The Alpha and the Omega

RV244-02

We have seen that the old sin-stained heaven and earth has been destroyed at the end of the millennium, and new ones created in their place. The holy city new Jerusalem comes down from God to rest upon the new earth. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, takes up residence in the new Jerusalem among His redeemed ones. Jesus Christ shall bring comfort to His saints in a world which then will be free of death; free of mourning; free of crying; and, free of pain. All which is associated with the things of the first creation, and what has been ruined by Satan and man, will be gone forever.

Behold

In the naval service on board ships, when something important is to be announced, the P.A. comes on, and they say, "Now, here it this." When you hear those words, your ears alert that something important is about to be said that you should pay attention to.

So, Christ from the throne of the new Jerusalem says, "Behold, I am making all things new." The word "make" means to construct something. It indicates something drastic. And "all things new" refers to all of creation. That old sin-stained creation is now removed, and now all human relationships to God are going to be changed. All the sorrow, and death, and pain, and suffering, and all that was associated with that is now gone, and God is coming in, and He creates something new.

New

This act of Jesus Christ not only produces a new heaven and earth and a new Jerusalem, but it produces a fresh, divine human relationship. It produces one, furthermore, which remains new. That means that there's no more decay as there was in the original creation. The original creation is like a spinning top, and it's gradually slowing down. In the scientific world, they call that entropy. The more entropy you have, the less energy there is for something to be done. It started off with great energy.

Evolution

No more Death

What is going to happen when Christ says, "I'm making all things new," I'm happy to tell you that this also refers to your human bodies, and even to your appearance. In the meantime, we have the new Melaleuca products that help remove wrinkles and these other disastrous qualities that bedevil us. But ultimately, God is going to handle the problem in a wonderful way. All will be restored to strong youthful capacity as it was at the time of creation. The bodies of all believers are going to be restored to youth; to health; and, to strength, and it will be forever. We will be restored to the prime of life.

The Prime of Life

We have several indications of that. In Numbers 4:3, we're told that those who would serve as priests in the Old Testament tabernacle had to be at least 30 years old. That's when you could begin that service to God. When Joseph was made ruler over Egypt, he was 30 years old (Genesis 41:46). When David became king over Israel, he was 30 years old (2 Samuel 5:4). When Jesus Christ began His public ministry, he was 30 years old (Luke 3:23). So, we have this repeated 30-year anchor point as the point of the prime of life.

We Christians, as you know, are destined also to be priests and rulers from thrones in the millennium, and on the ballot on the basis of the pattern that we see in Scripture for these same offices, we may perhaps conclude that when we are resurrected, we will be resurrected as 30-year-olds. Christ Himself went to heaven at the ageless age of 33. He will never grow older, and never grow younger. That's the prime of life at which the God-man has now been pegged. And He is changeless. He went to heaven in that respect, and because He is our pattern, we may expect that we ourselves will reflect this.

In 1 John 3:2, for example, we read, "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when He (Christ) appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see Him just as He is." That tells us that something is going to change about us so that we will truly reflect the image of Christ, including our physical structures.

In Philippians 3:21, we may add: "Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the powers that He has, even to subject all things to Himself." There, in the book of Philippians, Paul says that we're all going to have a better physical structure.

Now, where death has taking people from us, that is good news. Where life moves along, and we move into these various frailties; illnesses; incapacities; and, physical breakdowns, that is good news. We are coming to the point in time where we will spend all eternity at a prime of life.

So, in God's new creation, it means that those who die young are going to grow older, and those who die old are going to get younger. That is really making all things new. So, everybody will eventually come out at that prime of life condition. That's part of the new things.

The making of all these new things, of course, is the fulfillment of a passage such as we find in Acts 3:21: "Whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration (Christ must be in heaven until the period of restoration) of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of the holy prophets from ancient times." What is he referring to? He is referring to the fact that, from ancient times, the prophets have said, "All things are going to become new," and that includes our physical structure. Creation, then, is going to be set free from the curse of sin, which is upon it (Romans 8:21). The creator will replace the sin-stained original creation with the one that is brand new, and has not been marred by sin.

Salvation

So, with that kind of people to populate God's New Jerusalem heaven, it requires indeed a new place; a new city; and, a new earth that is fitting for people who are in that kind of perfection.

A New Social Order

Well, this was a splendid document and it served them well. But the second generation and the third came along, and they did not have the spiritual orientation, and this compact then broke down, and society deteriorated. In time, the United States Constitution was written. This was a document based upon biblical principles, and it was designed with the explicit purpose of preserving personal freedom by restraining government rulers.

I don't know how many kids go to school today and learn that the Constitution is to try to put chains on the people who hold public office, to keep them from running amuck and passing rules and regulations, and imposing things upon us that restrict our freedoms. We have come now, where this splendid document worked so well, it has now been also undermined. It has been corroded by the judicial system and by people in public office. Consequently, we now have a society which is increasingly a jungle; a society which is running amuck; and, a society that cannot even send children to school unless there's a metal detector at the entrance, and unless there's a police car parked in the parking lot indicating that a policeman is patrolling the halls of that school. What a horror! What a nightmare! What a result of a social order that has taken a document like the Constitution, which gave maximum freedom without chaos.

So, in the new Jerusalem, this is going to be corrected. Once more, there will be created a society (a social order) where no more tyranny and no more suffering from that kind of power of the tyrants will ever be experienced again. We people, who are living in the new Jerusalem, are not just going to be sitting there as one huge choir, practicing songs all day long. We're not going to be sitting there strumming on our harps and our electric guitars all day long. We are going to be a people who are alive in relationships to one another and to God. You and I cannot imagine how terrific it's going to be to live in a world without sin, and to live in bodies that are perfect, and souls and spirits which are perfectly related to the living God.

The new Jerusalem is going to once more restore what we, in some degree, had through the Mayflower Compact, and through the American Constitution. Freedom then will prevail throughout the universe, and it will never be corrupted. A recreated heaven and an earth free of all evil is, of course, necessary for such sinless believers as we shall be.

So, this is no small thing for this voice from heaven (Christ speaking from the throne) saying, "Now here this. I am making all these new." Through the mind of John spun all kinds of images and realizations of the impact and the implications of this statement. The result was that he got sidetracked and distracted from his main duty at the moment.

So, Christ says to him, "Write." And in the Greek language, this is a command. It's an imperative. And you can almost see the Lord's finger poking John and saying, "Snap to," because John is so awed by this that he's sitting there with his pen in hand, and no longer writing down the book of the Revelation. So, the voice jogs him back to reality to take up the task of writing the book.

This, of course, back in Revelation 1:11, is the mandate that was given to him. It was a great revelation from God: "Sit down; take up your pen; and, start writing what you hear and see." And Christ says to him, "Write what I'm saying to you, and what I'm about to say, for two reasons: first, because these words are faithful (which means they're reliable); and, secondly, they're true (which means they're accurate)." Of course, those are the words of Scripture. What is in the Bible is reliable. You can count on it. It is trustworthy. What is in the Bible is true. It is without error. It is not false. When people try to say, "Well, the Bible is not trustworthy," or "the Bible is not true," that's when they get into an awful lot of trouble.

So, John is recording words from God Himself. These are divine facts. They are words which are reliable and true from God. Therefore, they make the book of the Revelation an inspired book.

Isn't it odd how few people are ever taught this book? Some churches provide Bibles in the pews for people who don't bring their Bibles. You will notice, if you have ever sat in a situation like that, and you thumbed through that Bible, that one of the places the pages are all still stuck together and nice and clean is the book of the Revelation. Nobody ever has to turn to that book, because this is a book that people have treated almost as if it were not inspired. Yet, what does it say? It's the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to those who hear it; to those who have read it; and, to those who obey it.

So, John is told that a new world is coming tomorrow, and it's all going to be different. It's all going to be improved. It's all going to be corrected.

In verse 6, our attention is directed now to Christ as the eternal God: "And He said (referring to Jesus Christ, speaking from His throne in the new Jerusalem, speaking to John the scribe), 'It is done." This word "ginomai" is the word here for "done." And generally, this word "ginomai" means to become something, or to come into being. So, this word is being used by the Holy Spirit here to indicate that a reality has come to pass. It's in the perfect tense in the Greek, which means that this is an act which God did in the past. In His eternal decrees, it was a done deed that this new complete, revised, sinless creation, and people at the prime of life, would be accomplished by Him. So, here you have this word that's saying, "Something that God has planned is now a done deed."

It reminds us of John 19:30, where Jesus cried out on the cross, "It is finished," in reference to the provision of salvation. It is absolutely this same concept. Because Christ could cry out in truth on the cross, "It is finished," atonement has been made. All sins are now covered. There is no issue between God and man. His justice is satisfied. Because Christ could say, "It is finished," He can say here in Revelation 21:6, "It is done," in terms of a new creation and the eternity that that connotes. The provision of redemption can now be applied to the whole sin-contaminated creation, and to create a new one – a whole new society.

The Beginning and the End

So, anyone who is not related to Jesus Christ in this world is in big trouble. It's all centered upon Him. He is the one who began it; and, He is the one who is going to finish it. He is the beginning of all human experience, and He is the end of it.

So, take a look at all these religious systems that do not look to Christ as Savior. They, in fact, say that He is not God. They, in fact, reject Him as the means of salvation.

Somebody recently told me of witnessing to a man, and this man responded with the phrase, "When you're dead, you're dead." This young woman said, "Would it make any difference if possibly you are wrong about that, and that when you're dead, you are fully conscious and alive as the Bible says? Would it make any difference?" And he snapped back, "No." There's an example of a person blinded by Satan, and hardened of heart, such that he has no fear of facing something like the lake of fire. But the truth of the matter is, most of the people you associate would agree with that – that dead is dead. And it doesn't matter what you do, or what you are, or who you are. Dead is dead, and it's the end.

Christ says, "No. I am the beginning, and I am the end. I began by making you as a creation in the womb of your mother; and, I end by either taking you to heaven or sending you into the lake of fire." To ignore Christ is madness. He is the all-in-all. He is the beginning and the end. Here, because of what He finished on the cross, He can now say, "The restoration of the old creation from the contamination of sin is also done. I am the beginning; and, I am the end."

Furthermore, He declares that there's a satiation for the spiritual truth (for the spiritual thirst) of human beings. People have a yearning for God. I don't care if you're the most benighted, primitive in some jungle area, there is moving about, down in your heart, a longing for God – a reaching out for someone bigger and above yourself. And because no one tells you about the true God, you go out there, and you take some sticks, and some wood, and some metal, and some whatever, and you create your own God, and then you go down to that. That's why people make all those foolish gods. And they make them in their own image.

In Hawaii, there were places, as in the Bible, called cities of refuge. If you've ever visited one of those in Hawaii, this was somebody who had broken a taboo, and was therefore under the king's order of death. Yet, if you could flee, and arrive safely into the city of refuge, you would be safe in there. And when the king died, you could leave, and you were free of all guilt. But I noticed that when people fled to the city of refuge, they also had images of their gods. As you walk around looking at these images, they're all grotesque. They're all evil, and they're all ugly. They're gods of great rage. There's nothing of love.

So, this is not the kind of a God that is the alpha and the omega (the beginning and the end) that we deal with. Instead, this is the God that can really satisfy your spiritual thirst. It says, "I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost." The desire of the believer's soul is to know God.

This is indicated to us by the psalmist in Psalm 42:1: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God." Like a deer looking for a place to satiate his thirst, so the believer looks for a place to satiate his spiritual thirst. The Word of God says that Christ is going to make that provision.

Also that same idea is in Psalm 63:1: "O God, You are my God. I will seek You earnestly. My soul thirsts for You. My flesh yearns for You in a dry and weary land where there is no water." How well put! We go through a life that is a dry hole spiritually. Yet, we thirst desperately for God. How many people go through life, and they never have access to doctrine. They never have the capacity to have the issues of life and death presented to them so that they know what they must do; how to relate themselves to God; and, then how to be able to live their lives to full fruition, and to execute the mission for which they came into this world.

"I will give to them to drink from the springs of the water of life. This refers to the abundant blessings that are associated with eternal life from God. This is what Jesus actually promised, and is recorded in John 4:14: "But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Here he is talking to the Samaritan woman who is looking to satiate her spiritual thirst. Jesus said, "I can do that for you." He will provide that kind of spiritual refreshment for those who come to Him. He satisfies the spiritual thirst now in the new Jerusalem, which will then remove all the decay that sin causes in our bodies. All that flows from salvation as the promises of God are those spiritual waters. The refreshment for our longing souls will be such as we cannot imagine. God Himself is a fountain of living water.

The prophet Jeremiah begins his book by pointing this out. In Jeremiah 2:13, he says, "For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hue for themselves broken systems that can hold no water." On the one hand, God says, "The Jews forsook Me, the fountain of living water – I, who could have given them everything that their souls thirsted for. Instead, they made themselves their own streams of water, which will never satisfy – broken systems where everything leaks out."

So, the poetic picture is very powerful here. God is the source of that living water.

One thing more is that John is told that God will give this kind of satisfaction for our spiritual yearnings without cost. The idea of this word is almost "without reason." This Greek word is "dorean." And one of the interesting things about this word is that this is the same word that Jesus used when He said, "They hated Me without a cause:" "They hated Me 'dorean.'" He was saying, "There was no reason for them to hate Me. Yet, they hated Me without a cause." There was no reason for it.

So, here it's used in the sense that there is no reason for you not to come to the water of life. How sad the future of that man is going to be who says, "When you're dead, you're dead," and he wakes up in the presence of God. There's no reason. There's no limitation upon coming to the water of life.

One of the all-time great declarations of that was by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 55:1: "You there! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." What a great offer! Do you need to have your longing for salvation satisfied? Come to God: "I'll give you that water that will satisfy that," as He gave to the Samaritan woman." You're broke? "That's fine. You can still come."

People should have access to the Word of God. And we who have it should do everything in our power to remove barriers to the Word of God. When we began the Berean tape ministry over 15 years ago, we had a few people in our congregation who didn't like the idea of a grace ministry that did not sell the tapes. Some people even departed from our midst because we would not sell the tapes. One man, in indignation, really hot, said, "Do you realize how valuable those tapes are when they are offered on these TV programs and on radio programs – what people would pay for this?" And he had sugarplums dancing in his eyes. He thought, "Boy, can we ever make some money!" But we would have violated the principle of the water of life freely given. So, we have been proven correct. How many times I have open a letter, and out falls a check from a total stranger for $1,000? That has happened many times. I just sit there and look at that. What is that check telling me? It's telling me that we have made the water of life. Spiritual thirst has been satisfied by somebody who never had it before, simply because there was an introduction to the doctrinal principles of the will of God.

That's where it's all at. Here Jesus Christ comes and says, "I'm going to give it to you," as He did to the Samaritan woman. "You can have it, and you can have it freely, and you'll have it for all eternity.

The saints in the new Jerusalem will thirst after God, and they will be satisfied, while the lost in the lake of fire will also thirst after God, and they'll have to agonize with their unquenched thirst. It'll never be satisfied.

So, whatever your problems are in life; whatever the tragedies you face; and, for whatever the grief that comes upon you and the dilatation, please remember that Christ says, "I'm going to make it all new, and I'm going to give you full access to these spiritual waters of life such that, in the end, all will be well with you, and all will be well satisfied.

The Overcomers

What is an overcomer? Fortunately, John defines it for us. The overcomer is the one who has received Christ as Savior. 1 John 5:4-5 says, "For whoever is borne of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" What a definition! You couldn't be clearer about who the overcomer is. It is he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. I cannot tell you how you will read about: "Some of you are going to have your spiritual thirst satiated. Commentaries will talk about: "Having your spiritual thirst satiating, provided you act and live as a good Christian, so that you are an overcomer." An overcomer is a born-again person. That is the privilege of all of us believers.

So, here you have very clearly identified for us that the overcomer is the one who has received Christ as personal Savior. So, the one who is a believer is automatically an overcomer. Now, you may not be much of a believer, and you may not be much of a winner, but ultimately you will be victorious.

This overcomer, we're told, is going to inherit something: "He who overcomes (that is, he who is born again) shall inherit these things." The word "inherit" means to come at some future time into possession of something as a gift in something that you have a right to because of your relationship in a family. There is a special inheritance waiting all overcomers from God. This is referred to as "these things:" "He who overcomes shall inherit these things." In the immediate context, "these things" are the things that have been described in the first four verses: a new heaven; a new earth; a holy city (the new Jerusalem) from God; and, God living among men. He is their God. They are His people. Verse 4: "And He is wiping away every tear from their eyes: that caused by death; that caused by mourning; that caused by crying; and, that caused by pain. All those first things of the old creation are going to be passed away. So, this consists of the things of eternity with God, and a spiritual satisfaction reserved only for the believer.

1 Peter 1:4-5 says, "To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." You and I have a great inheritance from God, because we are overcomers, that will be added to all the other things that are ours. What is the thing that we are to be given here? It is a special blessing and a special inheritance.

To Eat of the Fruit of Life

To not be Hurt by the Second Death

A Special Relationship to God

Authority over the Nations

Recognized by Jesus Christ in Heaven

A Pillar in the Temple of God

To Sit on the Father's Throne

God will be your God, and You will be His Child

1 Corinthians 3:21-23: "So then let no one boast in men, for all things belong to you. What Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." Don't envy other people. Don't look to what other people can give you. Don't build your life upon what you may receive from other people. But build your life upon the fact that you already have everything in Christ Jesus, that's worth anything, that you will take into eternity with you.

Believers are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. That is the first thing that we have to understand. Hebrews 1:2: "In these last days, has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages."

Romans 8:16-17 also points out our position through Christ of being an heir of God: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. If children, heirs also; heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him." You and I are co-heirs with Jesus Christ. Do you realize what that means? Everything that is His with the Father is also yours.

This heir relationship of a Christian with God is based on the fact that you're His child. You are a son or a daughter with God, and that's why you have the relationship of being an heir.

"He overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. Here's the last thing that we will inherit. This is the final promise to the overcomer. The true Creator God will be your God. God is not the God of unbelievers. The God of unbelievers, John 8:44 says, is the devil. God is not the God of false religions. All those religions which reject access to god through Christ are false religions. People don't like to hear that.

Sometimes people come and say, "I'm bringing a friend. He's a Catholic. Please don't say anything." So, I have to make a note. I put it here, and I say, "Don't say anything ugly about the Pope. Don't hit the Catholics." Yet, it's a false religion, and it is a religion which is taking people into the lake of fire. Not everyone has the true God in their religion. God is not the God of those religions.

"I will be his God." How great it is to know that you're with the real God: "And he will be My son." That refers to males and females. It means that he will be one of my children. Because we are God's children, we have an inheritance from Him in the heavens. Unbelievers are not overcomers. They are losers. So, they have no inheritance from God. All the unbeliever has is the lake of fire. Heaven is a closed club for family members only. Unbelievers who presume that they will have entrance into this closed club in the new Jerusalem are in for a big, sad surprise.

Aren't you glad that you applied for membership through faith in Jesus Christ, and that you were immediately accepted into that club? You have all those promises in the seven letters to overcomers. What marvelous things are going to be true of all of us because of those things that will characterize us! We'll never be hurt by the second death. We'll have the hidden manna and a white stone indicating our acceptance with our secret name. We'll receive authority over the nations. We'll be clothed in white. Our names will never be blotted out of this Lamb's book of life. And Jesus Christ will introduce us around in heaven as one of His own. We'll be a pillar in the temple of God – a supporter whose name will be inscribed upon that pillar by God, and with the name of Jesus Christ in the new Jerusalem. We will sit with Christ on His throne. And then we have this final promise that He will be our God, and we will be His child.

Glory to the God of all grace. May you and I be eager to promulgate that grace, and to propagate the Word of grace salvation, and all that that implies, so that the people who deserve to know these things are really taught their inheritance in Christ Jesus.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

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