Monday, May 25, 2026
I Am .. Alpha and Omega
Summarised and adapted from FW Boreham “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” saith the Lord—Rev. 1:8 Moses, 40 years raised as the son of Pharoah, then another 40 years the fleeing refugee on the desert, is summoned by God to know the living God- ‘And the Lord said unto Moses, come now, therefore, and I shall send thee unto Pharaoh, and I will send thee also until the children of Israel. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I am come unto them and shall say, the God of your father’s hath sent me unto you, and they shall say, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you!’ I am—! I am—what? For centuries and centuries that question stood unanswered other than that the name signified One without beginning, before the beginning and therefore after all things as well, the uncreated creator the sustainer of the universe, the LORD; that sentence remained clear but unclear, complete yet partial, revealed, yet clouded in mystery until He should come who should not only reveal it more fully but also be it. And in the fullness of time, he appeared or rather reappeared and filled in the gap that had so long stood blank. I am—! I am—what? ‘I am—the Bread of Life!’ ‘I am—the Light of the World!’ ‘I am—the Door!’ ‘I am—the true Vine!’ ‘I am—the Good Shepherd!’ ‘I am—the Way, the Truth and the Life!’ ‘I am—the Resurrection and the Life!’ And when I come to the end of the Bible, to the last book of all, ‘I am—Alpha and Omega!’ ‘I am—A and Z‘ It is the most sublime revelation of the Inexhaustibility of Jesus. He means that, in His redemptive splendour, He is absolutely incapable of exhaustion. It is therefore a perfect symbol of Jesus himself. The ages may draw upon His grace! the men of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues—a multitude that no man can number: a host that no statistician can count—may kneel in contrition at His feet: but His love is as great as His power: it knows neither measure nor end. He is inexhaustible. It is also a sublime revelation of the Indispensability of Jesus. He is indispensable in the unfolding of the divine revelation; He is indispensable to the interpretation of historic experience; and He is indispensable to the unveiled drama of the future. As the disciples discovered on the road to Emmaus, I cannot understand my Bible unless I take Him as being the key to it all; I cannot understand the processes of historical development until I have given Him the central place; I cannot anticipate the unfoldings of the days to come until I have seen the keys of the eternities in His hands. At every point, Jesus is life’s supreme indispensability. It is a sublime revelation of the Invincibility of Jesus. ‘I am—A and Z!’ He is at the beginning, that is to say, and He goes right through to the end. There is nothing in the alphabet before A; there is nothing after Z. However far back your evolutionary interpretation of the universe may place the beginning of things, you will find Him there. However remote your interpretation of prophecy may make the end of things, you will find Him there. When things first began, it was because He began them; when the drama ends it will be because He rings down the curtain. And, all the way through, He is marshalling the pageant of the ages. He is everlastingly in control and in command. And so to for you and I at the individual level. The work which His goodness began … Audits Toplady wrote; The work which His goodness began, The arm of His strength will complete; His promise is Yea and Amen, And never was forfeited yet. ‘I am confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the end.’ And that is what the writer of the epistles of the Hebrews meant when he referred to Jesus as ‘the Author and Finisher of our faith.’ He begins at the very beginning; He is the A; there is no element of salvation until he begins to operate upon the soul. And He persists to the very end: He is the Z; He will never surrender His sublime task until He presents the soul faultless before His Father with exceeding joy. It is the most sublime revelation ever given of the Adaptability of Jesus. Until we have discovered the amazing facility with which Jesus can meet our distinctive yearnings and needs, we cannot possibly appreciate the power and value of the cross. Frank Bullen tells how, when he first saw the whaling ship Catchalot, he thought her the most ugly and shapeless vessel on which he had ever gazed. She looked the sort of ship, he says, that had been built by the mile and cut off by the yard. Later on, however, he obtained another view of her. In the course of an exciting adventure he found himself floating on the back of a dead whale on an ocean that was entirely destitute of a sail. He gave himself up for lost, expecting only an agonising and lingering death. All at once he saw a speck on the ocean on the horizon. It was a ship! It was the Catchalot! As she bore down upon him, he says, he thought her the trimmest, daintiest, loveliest craft that he had ever seen! His desperate need, and her ability to meet it, made all the difference. Therein lies the essential glory of the Son of God. There was a time when I looked upon Him and saw in Him only a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief; I hid, as it were, my face from Him; He was despised and I esteemed Him not. But there came a day when I recognised my desperate need of Him. I felt that, unless some divine Saviour loomed upon my horizon, I was utterly and hopelessly undone. And, in that crucial hour, He seemed to me the fairest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely. I may not have sinned more than others; but I have sinned differently. The experiences of others never sound convincing; they do not quite reflect my case. But, He adapts Himself with the most perfect precision to my soul’s deep longing. He is the very Saviour I need.
