[I could tell you that the following is food taken from the peak of God’s mountain, high above the clamoring of earthlings. I could plead with you to partake of this secret bread, that it will propel God’s growth in you to lustrous lakes of living water. But only the hungry and thirsty will eat and drink. This we know, and in this we will rest.]
As Christians we believe that we know God. We have been touched by the love of Christ, and we have experienced the love, joy, and peace that His Spirit has given us. But do we “know Him that is from the beginning”?
The apostle John is writing a letter addressed to followers of Christ. They fall into three levels of maturity. He writes unto “little children, young men, and fathers” (I John 2: 12-14).
He ministers differently to each spiritual growth group. “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake” (v. 12). We see here that little children of God are into receiving from God. They receive love, encouragement, hope, and faith from him after their salvation. But many remain children in their spiritual growth by staying in the receiving-from-God-mode. They desire to receive blessings from God, both spiritual and physical.
John writes a different message to the fathers. The “father” here is a growth, like when Paul “fathered” Timothy in the gospel. Paul was in this “father” category of spiritual growth—the same growth that the remnant, the elect of today, will aspire to. Those in the 100 fold “father” growth no longer want a blessing from God, they are the blessing to the world! For it is Christ fully formed in them.
John addresses them. “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. To be like the early apostles, we must have this knowledge.
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 Savior and had heard and seen firsthand 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 the kingdom of God come to earth.
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 lampstands was someone like a son of man…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 and said, “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 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 prerequisite 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. This is “knowing Him that is from the beginning.” Believing this will propel our spiritual growth into the 100 fold “father” realm. Kenneth Wayne Hancock [This is from Ch. 24 of my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God. Free copies with free shipping are still available. Details here: https://immortalityroad.wordpress.com/donate/ ]
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