This is mind boggling

Our Life Group began a new study last night, The Seven Churches in Revelation 2 & 3. In order to get the setting for this, we looked at chapter 1. What an amazing chapter! There are a lot of wonderful and powerful truths in this chapter, and I want to talk about one now.

Which one? It is a phrase that occurs twice in chapter 1 (v 4 and 8), the one who is, and who was, and who is coming. *

This speaks to us of the eternality of God. Today, yesterday, tomorrow, He is. He didn’t begin. He doesn’t end, He is. He is always.

I believe this is the New Testament version of a well known Old Testament saying. In Exodus 3, God is calling Moses to go down to Egypt and deliver Israel; one of Moses’ objections is found in v 13-14

And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?  
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

This is powerful. God defines himself, I Am that I Am, or simply, I Am. Wow! What is God? I Am.

The Septuagint (LXX) is an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. Since I don’t read Hebrew, but can navigate Greek, I often turn to it for insights into a passage. This is Exodus 3:14 from the Septuagint:

And God said to Moses, I am the One who is. And he said, Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, The One who is sent me to you.

It is at this point that we see the connection between Exodus, I am the one who is and Revelation, the one who is, and who was, and who is coming. They both use the same phrase, ο ων – the one who is.+ This is God, the One who is.

He simply is. This is the eternality of God. This is also the unchangeableness of God. He didn’t use to be something he isn’t now. He’s not something now that he didn’t use to be. He’s not going to become something tomorrow that he never has been. To quote Keith Green, "He don’t change." He is. He doesn’t grow in wisdom or strength or knowledge. He is. What He is He has always been.

I know I keep saying, He is. I don’t know how else to put it. Actually, I can’t improve on how God himself put it, I am the one who is. One person in our group said, “I feel like we need to stop. This is mind boggling.” And it truly is. But since this was only verse 4 and we had to cover the rest of the chapter, we pressed on and found other wonderful, mind-boggling truths! Hallelujah!

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, 

who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty.

* I prepared a version for us to use in our study, this is my translation. In Greek it is ο ων και ο ην και ο ερχομενος. Strictly speaking, in English this would be, “the One who is, and the One who was, and the One who is coming.” The KJV has it, “which is, and which was, and which is to come.” The NKJV and the ESV have, “who is and who was and who is to come.”

+ Exodus 3:14
εγω ειμι ο ων            ο ων
I am the one who is    the one who is

Revelation 1:4
ο ων και ο ην και ο ερχομενος
the one who is, and who was, and who is coming