Revelation 21:22 — The Almighty

The word “Almighty” appears ten times in the New Testament. The Greek is pantokrator (G3841), built from pas (G3956), all, and kratos (G2904), dominion: the one who holds dominion over all things. Paul uses it once (2 Corinthians 6:18), and Revelation uses it nine times (1:8, 4:8, 11:17, 15:3, 16:7, 16:14, 19:6, 19:15, 21:22). In 19:6 the KJV renders it “omnipotent” and in 19:15 “Almighty God,” but the Greek word is the same. Not once is it given to Yahushua.

The word did not begin with the apostles. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures used pantokrator for “Yahuah of hosts” (Tseba’oth, H6635), and in Job for Shaddai (H7706). Paul’s one use shows where it came from. His words in 2 Corinthians 6:17–18 draw on Isaiah 52:11 and on 2 Samuel 7, where Nathan opens with “Thus saith Yahuah of hosts” (7:8) and carries the promise “I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (7:14). The Almighty is the Father of the promised Son, not the Son.

Revelation keeps the two apart from its first lines. It is the revelation “which God gave unto him” (1:1). The greeting comes “from him which is, and which was, and which is to come,” and then, separately, “from” Yahushua the Messiah (1:4–5). Verse 8 repeats the title of verse 4 word for word and closes with “the Almighty,” so the speaker is the One of verse 4. The KJV reads “saith the Lord” and most modern versions read “the Lord God,” but either reading points to the same One. Using 1:8 to make the Son the Almighty requires stepping over 1:4–5.

The rest of the book holds the line. The four beasts cry “Lord God Almighty” before the throne (4:8). The elders give thanks to the Lord God Almighty for a kingdom that belongs to “our Lord, and … his Christ” (11:15–17). The saints sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb to the Lord God Almighty (15:3). The heavenly crowd cries “Alleluia,” Praise Yah, to the one who reigns (19:1–6). The rider called The Word of God treads the winepress of the wrath “of Almighty God” (19:13–15), carrying out the wrath of Another. And in the city, “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (21:22): two, joined by “and.”

Ten uses, one Almighty. The Son is sent, receives, and carries out; the Father holds dominion over all, and when all things are put under the Son, “he is excepted, which did put all things under him” (1 Corinthians 15:27–28).