God has ordained his Son as the only Savior, and so the words of the Apostle Peter will be true forever ( Acts 4:12). The Bible asserts that God’s purpose is to enthrone his Son and glorify him forever ( Psalm 2:6-7 Philippians 2:9-11). Since God’s purposes never change, his purposes for Jesus Christ will never change. Moreover, God’s purposes do not change ( Isaiah 46:9-10) God is now exactly the same as he always has been and will be for all eternity. It means, first, that God’s character does not change. The immutability provides good news to suffering Christians like the believers to whom John was writing in Revelation. Therefore, having his life entirely from himself, the God “who is and who was and who is to come” always is, was, and will be exactly who he is. Because God is eternal, his being is not subject to any chain of events.īecause he is self-sufficient, nothing outside God is able to cause him to change ( Romans 11:36). The second implication of God’s self-existence involves his immutability, which means that God does not and cannot change. This word combines the Latin a, meaning “from,” and se, meaning “himself.” God is “from himself.” Several implications may be drawn from the self-existence of God, starting with his self-sufficiency. The theological term for God’s self-existence is aseity. Like the fire, God does not derive his life from any source the fire burned in the bush, but the bush was not the source of the fire. The fire did not depend on the bush but burned by its own all-sufficient life. He is the God “who is.” Not only does the eternal God have no beginning, but the self-existent God has no source of life other than himself. These words reflect God’s eternity, but the first of them especially declares God’s self-existence. Repeating a phrase from verse 4, God describes himself as the Alpha and the Omega, “who is and who was and who is to come.” Therefore, related to God’s eternity is another attribute of God highlighted in Revelation 1:8. When we study the attributes of God, we find that they are all interrelated. Peter states in 2 Peter 3:8, “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” Being eternal, God is the One “who is and who was and who is to come” ( Revelation 1:8). When we speak of God being eternal, we mean that his being exists outside time and history, which God created. God says: “Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last I am he” ( Isaiah 41:4). Beale writes that “a merism states polar opposites in order to highlight everything between the opposites.” As the Alpha and the Omega, God is in control of everything in between. “The Alpha and the Omega” is a figure of speech called a merism. Revelation 1:8 supports God’s sovereignty with three statements, the first of which expresses the eternity of God: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God.” God reigns over all since he is before and after all things.

Alpha and omega