Jesus Christ: Α and Ω of the world, He is The Truth, The Way and The Life

I don’t know exactly to which Christian denomination Mr. John J. Parsons belongs, who runs an excellent site Hebrew for Christians and is author of a piece (Choosing to See) which was reproduced here and praised by our regular reader Robert (thank you Robert for your support and for your opinion).

He might be a Messianic Jew [Messianic Judaism is a movement of Jewish people who believe that Yeshua (Jesus’ original name in Hebrew) is the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world] though he claims only to be associated with Messianic groups. Neither do I really think that he is Jewish, as he states on his site that he started to teach himself Hebrew later as an adult, after having finished postgraduate study in philosophy and theology.

But he shows such a deep understanding of the Bible and Christianity that we can always learn a lot from him. Christian denominations have a common ground so that also Protestants and Evangelicals (our separated brethren, as Vat. II calls them) have a lot to share with us, when their heart and mind are moved by the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

Here is the gem I found today on Mr. Parsons’ Facebook and would like to share it with you:

The LORD Yeshua our Messiah is called the Aleph and the Tav (הָאָלֶף וְהַתָּו), “the first and the last” (הָרִאשׁוֹן וְהָאַחֲרוֹן). These are clearly divine titles that exclusively belong to YHVH (see Isa. 41:4, 44:6, 48:12; Rev. 1:1,17-18; 22:13). Indeed, Pilate’s famous question, “What is truth?” is a category mistake, since truth is not about “what” but about “Who.” That is, truth is not something objective and static, a thing to be known and studied from a distance. No. Truth is up-close, personal, and very much alive. Encountering the truth means encountering God, and therefore it means facing self-examination.

(Update) P.S. on the comment thread Jabba raised a quite interesting question concerning the origin of the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, here is the answer given by Catholic Encyclopedia at Newadvent.org:

Jesus

The word Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek Iesous, which in turn is the transliteration of the Hebrew Jeshua, or Joshua, or again Jehoshua, meaning “Jehovah is salvation.” Though the name in one form or another occurs frequently in the Old Testament, it was not borne by a person of prominence between the time of Josue, the son of Nun and Josue, the high priest in the days of Zorobabel. It was also the name of the author of Ecclesiaticus, of one of Christ’s ancestors mentioned in the genealogy, found in the Third Gospel (Luke 3:29), and one of the St. Paul’s companions (Colossians 4:11). During the Hellenizing period, Jason, a purely Greek analogon of Jesus, appears to have been adopted by many (1 Maccabees 8:17; 12:16; 14:22; 2 Maccabees 1:7; 2:24; 4:7-26; 5:5-10; Acts 17:5-9; Romans 16:21). The Greek name is connected with verb iasthai, to heal; it is therefore, not surprising that some of the Greek Fathers allied the word Jesus with same root (Eusebius, “Dem. Ev.”, IV; cf. Acts 9:34; 10:38). Though about the time of Christ the name Jesus appears to have been fairly common (Josephus, “Ant.”, XV, ix, 2; XVII, xiii, 1; XX, ix, 1; “Bel. Jud.”, III, ix, 7; IV, iii, 9; VI, v, 5; “Vit.”, 22) it was imposed on our Lord by God’s express order (Luke 1:31; Matthew 1:21), to foreshow that the Child was destined to “save his people from their sins.” Philo (“De Mutt. Nom.”, 21) is therefore, right when he explains Iesous as meaning soteria kyrion; Eusebius (Dem., Ev., IV, ad fin.; P.G., XXII, 333) gives the meaning Theou soterion; while St. Cyril of Jerusalem interprets the word as equivalent to soter (Catechetical Lectures X.13). This last writer, however, appears to agree with Clement of Alexandria in considering the word Iesous as of Greek origin (The Pedagogue III.12); St. Chrysostom emphasizes again the Hebrew derivation of the word and its meaning soter (Homily 2 on Matthew, No. 2), thus agreeing with the exegesis of the angel speaking to St. Joseph (Matthew 1:21).