Revelation 2:8 — The First and the Last Who Was Dead

Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and tav is the last. In Greek they become alpha and omega. The title “the first and the last” is the alphabet’s two bookends, and it belongs first to Yahuah: “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6). Revelation opens the same way, with “the Almighty, which is, and which was, and which is to come” naming Himself Alpha and Omega (Revelation 1:8).

Yahushua also speaks the words “the first and the last,” but never alone. Each time, he joins them to his death: “I am he that liveth, and was dead” (Revelation 1:17-18), and again, “the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive” (Revelation 2:8). Yahuah cannot die, for He “only hath immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). So the Son’s title cannot mean what the Father’s means. Yahushua is first as “the first begotten of the dead” (Revelation 1:5), and last as “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). The Father is the First and the Last with no beginning and no end. The Son is the First and the Last through a grave and a resurrection. One title, two different foundations, and no co-equal Godhead in either.

The book closes where it opened. The one “that sat upon the throne” says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” and then promises the overcomer, “I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (Revelation 21:5-7). The aleph and the tav stay on the throne, and the risen Son leads many sons to it.