John’s divine Visitor here uses words that God had used in Old Testament Scripture concerning himself (see Isaiah 41:4; Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 48:12). In doing so, this Visitor places himself as an equal to God, either as God himself or as a second God beside him (the latter, of course, being contrary to other Scripture and thus impossible). As is evident from how the prophet Isaiah used the phrase in question, the self-description means that John’s Visitor—true God—is the origin of all things and the purpose of all things; all things come from him and are for him. He created all things and he perfects all things (see Revelation 1:8). By implication he controls all things between beginning and end.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,