Sermon Tone Analysis

Wednesday 03/16/2022

The First & The Last

Now of the seven churches addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ, two of the seven churches have no commendation because these churches are in operational carnality.

They are divorced from the teaching of the Word and have compromised with false doctrine.

This is not dissimilar from many churches today.

Two churches, one of them the church in Smyrna, have only commendations.

These two are churches that are fully squared away in terms of doctrine and are going through, in the case of the Smyrna church, an intense period of adversity that is designed to refine them in preparation for their future destiny as priests and kings for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The other church with only commendations is at Philadelphia.

Now in Revelation 2:9 when the Lord Jesus Christ says, “I know your works.”

He uses the perfect tense of the verb οἶδα (oida) which emphasizes intuitive knowledge as opposed to γινώσκω (ginōskō) which is usually learned or acquired knowledge.

This emphasizes the fact that as the Lord Jesus Christ is talking to this congregation that is going to go through some tremendous adversity and suffering and persecution He is talking about how intimately He knows each and every one of them and what they are going through.

They are not just left alone.

They are not just left wandering around in this hostile cosmic system to have to deal with the struggles and the heartaches and the problems and the adversities all by themselves.

There is an intimate knowledge based on the infinite knowledge of God.

This correlates with the phrase we will be reviewing next,

Now as an aside - it is demonstrated throughout scripture that the omniscience of God makes Him a personal God.

Funny - because that is very different from Human Viewpoint on the matter.

Generally people think of God as being more abstract, and not less.

The first and the last — found in in verse 8b We will find that there are four observations to gather from the title.

But let’s review the grammar and vocabulary first, then discuss.

Now for the relative clause.

We start out with the nominative singular from the relative pronoun ὅς (hos) whose antecedent is “the first and the last.”

So it is translated: “the first and the last who.”

Next comes the aorist middle indicative of the verb γίνομαι (ginomai): vb., which means “to be” and it also means “to become.”

We will translate it “who became.”

This is the dramatic aorist tense, it states the present reality with the certitude of a past event — the death of our Lord on the cross.

The idiom, of course, is a device for emphasis.

The middle voice: our Lord’s humanity participated in the results of the action.

This refers to His physical death on the cross.

The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of Bible doctrine - the declaration as an emphasized certitude that the humanity of Christ participated in dying anc coming to life.

Next we have the predicate nominative from νεκρός (nekros), which refers to our Lord’s semantic death on the cross.

Literally, “who became dead.”

But it is an idiom and should be translated “who died.”

Next we have the connective conjunction καί (kai), followed by the aorist active indicative of the verb ζάω (zaō), which means to live.

It is used for dead persons who return to life, hence to become alive again.

And it should be translated: “who died and came to life again.”

The aorist tense is a culminative aorist.

It views the resurrection of our Lord in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results: the continuation of human history past the first advent.

This continuation of history is the subject of the book of Revelation.

The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb through His physical, literal, bodily, resurrection from the dead.

The indicative mood is the declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine — the doctrine of the literal, physical resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now let’s discuss the title here, when it comes to the title of "first and last."

These titles don’t just come out of thin air.

We must always interpret within the framework of context.

In Revelation 1:16 , Jesus in all of His glory has now appeared to John.

When He speaks He utters a command: “Don’t be afraid.”

What is the orientation of the human heart toward God in its fallen condition?

It’s fear.

The first thing that happened when Jesus Christ came to speak to Adam and Eve in the garden after the fall was that they were afraid and hid.

So the first thing the Lord says is, “Don’t be afraid, I am the first and the last.”

What does that mean?

Isaiah gives us some insight in Isaiah 41:4 , where the speaker is God:

So here is the Lord utilizing this terminology in the Old Testament.

It is in a context that is emphasizing His eternality.

This same phrase is used in Isaiah 44:6 where the speaker is the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ:

“Thus says the LORD the King of Israel [God the Father], and his redeemer the LORD of hosts [the Lord Jesus Christ]; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.”

The text is clear that there are two personalities there, and both the Father and the Son are called the first and the last.

So it is not a title that is unique to one person in the Trinity.

Again, it indicates the eternality of the Lord.

The Lord refers to Himself the same way in Isaiah 48:12:

In context there is an emphasis on His omnipotence and His being the creator.

It relates to the doctrine of His infinity, and His infinity relates to His sufficiency.

If He is the first and the last He is sufficient for everything.

Now Revelation 2:8 continues “Who was dead, and came to life.”

In order to be dead you have to be alive first, so it is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking.

He begins by using a title that relates to the eternality of God as applied to God the Father as well as to the Redeemer of Israel, as we saw in the Old Testament.

So we see a clear statement in Scripture where Jesus is identifying Himself with God the Father: that is, He and the father are of the same essence.

Jesus as Alpha and Omega is emphasizing His eternality and His deity, as the 2nd person of the Triune God.

Now to our 4 observations derived from “the first and the last”

1 -First of all this refers to Jesus Christ as the God-Man; it refers to the hypostatic union which started at the virgin birth or the incarnation of Christ.

Jesus Christ as “the first” is eternal God, coequal and CO-eternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

As eternal and infinite God, Jesus Christ pre-existed history which He controls from the computer of divine decrees.

Jesus Christ also concludes history as “the last”.

He is the God-Man, He concludes history as “the last” in hypostatic union.

So He is eternal God and true humanity in One person forever.

Jesus Christ as the author of history never loses control of history.

He is the first and He is the last.

He began history by personally creating man — Adam.

And as the last Adam He will personally conclude history with the destruction of the earth.

Even though history is the record of man’s thoughts, motives, decisions, and actions, it is Jesus Christ, the first and the last, who controls history.

Therefore, there are two sources of judgements and disasters in history: the sovereign decisions of our Lord Jesus Christ and the erroneous decisions of mankind.

Principle: People are collectively and individually the products of their own decisions.

And remember that decision creates environment, it is not true that environment creates decision.

For example, there is no such thing as a “transsexual” because of environment or because of genes.

Rather, it is a matter of decision.

In other words, we are the products of our decisions, not our environment.

Our decisions create the environment; the environment does not create our decisions.

2 - Secondly first and last has to do with the two great prophecies of history.

The title “first and last” also refers to these two great prophecies because they refer to our Lord Jesus Christ.

They are the first and second advents.

So many prophecies in the Old Testament deal with the details of our Lord’s first advent, all of which are a part of “the first.”

The Church is located in between these two great prophetical periods of human history and therefore the Church Age becomes the dispensation of no prophecy.

Everything pertaining to the first advent was fulfilled prior to the beginning of the Church Age — the virgin birth, the incarnation, the hypostatic union, our Lord’s residence and function in the prototype divine dynasphere, His resultant impeccability, His saving work — redemption, reconciliation, propitiation — His death on the cross, His physical resurrection, His ascension, His session, etc.

The dispensation of the Church is designed, then, to call out a royal family for our Lord’s third royal patent.

Therefore the Church Age is the dispensation of historical trends, but not prophecy.

This may seem incidental, but it is front and center in the lives of many Christians right now.

To illustrate this I want to read a chat that I had last week with someconcerned Christians:

Interestingly, "the JCPOA was supposed to be signed this week to get Iran’s oil back into the market, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put a monkey wrench in that."

Notice that Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett visited Putin a couple of days ago.

This prevents the treasonous Biden from inking a new Iran agreement.