The One Who Is and Was and Who Is To Come
Revelation 1:4 – Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne
Revelation 1:8 – I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 16:5 – And I heard the angel of the waters saying, “You are righteous, O Lord, the one who is and who was and who is to be.”
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This is a three-fold title given to Christ, and as we shall see also to the Father.
- Who Is – The present Christ. He is the Christ of time present.
- Who Was – The pre-existent Christ. He is the Christ of eternity before time.
- Who is to come – The coming Christ. He is the exalted Christ of eternity to come.
Who Is – The Christ of the Present Time
When speaking with Moses, God issued him an understanding of who He was which was complete in and of itself.
He is the God of time present. Christ was present at the creation and He was with God. He was present at the encounter Moses had on the mountain. He uses the same words in the garden of Gethsemane to declare who He is. He is not a distant God of the past, nor He is a just a future hope. He is the God of the now, the present and the existing.
At His arrest the simple declaration of who He was, was enough to make them fall over. Two words declaring the power of His Lordship was enough to reveal the reality of God for the present.
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Scriptural Cross Reference
Exodus 3:14 – And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”. And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’.
Isaiah 41:4 - Who has planned and done it, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, Jehovah, am the first and the last; I am He.
John 1:1 – 3 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.
John 8:24 - Therefore I said to you that you shall die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I AM, you shall die in your sins.
John 8:58 - Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I AM!
John 18:5,6 - They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I AM! And Judas who betrayed Him also stood with them. Then as soon as He had said to them, I AM, they went backward and fell to the ground.
(Next weeks Monday post will be on Christ who was)
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