John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – Episode 3, Alpha and Omega

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)

Jehovah’s Witnesses would have us believe that “in the beginning” God first created Jesus, then used Jesus somehow to create everything else. But if we interpret John 1:1 this way, “In the beginning the created Word was,” then are we justified in interpreting Genesis 1:1 the same way: “In the beginning the created God created the heavens and the earth”? Hardly (though perhaps Latter-Day Saints would approve)! There is plenty of evidence throughout Scripture that the Father is uncreated and that Jesus is uncreated.

Of the Father, one testimony to this is worth noting. Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:16,

The only one who has immortality, the one who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen nor is able to see, to Him be honor and eternal sovereignty. Amen.
(author’s translation).

To say that God alone has immortality (non-death, the Greek word is athanatos) seems at first to be a contradiction of what He has promised to us, that is, immortality through Christ. But that is only immortality on the back end. God has immortality on the front end. He has no beginning. He is the beginning. That’s why Paul can say He alone has immortality. Hence His claim to be the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letter of the alphabet of eternity (Revelation 1:8). No one else has that kind of immortality, no human that is. But as we will see, Jesus claims this same immortality as Alpha and Omega.

Of course, Jehovah’s Witnesses acknowledge this fact about the Father, just not about the Son, even though the Son claims to be the Alpha and Omega, as well (Revelation 22:13). 

Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward with me, to repay each one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.  (Revelation 22:12,13)

You can’t have two “firsts” and two “lasts,” can you? And if the Father claims to be the first, because He was in the beginning, then isn’t Jesus stealing glory from the Father by also claiming to be the first?

But Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus is not the one saying he is the Alpha and Omega
here, but that it is the Father speaking here. They are arguing that there is confusion as to who is speaking, an angel speaking in verses 8 and 9 and possibly 10 and 11, so that the option is open for who is speaking verses 12 and 13.

It is true that an angel speaks in verses 8 and 9, but it is clearly a divine presence declaring that He is coming. Could it be the Father who is speaking? The Father was, and is, and is to come (1:4,8; 4:8), but Jesus “comes” like a thief (16:15), will “come” to the churches (2:6,15,25; 3:3,20),and is “coming” (1:7; 3:11), and most certainly must be the one who says he is “coming soon” in Revelation 22:6 and 12, because at the last the “Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’” to Jesus in 22:17 and to the one who says he is coming soon in verse 20, John says, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Jesus is not the first created being but is equally the Alpha, the First, and the Beginning, just as the Father is, and Jesus is worthy of worship for it, unlike the angel who is a created being. The angel rebukes John for falling down before him, rather than worship Christ, Revelation 22:9. And so, Jesus is the one who declares that he is “the Alpha and the Omega” in complete equality with the Father who declares that of Himself in Revelation 1:8.

We are not guilty for worshiping Jesus.