So the Spirit says, “Come!” Let him who hears say, “Come!” Rev. 22:17

But God isn’t speaking about alphabets. He is speaking of reality. God is absolutely the beginning and absolutely the end. Everything that is originates ultimately in Him. And everything will somehow end with Him.

Isaiah puts it like this: “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god” (44:6). In other words, since everything comes from God and nothing will outlast God, therefore God has no final competitors. “Besides me there is no god!” God has the first word and the last word in history. All other attempts to have the last word will fail. The pottery has no beginning apart from the Potter, and in the end it will all serve the purposes of the Potter.

God is the FIRST—the BEGINNING. Before him there was nothing. There was no “before him.” Just think of it! For millions and billions and trillions of unending years God existed and never had a beginning. He is the beginning. From everlasting to everlasting, he is God (Psalm 90:2). There never was a time when he was not.

We might marvel that God is infinite, eternal, and unchanging in his justice, wisdom, power, goodness, and truth. But when you pause to think that he never chose to be this way, nor did anyone else choose to make him this way, it staggers the mind. The justice and wisdom and power and goodness and truth of God are eternal reality. The character of God is not what reality brought forth. It is reality. God did not emerge out of many possibilities. Everything emerged out of him. He determines all possibilities. God is not a piece of reality that you try to fit in with other pieces. He is the first and the last and the all-encompassing reality: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

For those who conquer, for the thirsty, God is not the beginning and the end the way a river begins with a spring and ends in an ocean. An ocean is supplied and filled up with the rivers that flow into it. God is not supplied or filled up by the thirsty saints that come to him in the end. For the thirsty, God is the beginning and the end the way a desert caravan begins at an oasis and ends at an oasis. God is a fountain of life at the beginning, and he is a fountain of life at the end—forever.

So the Spirit says, “Come!” Let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price!” (Revelation 22:17).