The First and the Last

Revelation 2:8

The First and the Last

Smyrna’s title — who died, and is alive

— The Standing Stone —

Behind “LORD” in your Bible lies a hidden name — in the Hebrew it is Yahuah Psalm 83:18; Yahuah is the Father Isaiah 63:16; Yahuah is the only God, beside Him there is no other Isaiah 45:5; therefore Yahuah the Father is the only true God, leaving no room for a second or third person 1 Corinthians 8:6.

Reference Piece

The Titles He Was Given

A title of Yahuah on the Son is worn by gift — a shared title was never a shared identity

Foundation: The Titles He Was Given →

1 — The Claim

To the assembly at Smyrna, Yahushua announces himself again as “the first and the last.” On Yahuah’s own lips that title is a claim to be the only God: “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6), and again, “I am the first, I also am the last” (Isaiah 48:12). Both times the title is fenced by His sole deity — there is no God beside Him. So when the Son speaks the same words, they are read as the same claim: that Yahushua must be Yahuah.

2 — The Title Comes With Its Own Definition

As at the opening of the book, the title is not left to stand alone. The same clause that carries it tells you who the speaker is:

Revelation 2:8

These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive…

“Which was dead, and is alive.” The One who holds the title died and was raised — which the eternal Yahuah, of whom death was never true, did not and could not do. The Father’s deathlessness is His own, underived, held by no one else: He “only hath immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). The Son is “alive for evermore,” but the same breath says why — he “was dead” first (Revelation 1:18). One holds life in Himself; the other was given it back out of a grave. And where Isaiah fenced the title with “beside me there is no God,” the Son never does — he fences it with a grave. The words are Isaiah’s; the meaning is set by the empty tomb. He is first as “the first begotten of the dead” (Revelation 1:5), and last as “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) — the first and the last of a new creation, not a second timeless God beside the One who has no beginning.

3 — Why Smyrna Hears It

And the title is handed to this assembly on purpose. Of the seven churches, Smyrna is the dying one — facing prison and the sword, told, “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). To a people about to die, Yahushua does not announce himself as the God who cannot die. He announces himself as the One who was dead, and is alive — the firstborn who went down into the grave ahead of them and came up the other side. The death they dread, their Master has already walked; the crown waits past it.

Conclusion

The Verdict

“The first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.” The One who died is not the deathless God — he is the first to rise, and never die again.