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The First and the Last

    We are learning that the future manifested sons of God will “know Him that is from the beginning.”  John says that “I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning.”  “The beginning” is important to the apostle John.  It is on his lips, and he includes “the beginning” in all his writings to us.  John knows that “knowing Him that is from the beginning” is of the utmost importance.  He talks about “the beginning” in 1 John 1:1.  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life…” Of course, he is talking about the Messiah Himself, the Son of God.  John’s greatest desire is to help the sons of God get to know Him that is from the beginning.  And during John’s hardest trial as an aged apostle toward the end of his days, he teaches us just who this One from the beginning really is.       

     The apostle John is banished to the barren rock pile in the Aegean Sea called Patmos.  It is around the turn of the first century A. D., and John does not have long to go on this earth.  Sixty-five years ago he had walked with the Saviour and had heard and seen first hand the Master’s plan for His followers.  The scene is set for the Son of God’s final recorded appearance to the beloved apostle.  The apostle will now become a seer who, aided by the Spirit, looks through time and space to the end of this present age.  

     He will see the total mouth-stopping vision of the end time.   He will see and record for us the way the evil world system will  finally  come  down.   He will witness its final destruction and also the establishment of all that is good.

     But the most important thing that he will see is the risen Savior again.   It is a sight that would dumbfound him and take him to a deathlike state.

     “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me,” John writes in Revelation 1: 12.  “And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lamp-  stands was someone ‘like a son of man,’ dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.  His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.  When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.”

     And then the Master comforted John by placing his right hand upon him and saying, “Don’t be afraid.  I am the First and the Last” (v. 17).   Fear had stricken John to the point that he didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.  And the very first thing that the Savior said to him to get him back on the right path, to get him up on his feet, to get himself ready to receive what the Master was about to tell him—the very first words were for him to not be afraid, that it is I, “the first and the last.”

     Knowing that He is “the first and the last” must have a profound effect on Christ’s followers.  It must have an extreme amount of comforting power.  Upon first glance at this statement, however, one could wonder just what is the revelation about this statement—what makes these first few words that He spoke unto John so special—that He is “the first and the last,” the beginning and the end.

     For those words sound familiar.  In fact, the prophet Isaiah  wrote  down  those  same words no less than three times.  Can we get the revelation about Christ being the “first and last” by going to the prophet Isaiah?

     “The God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name” Isaiah 48:3.  Capital “LORD” is the title that the translators inserted for the name “Yahweh.”  This passage in Isaiah should read, “Yahweh of hosts is the name of the God of Israel.”  The Spirit Yahweh continues to speak through Isaiah on down to verse 12: “Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.”

     Here Yahweh, the great Creator, the great Father of Israel and all the prophets, is saying that He, Yahweh, is the first and the last!  But I thought that the Son of God just told John that He, the Son of God, was the first and the last!  How can this be?

     If these two passages only appeared one time in Revelation and in the book of Isaiah, then they might be overlooked or forgotten.  But the words “first and last”  appear at least three times in each book! {Rev. 1:11, 1:17, and 22:13.  And in Isaiah 48:12,  44:6, and 41:4}

The Problem

     The Son in Revelation says three times that he is the first and the last.  And the Father Yahweh in Isaiah says that he is the first and the last.  If there are two up there in heaven, then how can they both be “first”?  Is not a father by definition before his son?  Then how can the Son of God tell John that He is the first?  If there are “two beings up there,” then which are we going to believe?  Which is telling us the truth?

The Solution

     There can only be one plausible answer to this enigma.  There  is only One, and He is telling the truth.  That is the mystery.  We must look at this enigma after the spirit and not through natural thinking.  It was Yahweh speaking through one “like the son of man.”  Christ is the Son of man and walked with the sons of men.  It had to be Yahweh, the great eternal Creator Spirit who appeared in human form to John on that sun-bleached rock of an island 1900 years ago and comforted and strengthened him with the pre-requisite revelatory truth of the day: “I am the First and the Last.  I am the Alpha and the Omega.  I am the Root and the Offspring of David.”  Yahweh made the full circle from eternal Spirit, pouring Himself into human flesh, and taking that body on up to the full glorification of immortality.  John saw the face of God that day on Patmos, and the Spirit spoke and encouraged John with this truth: “Don’t be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.”  That is all the nourishment John needed to receive the rest of the vision.

The Answer

     The answer is that the Father and the Son are one.  The Son said that they were one.   “I and my Father are one.”  The Father is the invisible Spirit, who inhabits His body, the Son.  It is Yahweh, the Spirit, the Father, speaking through Isaiah, and it is the invisible Father speaking through the Son in Revelation. 

     God spoke to us through His prophets in times past, but has in these last days spoken to us by His Son (Hebrews 1:1).  God spoke to His people through the old prophets with the same Spirit that He spoke to the Israelites through Christ.         

     There is only one God; there is only one Spirit.  And God, who is a Spirit, is invisible. Yet, He resides in a spiritual body, a human looking prototype form, and it was that form who we call the Son.  And it was that form  that  John  saw  on Patmos in Rev. 1:11 and 17.  And it was Yahweh Himself who spoke through the Son to John.  For the Son is “the brightness of the Spirit’s glory and the express image of the invisible Spirit’s person.”

     The Pharisees could not see past the flesh of the Son, the body of the Anointed One.  They did not believe that the Father Yahweh was living in a human form fully.  And that is what we all must do; we must see the invisible Father Spirit by seeing Him move through His form/His Son, which is His spiritual body.

 The True Father/Son Relationship   

    The apostle expounds on this most intimate picture of the Father and Son relationship in John 14.  It is here that the Messiah explains the most baffling mystery in Scripture.  It is here that He rends the veil and shows just who the Father is.

     It is difficult to understand just what He is talking about because of our pre-conceived ideas of who or what the Father and Son are.  We have been taught or led to believe that there are two distinct physical looking beings up there in heaven.  We are encouraged to believe that one is the Father and that He has a different heavenly body than the other Supreme Being, the Son.  We are taught that there are two beings, distinctly different from each other.  But He is the Holy One of Israel.  The prophets wrote that title concerning Him no less than 40 times! He is either One or two.

     Yet, here on earth, the Messiah openly declares that the Father is residing—present tense, right now—in him!  In fact, the Messiah implores us to believe what He is saying about the whereabouts of His Father.  Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. 14:11.  It is the Father who is dwelling in Me that is doing the great works you see me do, He was saying to them.  How  can  the  Father  be  in  Him  and  yet  have a human looking form at the same time?  The answer is that the Father is an invisible Spirit that resides in the Son.  In fact, “the Son” is the form that the Father, the Spirit, is residing in.  We must get past the veil of the Son’s flesh and get to the invisible Spirit, the Father who resides in His body, the Son.  And we are a part of the Son’s body, are we not? The body of Christ? The body of the Messiah?

     The Messiah in that same passage of scripture said point blank to the disciples that right now, they have seen the Father and know the Father!  Philip, having the same trouble as us modern end time disciples in seeing the invisible Father, said, Show us the Father and it will be enough.  We just want to see this Father you keep referring to.  And then the Messiah said something quite astounding.  “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?  He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”  Philip, you have already seen the Father.  When you see me move around here on earth, it is the Father moving around and doing the mighty works.

     But the Son had a transition, a transformation to make.  He would have to ascend on high and go back to the Father in His original spiritual body.  He would then send the invisible Spirit, who is the Father, back down to his disciples to empower them so that they could work the works of Him.  He that believes on me, the works I do shall he do also, and greater works, because I go to the Father. 14: 12. 

     The Father is not another person “up there in heaven somewhere” that the Son is going to “go to,” to be by His side.  The Father is the great invisible Creator/Spirit that was and is dwelling in the man Yahshua, the Messiah.  So the statement, “Because I go to the Father” does not mean that the Son is off to visit his dad.  It means that the earthly vessel, the man called the Messiah, would have his body glorified, changed into a spiritual body.  He would   then   ascend   to  the  throne  in  heaven.  And  He would then send His essence, His Spirit, back down to earth to take up an abode in the hearts of His children.

     Yahshua, the man, who was filled with the Father, the Spirit, was a source of great comfort to his disciples.  He said to them, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”  We are given another Comforter, the Spirit of truth.

      Because “all of the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in the Messiah,” He had to leave His disciples in His earthly body and ascend to His throne in heaven in order for Him to send the Comforter, the Spirit to us.

     And to top it off, He was telling them that all who believe that the Father Yahweh is dwelling in Him of a truth, the works that I do shall you do also. 

      And His name shall be called “the Everlasting Father…” Isaiah 9:6.

      And now the Son, the Spirit’s body, is growing.  Trees of righteousness are growing.  The Spirit is beginning to fill more sons and daughters.  The invisible Spirit’s express image is growing.  God is choosing out certain human beings who are surrendering to the Spirit—humans who are deliberately giving up their old life, and being raised to walk in a newness of life by belief in the resurrection.  These people have been already chosen by God to express His person in a grander way than what happened 2000 years ago.  That was the former rain of His Spirit.  Now comes the latter rain of His Spirit which will fall more abundantly!

     The Pharisees 2000 years ago missed that former raining down of the Spirit.  Why?  Because they constantly only looked on the outward appearance and not on the Spirit.  They had no faith in the invisible Spirit.  They limited the invisible Spirit Yahweh, boxed Him into a “law” and said, “This law is what we have to do to get right with God.”  But they did not know that the keeping of  the  law comes after we begin to walk in the Spirit—not we attain righteousness in our life by us keeping the law.  No. That’s backwards. And that backward thinking comes from looking at the things of this earth—and that includes anything and everything our eyes can see.  For all earthly things—ALL things are merely shadows and types of the hidden invisible heavenly things!  And the core, the heart, the Spirit of the chosen ones—their heart is a heavenly thing that resides in these earthly tabernacles.  Yet they are not of this earth!