Threes, Fours, Eight

The name of God in the greeting in Revelation 1:4-7 is triads on triads: A triple source of grace and peace; the Father is given a triadic name; and the Son is not only given three titles but His work is described in three phrases. As Joseph Mangina has put it, God is a fractal: He is Triune at every level of magnification.

1:8 also uses triads. That verse repeats the “is, was, coming” of verse 4. Plus, the Lord God identifies Himself in three phrases: Alpha and Omega; One who is, was, comes; Almighty. As James Jordan has pointed out, these link up with different periods of Israel’s history: Alpha and Omega to Isaiah and the promise of return from exile; One who is, was, and comes is a riff on Yahweh, the name of the God of exodus; Almighty translates the patristic El Shaddai. The phrases work backward through Israel’s history.

But these three self-identifications are made by the God who is called by a fourth name: Lord God.

This too has Old Testament roots, either in the Yahweh Elohim of the creation account or in the Adonai Yahweh that is common in the period of Kings. If we take it in the latter way, we have a full temporally backward sequence of Old Testament names: Isaiah, Kings, Exodus, Fathers.

Not only that, but we have intriguing numerological play. In one sense, this is another triadic designation, another variation on the Trinitarian name. But the threefold name is pronounced by God who is given a fourth title, Lord God. The threefold God is also a four, which is to say that the threefold Triune God operates not only in the three phases of time but to the four corners of space, and through the four periods of Israel’s history.

But this God is also an eight (compare the beast later, 17:10-11). Jesus’ triple title in verse 5 uses seven key words (apart from articles and conjunctions); Jesus reveals the Trinity, but He also is a seven, anointed with the sevenfold Spirit, the Lord of creation, the one who works by the sevenfold rhythm of the Spirit. In verse 8, we have a triple/quadruple name of God given in eight words: Alpha, Omega, Lord, God, Is, Was, Comes, Almighty ( pantokrator ). He is the God not only of the first creation, a seven, but the God who brings the eighth day of the new creation.