God's relationship with man is recorded at the beginning of the Bible, and at the end; "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" Jesus says.
In between the first and the last books of the Bible, is the description of man's striving with God, sometimes with Him, and sometimes, indeed often, striving against him.
The numbers quoted below against the words, are the numeric equivalents of the words in their original Greek language. Forming numbers by adding the letters of the words themselves was a practice called Gematria, and this practice was used by ancient peoples. The use of Arabic numerals is a modern invention, and would not have been known by those ancient peoples.
"Four" times in the book of Revelation, there is a reference to Christ as "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" or "the first and the last" - "four" is the number of God's creation and of material completeness. After the Godhead of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - the threefold aspects of God - the fourth thing which follows is His creative works. There are four elements - earth, air, fire and water. There are four regions of earth - north, south, east and west. There are four seasons of the year - spring, summer, autumn and winter. There are four great variations of the lunar phases. And so it goes on. The fourth day of God's creation week saw the material creation finished. (The furnishing and peopling of the earth with living creatures took place on the fifth and sixth days of the creation week.)
Of these four times that Jesus says that He is "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" they occur twice at the beginning of Revelation and twice at the end of Revelation. As the number "two" is highlighted here, is it coincidence that the gematria of "I am Alpha and Omega" is 2220? It is becoming apparent that the structure of the Bible from Genesis through to Revelation, and the structure of Revelation itself in the way it is written, could be a witness of God's logical design capabilities.
The first occurrence of "Alpha and Omega" is in Revelation chapter 1, verse 8. The Greek alphabet letter Alpha carries the number equivalent of "1", and the letter Omega carries the number equivalent of "800". In her book "The Stones Cry Out", Bonnie Gaunt draws our attention to the numbers 1 and 8 being present in the mathematical definition of the hydrogen atom - the source of light and life to all God's creation. Again, is it coincidence that the words "Alpha and Omega" first occur in Revelation verse 1.8?
How can a god, person, or thing be both the beginning AND the ending? It is hard for us to imagine this. We are born - at the beginning; we die - at the ending. Even if we live for ever, we start somewhere, and forever is "a long way down the track" so to speak - in the future.
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