tommy1234:
Is Mary, the Mother of God or the Mother of Jesus? I thought God was the Alpha and the Omega.
We know Mary is the Mother of Jesus. The question is not about Mary really now is it…it’s about Jesus. Was Jesus God?
It is interesting that you acknowledge God as the Alpha and Omega. Referring, I would assume, to Old Testament passages that apply the title to God: “Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of armies: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god’” (Is. 44:6; cf. 41:4, 48:12).
This title is directly applied to Jesus three times in the book of Revelation:
“When I saw him [Christ], I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the First and the Last’” (Rev. 1:17).
“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life’” (Rev. 2:8).
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:12-13).
This last quote is especially significant since it applies to Jesus the parallel title “the Alpha and the Omega,” which Revelation earlier applied to the Lord God: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).
That ought to be enough in and of itself, but we also have so much more. In John 5:18 we are told that Jesus’ opponents sought to kill him because he “called God his Father, making himself equal with God.”
In John 8:58, when quizzed about how he has special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am” - invoking and applying to himself the personal name of God - “I Am” (Ex. 3:14). His audience understood exactly what he was claiming about himself. “So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:59).
In John 20:28, Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet, exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” (Greek: Ho Kurios mou kai ho Theos mou - literally, “The Lord of me and the God of me!”)
Now all that being said, and from Scripture itself, we can move on to look at what Christians have always believed. I’ll only quote Ignatius of Antioch, writing less than a hundred years after Christ:
“Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the Church at Ephesus in Asia…predestined from eternity for a glory that is lasting and unchanging, united and chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God” (Letter to the Ephesians 1).
“For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit” (ibid., 18:2).
“[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is” (Letter to the Romans 1).
I focus on this point first, the question of who is Christ, for good reason:
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. (Galations 1:8-9)
I don’t want you to be accursed my friend. Pray.
Peace in the Lord Jesus Christ,
DustinsDad
