Delegation of Immortality from Alpha and Omega The function of immortality was vested in God the Father, as we have seen (1Tim. 6:16). This process was extended to Christ and then to the elect. Christ in the first instance became the Alpha and the Omega by delegation. This is revealed by God to Christ in Revelation 1:8-20. Revelation 1:8-20 I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. 9 I John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lords day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to La-odicea. 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; 14 his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters; 16 in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth issued a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. 19 Now write what you see, what is and what is to take place hereafter. 20 As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (RSV) The text of Revelation 1 is constructed in five paragraphs or sections: verses 1-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-11, 12-20. God is before the throne and this Being is distinct from Christ, the third element in this chapter. The distinction is made between the one who is and was and is to come and Jesus Christ. The former or first Being has a throne in front of the seven spirits. This Being, the Lord God who is the Father, is the Being whose coming is described in Revelation 21. The structure is thus introduced in chapter 1 and concluded in chapter 21, being explained in the intervening chapters. The Alpha and the Omega is shown as being God Almighty and not Jesus Christ, from verse 8. The text at verse 17 shows the term the first and the last (protos and eschatos; the first-born of a series). This is derived from the meaning of the delegation by God of the process of the first and last to Christ. He was not Alpha and Omega but he was the first-born from the dead. He was alive and dead and alive again forevermore. The text shows the concept in the RSV. In the KJV, we can see that this concept was resisted by the compilers of the Receptus, who inserted the words Alpha and Omega in the text at verse 11 where no such concept or words existed in the ancient texts. The following became the text in the KJV. Revelation 1:11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. (KJV) This wording does not appear in the ancient texts (e.g. not in NU or M texts, not in Vatican manuscript #1209 Emphatic Diaglott, hence also not in other Bibles). The Companion Bible notes that the texts omit the words I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and as referring to Christ and also the words which are in Asia (see fn. to v. 11). Verse 8 is also translated as simply the Lord and not the Lord God (Greek: the Lord The God) as is evident from the RSV and also the New English Bible, Phillip’s and the Jerusalem Bible. The KJV version of Revelation 1 is a distortion involving false insertions in the Receptus. The purpose is to assert Christ as the Alpha and the Omega as seemingly ignoring God rather than by delegation from God. All of these alterations or forgeries to key texts are by Trinitarians in order to distort the theology to assert their false position. The Alpha was the primary source. He also retains the first and last structure. Christ came from this source. He was not the Alpha. However, he was the first and he will be the last (eschatos). God is, however, the Omega. He is thus the end result of the activity of the creation. Christ is dedicated to the establishment of the Kingdom of God where God will become all in all. As Omega, God becomes the product of His own (God’s) creation. We become individual aspects of the Holy Spirit as it is a monotheist web of living entities coming from and interacting with God the Father and each other. Christ was the first-begotten of the creation. He is before all things (at their head, see Zech. 12:8). In him all things subsist or are held together (Col. 1:16-17). Christ was seen biblically as a subordinate elohim or theos (Ps. 45:6-7; Heb. 1:8-9; Gen. 48:14-16; Zech. 12:6). This was the Great Angel who was Israel’s second God (see Barker’s The Great Angel: Israel’s Second God for a quasi-Trinitarian perspective). Christ derives his life, power and authority by command of God the Father (Jn. 10:17-18). Christ subordinates his will to God who is the Father (Mat. 21:31; 26:39; Mk. 14:36; Jn. 3:16; 4:34). God gives the elect to Christ, being greater than Christ (Jn. 14:28) and greater than all (Jn. 10:29). God sent His only born (monogene) Son into the world that we might live through him (1Jn. 4:9). God honours Christ, being greater than Christ (Jn. 8:54). The elect are made to participate in the divine nature (2Pet. 1:4). God put all things under the feet of Christ and made him head of all things to the Church. God promised His inheritance to the saints and He gave it to them through His mighty power: Ephesians 1:20-23 which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; 22 and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all. (RSV) The entire purpose of Christ’s existence as a being, a power and incarnation as a man was to fulfil God’s will as it applied to the saints and God’s plan of creation and salvation. Christ’s condition of existence where the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily (Col. 2:9) involves the theotetos, translated here as Godhead. This is the deity or the state of being God. Deity (theot) differs from divinity (theiot) as essence differs from quality or attribute (Thayer’s p. 288). Thus, Christ possessed the essence of the God’s deity and not His attributes other than by delegation. All things are given to Christ by God. 1Corinthians 15:27-28 For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says, All things are put in subjection under him, it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one. (RSV) Obscuring texts is not the province of any one Bible. Here the RSV has rendered this text to read everything to everyone rather than all in all as in the KJV. The text in Colossians 3:11 is the same sense (panta kai en pasin). Here we see that God is to be all in all. Thus we are vehicles of the Spirit of God. We are the living stones of the Temple that houses the Being and power of God. We thus become immortal as Christ was given immortality and as God has immortality. We can never be the Alpha but we will finally become the Omega as elohim as part of God.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 22:57:27 +0000
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