Is Jesus God? - Part Two

[Barbara]

This is from JR Church and Gary Stearman:

The Alef-Tav

We have in the book of Revelation the appearance of the resurrected Christ to John. Jesus announces to John in Rev 1:8 "I AM the Alpha and Omega" which is saying I AM the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. But really, it seems reasonable that they spoke Aramaic on earth together. Aramaic is a dialect of Hebrew which uses the Hebrew Aleph-bet. So He was probably speaking in Aramaic again and saying "I AM Alef and Tav" so we believe that Alpha and Omega are the Greek equivalents to the message He was getting accross .

Again in vs. 8 He says, "I Am...the beginning and the ending...". Again in vs. 11 He says "I AM Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, in vs. 17 He says, "I AM the first and the last..." He was referring to something far more profound than appears on the surface.

What John was doing was linking the personna of the resurrected Christ to the Jehova of the Old Testament. As we persue this linkage - Alpha and Omega - Alef Tav - first and last; it leads us all the way back to the very first sentence of the Bible, and many stops in between.                                     Cont'd....

[Barbara]

Cont'd...

In Rev. 22, the last chapter of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, the closing verses, He again repeats this in vs. 13 and says, "I Am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." From here it's very simple to jump to the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 41:4
"Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first, and with the last; I AM HE."

So we have the LORD Jehovah identifying Himself the first and the last, which relates to Revelation chapter 1 and chapter 22.
Isaiah 44:6
"Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I AM the first, and I AM the last; and BESIDE ME there is NO GOD."                                    Cont'd...

[Barbara]

There's a connection there made with the Redeemer - the Messiah.
Isaiah 48:12
"Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I AM HE; I AM the first, I also am the last."

So here are 3 places in Isaiah where God describes Himself as the FIRST AND THE LAST. Jesus takes those titles to Himself in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. That is the Revelation of WHO HE IS!
But it's more than just that - not only is He the first and the last - He is the Alef and the Tav, the first and last letters of the Hebrew Alephbet.
And, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, we can find places in the OT where God is called the Alef and the Tav. This starts in the very first sentence of the Bible.
Genesis 1:1
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Seven Hebrew words translate that English sentence. Only if you have a Hebrew Bible or an Interlinear Bible can you see this. But in the very middle of those 7 words is the untranslatable ALEF TAV, the first and last letters of the Hebrew Alphabet.                                             Cont'd....

[Barbara]

The Alef and the Tav, the first and last letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. Grammatically it is a word that does not translate into English. It adds a grammatical component to the Hebrew that doesn't translate into the English. But it's Aleph and Tav, it's the same word as Alpha and Omega in the Greek, it is the same as the first and the last - it is a title for God according to the sages. It is a word that lends itself to the ineffable name - the name of God which is said to be unpronouncable.
The sages of Israel called the Aleph and Tav the WORD of creation! It reminds us of John 1, "In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD WAS GOD." That Word to a Jew, would be none other than Aleph Tav.
In Revelation 19, at the second coming of Christ, He is also called the WORD! It is so obvious that Jesus takes to Himself this title, in the book of Revelation.
The Aleph Tav of Genesis follows the name 'Elohim' and is descriptive of the One who created. So you could read, 'In the beginning God (the AlephTav) created the heavens and the earth.'
                                      Cont'd...

[nChrist]

Amen Sister Barbara! - Great Posts!

[Unworthy Made Worthy]

I, a Christian, of course believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Three in One and One in Three a holy mystery unable to be simply summed up by human logic. But God has told us our human ways of thinking are not His ways:

Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.   

However, for those who would deny the divinity of Jesus this scripture ought to be plain spoken and humanly comprehendible:

Matt. 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

God's peace be with you!
 

[nChrist]

I, a Christian, of course believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Three in One and One in Three a holy mystery unable to be simply summed up by human logic. But God has told us our human ways of thinking are not His ways:

Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.   

However, for those who would deny the divinity of Jesus this scripture ought to be plain spoken and humanly comprehendible:

Matt. 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

God's peace be with you!
 

Hello Unworthy Made Worthy,

WELCOME! and thank you for your beautiful post.

We're happy to have you with us, and I sincerely hope that you enjoy Christians Unite. I'm happy that you chose this topic to make your first post. Jesus Christ is the only key to Salvation, and His Absolute Divinity is the greatest Truth in all history. He is also the most written about in history and the most often attacked in history. Why? - He is the only rescue from the curse of sin and death and the ultimate adversary of the devil. The devil has an unpleasant eternity in the fires of hell, and Jesus Christ will be the Judge who condemns him and forces his sentence to be carried out. Lastly, Jesus Christ is the only Holy and Righteous Judge who has every right to Judge the entire world. When I hear of evil attacking Jesus Christ and trying to strip Him of His Deity, I understand why. HE is the Judge who will pass sentence on them.

Love In Christ,
Tom

[Soldier4Christ]

Welcome to the forums, Unworthy Made Worthy. Yes, that is the error that many have made is to use human ways of thinking in an attempt to understand Him and His word. John chapter 3 with the example of Nicodemus is just one of the many examples of this.

I look forward to having some more wonderful fellowship in Christ with you.

[Brother Jerry]

Barbara - Amen and thank you.

Unworthy made worthy - Welcome to the forums and thank you also for your post  I had forgotten about those verses in Isaiah and that is just what I needed.  Thank you.

[Barbara]

Hi Brother Jerry!! And Welcome Unworthy Made Worthy!!

Cont'd from above...

When we discovered the Aleph and the Tav we started looking through Scripture to see if we could find other examples. They're invisible in English, if you read your King James Bible they don't appear. But here's a good example:
Isaiah, in writing his great prophecy, in the 4th verse of the 1st chapter writes:
"Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward"
In that verse we have they phrase "they have forsaken the LORD" in English, if it were translated, in between 'the' and ' LORD' would appear the Aleph and Tav! So it would translate "...they have forsaken the Aleph Tav (or Alpha Omega) LORD!" It is the 4th word in Isaiah 1, just as it is the 4th word in Genesis 1!!
   This is a beautiful picture of the LORD beiing the Aleph and Tav (the Alpha and Omega). So when Jesus says "I AM the Alpha and Omega, He is referring to Genesis 1:1 - He Is GOD!! When He said "I AM Alpha and Omega, He is referring to Isaiah 1:4, He Is GOD!! That is powerful!!

Cont'd...
 

[Barbara]

And just as powerful is Isaiah 6, in which Isaiah has a vision. This is one of the great visions in the whole Bible. Isaiah saw the throne of God! It goes this way:
Isaiah 6:1
"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."
What a vision! Do you know that twice in that sentence we have the Aleph and the Tav? Where Isaiah says, "...I saw also the LORD..." it is the Aleph Tav LORD. And then again the words, "...His train filled the temple..." if that was translatable into English, it would read, "...and His train filled the Aleph Tav (or Alpha Omega) temple..." That is the Aleph Tav being used of God's temple in heaven. We've seen so many temples destroyed, but the temple God is sitting upon the throne in, is the ETERNAL TEMPLE...it's the first and the last - it's the patern for the earthly temple - the heavenly temple for which there is NO END. And so the Aleph Tavis rightly ascribed to God's Temple!!
                                    Cont'd...

[Barbara]

Zechariah 12 talks about the salvation of Judah. As we read the 10th verse of this chapter we read:
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
   The Aleph Tav is in this sentence. Here's the way it should read:
"...and they shall look upon me (the Aleph Tav/ the Alpha and Omega) whom they have pierced..." !!!!!
That is absolutely there, in the Hebrew language. Jesus Christ is referred to here in Zechariah's prophecy.
So when Jesus said this in Revelation 1, and again in chapt. 22, you can see how absolutely awesome that Jesus Christ is saying, through Revelations statement here, 'I Am the One in Zechairah 12 - 'and they will look upon me, the Aleph and Tav, whom they have pierced...'

Cont'd...

[Barbara]

Now we come to the grand crescendo of all the Aleph Tavs in the Bible, in my opinion. It's in the 3rd chapter of Habakkuk. This chapter talks about the saving power, the protective power of the LORD God Almighty. It's a tribute of praise, it's almost a Psalm, it really sings. It has in it this reference to the LORD:
Habakkuk 3:13
"Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah."
The English translation is a poor translation. The LORD is shown here going forth to save His people. But we have this phrase here in the middle of the verse, "...even for salvation with thine anointed..."
If you translate this back into the Hebrew it is -
L'Yeshua et Mashiach
This is literally in the Hebrew Bible to this very day - that is exactly the way it reads. And you know what that says in English? It says 'Jesus (Aleph Tav) Messiah' or 'Jesus (Alpha and Omega) Christ' in the Greek. The very name of Jesus is given in Habakkuk!!!!!!!!!                              Cont'd...

[Barbara]

What we have here is not only the name of Jesus Christ, in Hebrew, in the Old Testament, but right in the middle between Yeshua and Meshiach is the Word of creation - the Aleph and the Tav.

This is fantastic! It boggles the mind! Because once and for all it identifies Jehovah with Jesus, one and the same person, known as THE WORD in John 1:1; known by the rabbis as THE WORD of creation - the Aleph Tav!!!!

And it's been there all the time. The fact that in Revelation we are seeing the Hebrew terminology. When Jesus was saying to all 'Look, I AM the Alpha and Omega, I AM the Aleph and the Tav!!!'

We can see absolutely, that this refers to Jesus Christ!!!!! Revealed in the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, and throughout the entirety of the Bible!!!!!

Amen and Amen!

[jerzy W]

Hi.

I am new here, posted new topics but can't find them.

Also have written to the Webmaster but didn't hear from him.

Therefore, will say something here in the mean time.

The clear language of the scriptures speaks about the Father the only true God and His servant whom He has made a virgin to conceive, upon whom He put His spirit, held his hand, made him the propitiation for our sins.

Now man infers, based on few additions to the ancient scripts and later distorted translation of few more, that God is triune.

There seems no end of man’s desire to make God a liar.


God has said through His servant that He (the Father) is the only true God and that His Son is the only appointed way for man to be reconciled with Him.

He has made the eternal life subject to such knowledge.

Nowhere we find it nullified or contradicted.

Nowhere we find it written that God’s nature is triune.

He clearly doesn’t mention the Holy Spirit in any verse of the fundamental importance like Mt 6:9, Joh 4:23, 17:3, 1Cor 8:6 or any of the epistle openings like 1 Cor 1:3 and so forth.

Is man allowed to speak out from his own imagination?

Isa 8:20  To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

You be the judge.