Christ the First and the Last in Salvation

My friends, do you love to hear Christ lifted up and exalted as your All and in all? If you do, you are willing to be made less than nothing and vanity in yourselves. Professors of religion, generally, do not like to be thus humbled. They love to have something to do, in whole or in part, to recommend themselves to God. But the LORD’s salvation is not a mixture of Grace and works. It is of free and sovereign Grace and received by Faith alone, which is the Gift of God. It is “...not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-10) The LORD alone be exalted as the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last in the salvation of His people, Revelation 22:13.