Christological Titles – Alpha & Omega
Thesis
Norman Vincent Peale, who pastored Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan and in the 1950s was known as the proponent of the theological school of thought known as Positive Thinking, in his autobiography The True Joy of Positive Living dedicated a considerable part of the latter half of his book discussing death. This was certainly out of character from his previous writings. To this day, I think his chronological age when he penned the book gave it this emphasis. Like most people in the twilight of life, his thoughts inevitability turned to impending death. In the closing pages he shared an analogy that spans several paragraphs that is worth reprinting, clarifying the theological concept before us in this lesson on Christological titles – Alpha and Omega. Peale wrote:
For many years for those who have been translated from mortality to immortality, I have used a parable, the truth of which I personally believe to be unassailable. Let us suppose that an unborn infant in its mother’s womb is able to express itself. Suppose also that someone says to it, ‘Soon you will die out of this present state in which you are living or, as we call the process, you will be born.’
The infant might protest, ‘But I like it here. I am fed, warmed, loved, and cared for. It is so pleasant and I am very comfortable. I don’t want to die out of this place or be what you call born.’
However the change is inevitable and the moment comes in the womb, and the infant does ‘die,’ or finish its appointed time in the womb, and it is born. Then what? The baby looks up into the beautiful face and into the eyes looking down upon it in love. The infant is cuddled in loving arms, and is astonished by the wonder of the thing that has happened. The child soon discovers that all that it has to do to get anything he or she wants is to cry or coo. Everyone loves the baby and runs to do its bidding. So quite soon the infant says, ‘Why, this is wonderful. This place they call earth and what they describe as mortal life is so much better than where I came from. This life is a great improvement over the former one.’
And so the years of happy childhood pass, and the child becomes a youth, then moves into the exciting and creative years of young adulthood, and on into full maturity. He (or she) marries, and his children in turn experience the joys of parenthood and family. He knows the excitement of achievement and enjoys the rewards and engages in the struggles; solves the problems and knows the tears and laughter of life.
Then he begins to grow old, and perhaps the infirmities common to age come to him. One day the thought of death comes menacingly.
Again he is told, or more likely he tells himself, ‘I cannot stay here. I will pass away. I am going to die.’ And, as before, he protests, ‘But I don’t want to die. I love it here. I do not want to leave this place. This has been my home for so long. I love life, the mystery of the dawn, the glory of the sunset, the loveliness of the changing seasons. I love to feel the crunch of snow under my feet on a winter’s night and to smell the rain on a summer’s day and view the beauty of faraway hills lost in their haze of blue. I don’t want to leave this I love. I don’t want to die.’
But nature again takes it course. He does die. Now what happens? May we not rationally believe that he does not die, but instead is born once more? He looks up into a face more beautiful than that of his mother. Loving eyes look down upon him and underneath him are everlasting arms. Again the law of development and growth proceeds – this time in a land, as the old hymn has it, that is “fairer than day.”
As Peale illustrates there is an endless cycle to life – no beginning, no end. Life is on a single continuum. This is the meaning of the Christological title “Alpha and Omega.”
In Judaism God is considered the beginning and end of all things. The Hebrew word for truth is emeth. Hebrew originally had no vowels, so the word emeth is composed of three constraints, aleph, mem, and tau. The word emeth came to symbolize God because aleph is the first letter of the alphabet, mem the middle letter, and tau the last letter. It was confessed that emeth stood for the – beginning & middle & end – and therefore God. For a Jew, the Beginning and the End was a title for God.
The New Testament writers continued this presupposition when they translated emeth into Greek. Designating that Jesus was the beginning and the end, the first and the last, they took the phrase from aleph to tau and translated it to from alpha to omega, with alpha being the first letter of the Greek alphabet and omega the last.
There are a number of implications for this confession. It designates Jesus’ completeness and comprehensiveness for he is eternal on both ends of the spectrum of creation. It means that Jesus brings perfect continuity to creation which has no break, no points in which it can be shattered; it is unchanging, unvarying, unwavering and uninterrupted. Jesus is the beginning and the end. He was before all things. He will be after all things.
It is in this we have our hope of the everlasting status that is bestowed upon each one of us who believes in the eternal existence of creation. The affirmation for Christians is that Jesus is the source and origin from which life begins and the goal and end to which all life moves. Though in life there is still suffering, this removes the fear of suffering for it affirms the dominance of Jesus over all powers and principalities. The Apostle Paul recognized this when he wrote, “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” (Rom 11:36)
Arthur Rubinstein, one of the greatest piano virtuosos of the twentieth century, once said, “It’s all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.” Living in the promise that all begins and ends with Jesus does allow us to live life from miracle to miracle, knowing we are secure in God’s act of creation.
Jesus referenced himself with this phrase only once and it is absent from the gospels and the epistles. The title is found only three times in the scriptures, all of which are in the Book of Revelation. The first two references are overtly ascribed to God. The third is clearly accredited to Jesus. John, unhesitant and without qualification, equates Jesus to God with this arrangement. No higher title can be attributed to Jesus for he is assigned the title reserved for God himself.
God proclaims, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” (Rev 1:8) and several chapters later reports, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega.” (Rev 21:6) The first passage is part of the book’s salutation, confessing that God is dominant over all of creation. The second reading is an assurance of God’s trustworthiness to make all things new, therefore it can be declared, “It is done.” Such a declaration can only be prescribed by the One who controls the destiny of creation.
The third affirmation is made by Jesus at the close of the book, “See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Rev 22: 12-13) In this passage Jesus directly applies the title of God to himself. This implies a Trinitarian relationship that is never forthrightly stated in the scriptures, only implied of the equality of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. It is made explicit when purported in the doctrine that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are of one nature, defined as “one in three, three in one.” This confession was finalized at the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. and the Trinitarian formula was officially canonized as church dogma. Having lived with the formula since that time we have the tendency to read it into the scriptures, but it was never formally articulated by the New Testament authors, only inferred. In the final book of the Bible the Incarnation is complete, God and Christ merge into one.