Was and Is Not

The Father is the One who “is, was, comes” (Revelation 1:4), and that same phrase is a name for the “Lord God” in 1:8. What we see in the Father we see in the whole Trinity.

John inverts that name a few times in Revelation. To the church church at Smyrna, Jesus speaks about some who claim they “are” Jews but “are not.” The irony is pointed: The Jews who confess adherence to Yahweh, to “He who is, was, comes” negate that name: They claim they “are” but “are not.” In their opposition to the Christ and His saints, they prove that they are not of the God who is, was, and comes.

Even more clearly, the king and beast in 17:10-11 is a false Yahweh. The king “is” and another “comes,” and as for the beast he “was and is not” and also threatens to come again as an eighth. Like the Jews who “are” and “are not,” the king and beast are counterfeits of the One who “was, is, comes.”