Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #15 of Revelation, chapter 22 and we are going to read Revelation 22:12-13:

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

In our last study we had begun to look at the word “reward” and we saw that God told us in the Gospel of Matthew that we should be “exceeding glad” when men “shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.”  Of course, it is a great reward.  It is eternal life in a new eternal habitation, with all the sins and curses of this world gone forever and rich abundant blessings of God for evermore.

Let us look at another verse in Matthew before we move on.  It says in Matthew 16:27:

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 

This is very similar to our verse in Revelation 22:12:

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

It is important for us to realize that if God were to judge us based only on our works, we are going to come under the wrath of God and be destroyed.  According to the Book of Isaiah, all our righteousness is as filthy rags.  All we do of our own is tainted by sin and, therefore, it can only be through the work that Christ did that cleansed the sinner and their works.  In that manner, their works were acceptable upon salvation.  Without salvation, every "work” is evil and is just a futile attempt to get right with God through works. 

That is what God is evaluating here.  It is a person whose sins have been forgiven and who has been created a new creature ordained to walk in the works He had prepared for them to perform: “Very well, you are a child of God.  Enter into the joy of the Lord.” 

For the others, the unsaved, you may have handed out tracts and donated funds and read the Bible a lot, but you lacked one thing: you were never born again.  Therefore, your sins were never forgiven and they remain upon you, no matter what kind of “work” you have done in your professed Christian life.  It is not acceptable to God.

Christ gives “reward,” according as his work shall be and the “reward” for good work is eternal life.  The reward or wage of evil work is death: “The wages of sin is death.”  Sin brings death and destruction and the “reward” is, finally, to be annihilated and destroyed for evermore with an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.

Let us go on to Revelation 22:13:

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

God has made this statement a few times already in the Book of Revelation – twice in chapter 1 and in other places in this Book.  Therefore, since God keeps repeating it, it must be extremely important.  We do know He even said this in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 44:6:

Thus saith JEHOVAH the King of Israel, and his redeemer JEHOVAH of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

This is added information for our verse that said, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”  The word “Alpha” is the first word of the Greek alphabet and “Omega” is the last word of the Greek alphabet, or the “beginning” and the “end.”  It is the original language of the New Testament.  It would be like someone saying in English, “I am A and I am Z,” the first letter and the last letter of our alphabet.  It indicates Christ’s preeminence and the fact that He is “first.”  Of course, it is a further testimony that He is God, because who was from the beginning but God?  We read in John 1:1-3:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 

Jesus is the Word made flesh and the Word was with God in the beginning and the Word was God.  Even the declaration of the statement, “I AM,” is a reference to the account of the “burning bush” and the time that Moses approached unto God and Moses asked God who he should say sent him.  God spoke from the burning bush and said, “I AM THAT I AM.”  He is the ever-existent one, the Almighty God who is the great “I AM.”  Of course, Jesus said many times in the New Testament that He was God through His declaration of the phrase, “I AM.”  He told the Jews: “Before Abraham was, I am.”  He is the Alpha, the beginning and that means He was the word in the beginning with God and He was God.

Look at Colossians 1:17-18:

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Jesus is the beginning.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  He is the beginning and the end.  There is no other beginning but Him.  There is no other ending but the end that He will bring to this world.  As it says of Him in Revelation 3:14:

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

He is the beginning, also, as the firstborn from the dead, as He died from the foundation of the world for the sins of His people.  He rose from the dead, the beginning of the firstborn from the dead, the first of many brethren, we read in Romans 8:29:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Jesus was the beginning of the sons of God.  There will be many more, a great multitude that, perhaps, will number as many as 200 million, but Jesus was the first to rise from the dead and the rest have followed or will follow.  God has granted all His people the first resurrection of the soul and now many out of that number await the completion of the resurrection as they will be raised from the dead and brought into the glorious new heaven and new earth in their resurrected spiritual bodies. 

We can see how Jesus is the beginning in many different ways.  He is the beginning of the Word that was with God and He is the beginning of the “sons of God” and He is the beginning of this whole creation because He spoke in the beginning and created all things.  When Jesus says that He is the “beginning,” the child of God nods His head in agreement, saying, “Of course, He is.  We know He was the beginning of the foundation of the world.  He created the world itself.  He is the beginning.” 

We are assured of it and we know it, absolutely, but He also says that He is “the end” and He declares this in the same statement.  It is joined together with the conjunction “and,” which links the two ideas of beginning and end, so there should be equal certainty regarding Jesus as “the end.”  He is equally “the end” or the “Omega” or He is equally “the last.”  He will finish what He began.  He will conclude the matter of salvation with resurrecting them and bringing them into the new heaven and new earth.  He will conclude the matter of judgment of this world.  It is not going to be left “hanging” and there is not going to be some sort of perpetual continuation of earth, just for the sake of allowing it to go on and people can have birthdays and anniversaries and enjoy their sinful pursuit of the pleasures of this life.  God has a purpose and a timetable and He accomplishes things according to His will and his program of “times and seasons.”  The Bible says, “To everything there is a season,” and there is a season for wrath and judgment.  There was a time for the beginning and God fulfilled it and there was a time for history to unfold and for generations to come and go and for people to be born.  And now there is a time for man to die, for the sinner to perish from off the face of the earth.  There is a time for the end of those that rebelled against God and shook their puny fists at Him in their sinful arrogance and pride: “We do not need you, God.  We do not want you, God.  We want to do the things that we want to do, but just keep the sun shining and keep the rain and fruitful seasons coming and give us all these other blessings that come along with it.  But, other than that, depart from us.  We have no need for you.  We are doing just fine on our own.” 

So, does time continue?  Will the days go on forever?  Is this world going to exist for evermore?  The Bible’s answer is clear that it will not: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world…the world passeth away.”  The Apostle John saw the first heaven and first earth pass away and a new heaven and a new earth come into existence.  God’s people are told by the God, who cannot lie and who is faithful and true, what He will do and His plans for this earth and the eternal earth to come and the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham long ago regarding the eternal habitation that would be given to “his seed,” the elect.  God will fulfill it.  What could prevent God from fulfilling these things?  What caused God to be longsuffering and patient for thousands of years has been the carrying out of His Gospel program to save His people, the elect, but that program is completed.  Then it is necessary for God to punish the unsaved people of the world and pour out His wrath in judgment and that is what He has been doing since May 21, 2011.  This, also, is almost completed and once it is, there is nothing at all that can stop God from speaking a Word and bringing to pass the end.  The Lord Jesus Christ is the “end.” 

The Bible also tells us that Christ is the “resurrection.”  When the end comes on “the last day” of earth’s existence, God will bring to pass the resurrection.  He will cause His people to rise up because Christ is the “resurrection and the life.”  He is the end and the last.  When “the last day” comes, it will be performed by Christ, just as all the things were brought to pass that were the beginning of this world and universe, which put into motion all the events of history.  So, too, will the conclusion be accomplished by Him.  He will finish the matter and He will end things related to this present creation that has seen corruption due to sin.  Then He will be done with it and He will put it away and it will never come into mind again.  The former things will not be remembered, according to the Bible.

Then, suddenly, God’s people will find themselves in the presence of the great God, the “IAM,” the Lord Jesus Christ.  We will be there with Him in new spiritual bodies that have no more sin and in a place that is a new creation.  It is the new heaven and new earth and we will appear there with Him.  I do not know how God does these things.  I do not know how I came into this world?  Do you know how it was that you once had no existence and then, suddenly, you are living and you have thoughts and feelings.  Then you were a little kid running around the neighborhood and experiencing things.  How did all this happen?  I do not know how it happened, except that God created us and formed us in our mothers’ wombs.  He made us who we are and we found ourselves in this world.

Likewise, God will end this world and He will destroy this world and everyone He has saved will find themselves in that new world.  Suddenly, we will be aware of it.  We will see and understand.  I do not know how we will sense it all, but we will “take in” our surroundings and there is God and holy perfection and goodness and love and joy and peace for evermore.  There will be no darkness.  There will be no light there.  There will be no more tears, sorrow and pain.  There will be no more curse, evil, sin and death.  There will be no more enemies to battle and no more struggle within ourselves between flesh and spirit.  There will be no anguish and affliction and being cast down in soul as a result of these things.  There will only be God and His Word and perfection and we will go on from there, eternally happy and blessed.  Who can imagine that these things await us?  Yet, they do and our hope (not the world’s hope) is that we will enter into that new heaven and new earth and God’s elect do have a good hope and expectation (a strong likelihood) that this will finally come to pass on October 7, 2015.  It is the day that is 10,000 days from the beginning of judgment.  In other words, it is “the last day” of 10,000 days and the day which is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles and the day that is the last day of the feast of harvest.

Jesus said He is the first and He is the last.  He is the resurrection and that resurrection occurs on the last day: “I will raise him up at the last day,” Jesus said four times in John, chapter 6.  Martha said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” and Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection, and the life.”  And Jesus is “the last.”