Thursday, April 19
Read Revelation 1:10-18. What does Jesus say about Himself there?
Jesus appears in these verses, standing in the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary. The revelation of Him in this role was so great that John fell at His feet in fear. Jesus, ever comforting, tells him not to be afraid and points to Himself as the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last — references to His eternal existence as God. Later He talks about His death and resurrection and the hope that His resurrection brings. Jesus has the keys to “Death and Hades”. In other words, Jesus here is saying to John what He said to Martha at the death of her brother, words that John also recorded: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25, 26, NKJV) .
With Martha and now with John, Jesus points us to the hope of the resurrection, the culmination and climax of the Christian faith. Without this hope, what hope is there?
“Christ Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the Genesis of the Old Testament, and the Revelation of the New. Both meet together in Christ. Adam and God are reconciled by the obedience of the second Adam, who accomplished the work of overcoming the temptations of Satan and redeeming Adam’s disgraceful failure and fall”. — Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary , vol. 6, pp. 1092, 1093. Yes, Jesus is the beginning and the end. He created us in the beginning, and He will recreate us in the end.
From start to finish, as it teaches us about not only history but about end-time events, the book of Revelation is still the Apocalypsis Iesou Christou, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Again, whatever else we may study about final events, Jesus Christ must be the center of it all.
What are ways, every day, that we can keep Jesus the center of our lives?
