Revelation 1:8

According to this same mode also, one may find in the illumination of natural philosophy, whose principal intention turns upon formal reasons in matter, in the soul, and in divine wisdom. These may be considered in three ways, namely according to the relation of proportion, …

For sacred Scripture is principally concerned with the works of reparation. Whence it treats chiefly of faith, hope, and charity, through which virtues the soul must be reformed, and most especially of charity. Of which the Apostle says that it is the end of the …

In this consideration, moreover, lies the perfection of the mind's illumination, when, as on the sixth day, it sees man made in the image of God. For if an image is an expressive likeness, when our mind contemplates in Christ the Son of God, who …

Concerning which it is rightly added: "You shall consume the head with the feet and the entrails," because our Redeemer is the Alpha and Omega, that is, God before the ages and man at the end of the ages. And as we have already said, brothers, we have learned from Paul's testimony that God is the head of Christ. Therefore, to consume the head of the lamb is to receive His divinity by faith. To consume the feet of the lamb is to seek out the footsteps of His humanity by loving and imitating.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, etc. The beginning, whom none precedes; the end, to whom none succeeds in the kingdom.

Who is, and who was, etc. He said the same of the Father. For God the Father also came and is to come in the Son.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come. By saying I am, he lets us know clearly that God was speaking through him. Whence the Apostle: Do you seek …

I am Alpha and Omega,.... These are the words of Christ himself, appearing at once, and confirming what John had said of him, concerning his person, offices, and future coming: Alpha is the first letter, and Omega the last in the Greek alphabet, and signifies that Christ is the first and the last, as it is interpreted in Rev 1:11, and is a character often given to the divine Being in prophetic writings; see Isa 41:4; and is no small proof of the proper deity of Christ.

God is the beginning, as he is the Author and Creator of all things, and as he proposes, declares, and promises so great things: he is the end, as he brings all the things which are here revealed to a complete and glorious conclusion.

A glorious vision or appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to the apostle John, when he delivered to him this revelation,

I am Alpha and Omega - I am from eternity to eternity. This mode of speech is borrowed from the Jews, who express the whole compass of things by א aleph and ת tau, the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet; but as St. John was writing in Greek, he accommodates the whole to the Greek alphabet, of which Α alpha and Ω omega are the first and last letters. With the rabbins מא ועד ת meeleph vead tau, “from aleph to tau,” expressed the whole of a matter, from the beginning to the end.

Greek, "I am the Alpha and the Omega." The first and last letters of the alphabet. God in Christ comprises all that goes between, as well as the first and last. the beginning and the ending--omitted in the oldest manuscripts, though found in Vulgate and Coptic.

I am Alpha and Omega - These are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, and denote properly the first and the last. So in Rev 22:13, where the two expressions are united, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” So in Rev 1:17, the speaker says of himself, “I am the first and the last.” Among the Jewish rabbis it was common to use the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet to denote the whole of anything, from beginning to end. Thus, it is said, “Adam transgressed the whole law, from ‘Aleph (א) to Taw (תּ).” “Abraham kept the whole law, from ‘Aleph (א) to Taw (תּ).” The language here is what would properly denote “eternity” in the being to whom it is applied, and could be used in reference to no one but the true God. It means that he is the beginning and the end of all things; that he was at the commencement, and will be at the close; and it is thus equivalent to saying that he has always existed, and that he will always exist. Compare Isa 41:4, “I the Lord, the first, and with the last”; Isa 44:6, “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God”; Isa 48:12, “I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.” There can be no doubt that the language here would be naturally understood as implying divinity, and it could be properly applied to no one but the true God. The obvious interpretation here would be to apply this to the Lord Jesus; for: (a) It is he who is spoken of in the verses preceding, and (b) There can be no doubt that the same language is applied to him in Rev 1:11. As there is, however, a difference of reading in this place in the Greek text, and as it can. not be absolutely certain that the writer meant to refer to the Lord Jesus specifically here, this cannot be adduced with propriety as a proof-text to demonstrate his divinity. […]