Alpha and Omega: From A to Z

Word of the Week

July 11, 2026

 

Alpha and Omega: From A to Z

 

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

Revelation 22:13 NASB

 

A is for Aardvark.

B is for Baboon.

C is for Caterpillar.

Do you remember the alphabet picture books that you used to read to your toddlers?  Those were the first (painless) pathways to learning the alphabet.  They were the opening steps on the road to reading.

I don’t know how the ancient Greeks taught their kids to read, but I know that they had their own alphabet.  It started with “Alpha” and continued with “Beta.”  In fact, that’s where we get the English word “alphabet.”

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters.  Most of us know them only as the names of college fraternities (Phi Beta Kappa, for example).  Two however, are familiar to most of us – the first and the last ones: Alpha and Omega.

Why do we recognize those?  Because the Bible uses “Alpha and Omega” as a description of God.  It appears three times, all in the book of Revelation.

The apostle John opened Revelation with a dramatic salutation:

Grace to you and peace , from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness . . . . (Revelation 1:4-5).

God transcends time.  He exists now, He has always existed, and He will always exist.  And only a few verses later, John adds a phrase to emphasize His eternal nature:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1:8).

The eternal God is the beginning, the first letter of the alphabet, the starting point of everything.  And He is the one who tells the end of the story, the last letter of the alphabet.

The second time we find “Alpha and Omega” in Revelation, the text adds another phrase to make the meaning unmistakably clear:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 21:6).

These words from the throne of the New Jerusalem explain “Alpha and Omega” by adding the phrase, “the beginning and the end.”  God is there at the beginning of everything, and He is there in the dominant position as everything reaches its climax.

To emphasize this truth even more strongly, the third mention of “Alpha and Omega” includes an additional explanation:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13).

Just in case you didn’t catch the idea the first two times, John finds another way to remind us of our God’s timeless nature.  “The first and the last” is a title that goes back to the book of Isaiah.

Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts; I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me (Isaiah 44:6; see also Isaiah 41:4 and 48:12).

Let’s not overlook one vital truth about this final appearance of “Alpha and Omega.”  It is clearly a title for God.  And in this verse, it is clearly used for Jesus, the divine Son.  Verse 12 says, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”

What a stirring reminder that Jesus Christ was not merely a wise teacher.  The New Testament describes Him in terms that belong exclusively to deity.  He is God, not mere man.

And for that reason we worship Him.

 

Study Hint:

Greeks had two options in writing the letters of the alphabet.  They could simply write the letter itself, just as we would write A, B or C.  Or they could write out the name of the letter as a separate word.  Not A but alpha, not B but beta.

All three times that “Alpha and Omega” appear in Revelation, the text spells out the word “alpha,” but it simply inserts an O, without spelling out the word “omega.”  It would be like saying “Alpha and O.”  It’s an interesting pattern, and I can’t give a grammatical reason why it would be so.  However, I enjoy the suggestion that “alpha” refers to the past, where we know how it all turned out, while “Omega” refers to future, where God hasn’t spelled out all the details yet.

 

Coming Up

For the next few weeks, we are going to look at a few other titles for Christ.  Next week, we will dig deeper into His claim to be “the door.”

©Ezra Project 2026