Why is Jesus called “the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last” (Rev. 1:8, 11)?

The answer

The scholar Origen says that the Son, the Word, is the beginning of creation, its source, and the one who manages it. And yet He humbled Himself and became not the second, third, or fourth, but the “last,” for He became man and not one of the heavenly hosts. Thus, He embraced the whole creation from its beginning to its end.

He is “the beginning and the end” as St. Augustine says: “the text, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Gen. 1:1) means that it was by the Son that the Father created all things [John 1:3], as the Psalmist testifies in the words, ‘How great are thy works, O Lord? You have made all things in wisdom’ (Ps. 104:24).”⁷⁸⁵ St. Ambrose says, “But neither had the Son of God any beginning, seeing that He already was at the beginning, nor shall He come to an end, Who is the Beginning and the End of the Universe^.”786

Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty