, I do not know how I could venture to put a single letter before Alpha. Let us therefore come to our subject at once. In three ways I shall talk of the text. First, I shall bring certain doctrines to it. Secondly, we will look at the doctrines which are really in it. And then thirdly, at the lessons which naturally flow from it.
I. At the outset, WE SHALL BRING CERTAIN TRUTHS OF GOD TO THE TEXT. This is a much too common method of preaching and one which I am very far from admiring as a custom. When some preachers get a text, the enquiry is not what Truth is in the passage, but what sense shall they thrust upon it. Full often the poor text is served as a cook treats a bird. It is first killed and then stuffed with any kind of fancies that the preacher may have chopped up ready to hand. By frankly stating that my first observations are not in the verse before us, I shall avoid sanctioning such methods of abusing God’s Word. The thoughts to which I now give utterance have been suggested by many commentators and certainly, if they are not the legitimate offspring of the text, are closely connected with it.
1. Of things which we may fairly bring to the text, let us notice first that our Lord may well be described as the Alpha and Omega in the sense of rank. He is Alpha, the First, the Chief, the Foremost, the First-Born of every creature, the Eternal God. Man by nature is not the first even among creatures, for angels excel him by far. Nor are angels the chief, for our glorious Lord infinitely transcends them. He who made is greater than they who are made. And He who sends is greater than those who are sent. Jesus Christ stands Alpha in honorable degree—no angel can vie with Him.
“Being made so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” “For unto which of the angels said He at any time, you are My Son, this day have I begotten you”? “And again, when He brings in the first begotten into the world, He says, And let all the angels of God worship Him.” As for the Son, He has appointed Him heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds, but of the angels it is asked—“Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”
Alpha was frequently used by the Hebrews to signify the best, just as we are accustomed to use the letter A. We say of a ship, for instance, that it is “A-1.” So Jesus Christ may truly be said to be the Alpha, the First in this sense. Call Him by whatever title Scripture has affixed to Him and He is the First in it. Is He a Prophet? Then all the Prophets follow at a humble distance, bearing witness of Him. Is He a Priest? Then He is the Great High Priest of our profession. He is the fulfillment of all that which the priest did but typically set forth. Let Him mount His Throne as King, then he is King of kings and Lord of lords.
“His dominion is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom is from generation to generation.” If He is the builder of His Church, He is the wise Master-Builder. If a Shepherd, He is the Great Shepherd who shall appear. If the cornerstone, He is the Chief Cornerstone—in fact, it matters not what title, or which character He bears, He is in all these respects the Alpha, as much surpassing all things that may be compared to Him—as the sun excels the stars, or as the sea exceeds the drops of the dew.
But, Beloved, though our blessed Lord is thus Alpha—the First—He was once in His condescension made Omega, the Last. How shall I describe the mighty descent of the Great Savior? Down from the loftiness of His Father’s Glory and from the grandeur of His own Divine estate, He stooped to become Man. There is a vast distance from the Alpha of Deity, down to that letter which stands for manhood. But to this He came, He was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death. But this is not enough. He stoops lower than man. Yes, there is a verse in which He seems to put Himself on a level with the least of all creatures that have life—He says, “I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people.”
His Father forsook Him—the wrath of Heaven rolled over Him. He was so utterly crushed and broken that He was poured out like water and brought into the dust of death. Marshal the creatures of God in their order, in the dread day when Jesus hangs upon the Cross, and you must put Him for misery, for weakness, for shame as the Last, the Omega. How marvelous is this tremendous sweep of His humiliation, that from the highest Throne in Glory He should descend into the lowest depths of the tomb!