JESUS the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End in the King James Bible New Testament.

Anyone familiar with the Bible knows that the number 7 is one of Gods favorite numbers.  It often speaks of spiritual perfection or completion.

There are 7 days in a week, from beginning to end.  When God flooded the world in the days of Noah, God instructed Noah - “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee BY SEVENS, the male and his female”

Jesus instructed us to forgive an offending brother 70 times SEVEN - Matthew 18:22.

When God pours out his wrath in the book of Revelation we read of “the SEVEN Spirits  and the SEVEN Spirits of God which are before his throne (Revelation 1:4 and 4:5) and of the 7 churches, and the 7 golden candlesticks, the 7 stars, and the Lamb as it had been slain having SEVEN horns and SEVEN eyes, which are the SEVEN Spirits of God (Rev. 5:6), and the 7 trumpets, the 7 vials, the 7 thunders and the 7 plagues of the 7 angels (15:8). It is a very significant number in the Holy Bible.

Other examples of sevens found in the King James Bible.

HOLY SPIRIT - these two words together are found only seven times in KJB - Psalms 51:11; Isaiah  63:10-11; Luke 11:13; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30; I Thessalonians 4:8.

JEHOVA is found seven times in KJB - Genesis 22:14; Exodus 6:3; Exodus 17:15; Judges 6:24; Psalms 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; Isaiah 26:4.

The WORD (capital letter W (meaning the Lord Jesus Christ) is found seven times in KJB - John 1:1; John 1:14; 1 John 1:1; 1 John 5:7; Revelation 19:13. (Only 6 times in the Vatican Versions.)

And the 7 letter word SAVIOUR instead of the 6 letters of Savior is found in the KJB. These particular four patterns of sevens are only found in the King James Bible. Praise the Lord for His perfect words!

Jesus, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

God hath given him a name which is above every name, That at the name of JESUS every knee should bow - Philippians 2:9-10

We see in the King James Bible New Testament that JESUS is the SEVENTH word found in both the beginning (Matthew 1:1) and the end (Revelation 22:21) of the entire New Testament.   

The name JESUS is the 7th word from the beginning and the 7th word from the end.

Matthew 1:1 - The book of the generation of JESUS Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Count from the beginning. JESUS is the 7th word from the beginning)

Revelation 22:21 - The grace of our Lord JESUS Christ be with you all. Amen. (Count from the end going backwards. JESUS is the 7th word from the end)

When we get to the modern Vatican supervised text versions like the constantly changing ESV, NASB, NIV, Holman Standard and NET versions (which don’t even agree with each other) Revelation 22:21 is textually very different from the King James Bible.

Let’s take a look at how these various versions read.

The KJB says: “The grace of OUR Lord Jesus CHRIST be with YOU all. AMEN.”

ESV, NASB - The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.”

Omit “our” adds “the”, omits “Christ” and omits “you”

NIV - “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with GOD’S PEOPLE. Amen.”  

Omits “our, Christ, you” and NO Greek text reads “God’s people” but is a complete paraphrase of “the saints”

Holman Christian Standard Bible - “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with ALL THE SAINTS. Amen.

Holman omits “our, Christ, you” and NO Greek text read “ALL the saints”.  

The Westcott-Hort Critical text originally went with the reading of “with the saints” and omitted the word “all”.  “With the saints” is the reading of Sinaiticus. But Alexandrinus reads simply reads “with all”, and Vaticanus is missing the entire book of Revelation.

This is why both the Revised Version of 1881 and the ASV of 1901 both read: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be WITH THE SAINTS. AMEN."

Later on the Critical Greek text changed from “with the saints” to “with all”  and the omitted the word AMEN, and that is how it reads now.  But the Holman chose to combine two different Greek texts and doesn’t follow any particular Greek manuscript, nor the UBS/Nestle-Aland and it reads “with all the saints.”

And along with the NASB, ESV and NIV it ADDS the word AMEN, even though both Westcott-Hort and the UBS/Nestle-Aland Critical Greek texts OMIT it!

The only one here that actually follows the most recent UBS/Nestle-Aland Critical Greek texts is the NET bible, which reads:

Dan Wallace’s NET bible - “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.”

This one omits “our”, “Christ”, “you” and “Amen”!

And they call these shenanigans the “science” of textual criticism.

In any event, you have to admit that it is a pretty amazing “coincidence” that in the King James Bible the very First and the Last verses in the entire Bible both contain the same number of words, letters, vowels and consonants and the others do not, and the name of JESUS is the 7th word from the Beginning of the New Testament and the 7th word from the End.