Revelation 1:8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I am Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord Alpha is the first, Omega the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Let his enemies boast and rage ever so much in the intermediate time, yet he is both the Alpha, or beginning, and the Omega, or end, of all things. Grotius and Bengelius read, λεγει Κυριος ο θεος, saith the Lord God a reading with which the Vulgate accords, having, it seems, understood the verse as spoken by the Father. Accordingly Bengelius's note is, “God is the beginning, as he is the Author and Creator of all things, and as he proposes, declares, and promises such great things. He is the end, as he brings all the things which are here revealed to a complete and glorious conclusion. Again, the beginning and end of a thing is, in Scripture, styled the whole thing. Therefore, God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; that is, one who is all things, and always the same.” See Wesley. It will, however, as Doddridge observes, be difficult to give sufficient proof that the words of this verse were spoken by the Father. “Most of the phrases which are here used concerning this glorious Person, are afterward used concerning our Lord Jesus Christ; and παντοκρατωρ, almighty, though in ecclesiastical writers of the earliest ages it is generally appropriated to the Father, may, according to the Syriac version, be rendered, He who holds; that is, superintends, supports, and governs all; and then it is applied to Christ, Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3. But if, after all, the words should be understood as spoken by the Father, our Lord's applying so many of these titles afterward to himself, plainly proves his partaking with the Father in the glory peculiar to the divine nature, and incommunicable to any creature.” See Bishop Pearson on the Creed, p. 175.