The New Name
Rev. ii. 17
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden mannn, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it
THERE may be discerned in the various promises to the victors in these seven epistles a general correspondence between the form of their trials and the form of their reward. In the present case the words of my text are addressed to a church, of which it is said that in the midst of much temptation and many false teachers they held fast “my name.” They were true to that name, the revealed character of their Lord and Master; and, being faithful to that, nor suffering themselves to be either flattered, or sneered, or persuaded, or argued out of it, there comes as a consequence that having overcome they shall receive the new name — which, as I shall have occasion to show you presently, I take to be the new name of the Lord, to whose ancient name they had, in the time of their temptation, been faithful And then there is another thing to be noted about the whole series of these promises, and that is, that through the first four of them, at all events, there is a very perceptible chronological progress. The first of them carries us back to the primeval state of man — “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God,” and represents the future reward as being the renewal and perpetuation of that lost paradise. The second comes down a step in the history of humanity — “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death,” and represents that future state as being the reversal of the curse and woe that came by sin. The third of them, which we are considering this morning, in one of its portions obviously, and in its other portion probably, advances still farther, referring to the wilderness history of the chosen people — “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna,” and sets forth that future as being the true possession of the spiritual and heavenly food. And then the fourth one alludes to the kingly epoch in Israel, and represents that future as being the fulfilment of what had been shadowed in David and David’s son — “And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers.”
This, then, being the general law of progress and reference to the ancient history as recurring in nobler form in the future experience, is there any way of connecting the obscure and enigmatical promise of my text with that general series? I think there is. There has been a great whirl of varying conjectures as to its force and meaning. The “white stone” has been spoken of
as being the symbol of acquittal, of election and choice, of admission to the heavenly banquet; all which may be true. But there is one objection at the very beginning to any such interpretations, namely, that they all are gathered from the circle of heathen associations, whereas the whole Apocalypse moves within the circle of Jewish symbols. So then, if we doubt as to the force of these and other similar interpretations, have we anything in the Jewish history, especially somewhere about the same period as the manna, which may help us? I think that an explanation which has been sometimes given seems to be commended by very many considerations. There was a precious stone, lustrous and resplendent — for that is the force of the word white here, not a dead white, but a brilliant coruscating white — on which there was some thing written, which no eye but one ever saw — that mysterious seat of revelation and direction known in the Old Testament by the name of Urim and Thummim (that is, lights and perfectnesses), enclosed within the folds of the High Priest’s breast-plate, which none but the High Priest ever beheld. We may, perhaps, bring that ancient fact into connection with the promise in my text, and then it opens out into a whole world of suggestions with regard to the priestly dignity of the victors, with regard to the gift that is bestowed upon them, a hidden gift worn upon their breasts, and containing within it and inscribed upon it the Divine name, unseen by any eye but that of him that bears it “No man knoweth the name saving he that receiveth,w says our text; for “it,” in our version, is a supplement Receives what? What is the it? The name
—we instinctively suppose. The stone more accurately, perhaps. He that receives that receives with it the name, no doubt; but it is the possessor of the precious jewel that our text really says alone knows what is written thereon, even as the priestly possessor of the Urim and Thummim was the only person who knew the inscription. The stone is of secondary importance, and only comes into consideration as the vehicle for the real heart of the promised gift, which is the new name.
And then there is one other observation to be made. We usually take it for granted — for no good reason that I know of — that the new name here is the new name of the man to whom the stone with the name is given. Well, that seems a roundabout way, does it not, of saying that a man shall get a new name, to say that there shall be given to him a jewel with the name inscribed on it? That is one reason for doubting whether such is a correct interpretation. Another reason may be found in the fact that any references in the rest of the book, that seem to deal with a similar subject, distinctly tell us that the name to be possessed or borne by the perfected spirits is not in the first instance their own, but God’s and Christ’s. For instance, we read in the next chapter — “And I will write upon him the name of my God,” “And I will write upon him my new name,” and, in the last vision of all, “His servants serve him, and see his face, and his name shall be upon their foreheads.” I incline to take these two last passages as substantially parallel and coincident with our text I regard the promise which they contain as the key to this. So understood, the reference to the
High Priest’s hidden jewel, with the ineffable name flishing upon it, receives additional force as symbolizing the reward given to the priestly conquerors — the possession in their perfected spirits of the new name, the name of God in Christ.
Thus, with these explanations, which have extended to a greater length than I proposed, let me try now to put before you what seem to me to be the thoughts contained in this great and wonderful promise.
I. I would say, carrying out my previous remarks — That new Name is Chris fs and ours.
It is His first, it becomes ours by communication from Him. That is the representation uniformly given in Scripture with regard to all the change and glorifying of human nature which follows upon the entrance into the life beyond. It is ever set forth as being the consequence of a fuller knowledge and possession of the name — the manifested character of Jesus Christ our Lord. The words of the Apostle John, who wrote the Apocalypse, mean the same thing without metaphor, as his words here in their metaphor, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” And we may expand this promise thus — it includes three things, Revelation, Assimilation, and Consecration.
“I will give him a new name” — a deeper, a more inward, a fresh knowledge and revelation of my own character — as eternal love, eternal wisdom, all-sufficient, absolute power, the home and treasure, and joy and righteousness of the whole heart and spirit
And remember that this new name does not antiquate
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our present knowledge. Dear brethren, we shall never get beyond the cross of Christ, as the highest manifestation of God. In heaven and in earth it is the chiefest medium of revelation of the Divine character, as the evergiving and ever-loving Lord. The climax of all His work lies in that fact, eighteen hundred years back in the past. Concerning the depth of the motive from which it came, you and I have no lines that can fathom His heart — heaven alone will teach us what the cross means of the love of God. Concerning the rescue that it has effected, you and I have no present adequate means of knowing from what we have been delivered. We stand with averted eyes, as upon the edge of some great volcano, and see the swirling sulphur smoke, and the fierce flames flashing out from the yellow sides of the fiery pit below; but we see but little of what we have escaped from, nor know the dolefulness of the regions of alienation and rebellion and persistent rejection of God! Heaven will teach us what is the love of God by the revelation that it will give us of the depth of dismay and darkness that are found where men believe not in the love. The higher you rise upon the cliffs, the farther down into the abyss you can look; and, when we know what hell is, by the antithesis of heaven, we shall have a new vision, by what we win, of what we escaped when He took away the sting of death, and closed the gates of that dismal land! The cross remains for ever the revelation of the love of God; but in heaven we shall learn what we know not here — the full wealth which shall succeed the earnest of the inheritance, and, pos-
86 THE NEW NAME. [SERNLsessing the lustrous glories, we shall understand something more of the infinite mercy that has bought them for us. The sun remains the same, but as different as its sphere looks, seen from the comet at its aphelion, away out far beyond the orbits of the planets in the dim regions of that infinite abyss, and seen from the same orb at its perihelion when it circles round close by the burning brightness; so different does that mighty Sun of righteousness look to us now in His eternal self-revelation, by sacrifice and death, from what He will seem in that same self-revelation when we shall stand by His side!
And all this is not intended for one moment to deny that in addition to all that may come from change of position, from the development of new power, from the mere fact of having the history of life, our own, and our brethren’s behind us, there will also be that of which we cannot speak — fresh effluxes of the Divine goodness, fresh manifestations of the Divine love and all-sufficiency. About that silence is our best speech. “We wait for the appearing of the great God, even our Saviour 1” Only let us remember, as you may give to a man in the temperate or frigid zones the seeds of some tropical plant, that may perhaps grow and put forth some pale leaves and ineffectual blossoms, which yet will scarcely be worthy to be called leafage and flowerage, as compared with the broad, smooth foliage, and glowing brightness that the same seeds would evolve planted in their natural soil, so here into our hands, wanderers in inclement climes, God puts what I may call the exotic seeds — the knowledge of His love in Christ — and we tend them; and,
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blessed be His name, they do grow beneath our cloudy skies, and amidst our long winters. But when we come to that higher house where these be planted, they shall flourish in a luxuriance and beauty undreamed of before — in new consciousness of His love, in new revelations of Christ’s name, in new understanding and possession of the old name, ever new, yet ever the same.
And then, still further, on this new revelation of the name of Christ there follows as a consequence assimilation to the name which we possess, or, as the passage already quoted from John’s Epistle puts it, transformation into the likeness of Him whom we behold. The gift ol the name is such an inward revelation of Christ in His glory and perfectness as pre-supposes full sympathy with Him for its condition, and implies a still more thorough conformity to Him as its result If His name be given to the victors, it cannot be theirs by any other means than a possession which is at once vision and participation. No mere perception of Christ’s glory, as beyond and above, would satisfy the breadth of this great promise, if such unpossessing perception were possible. But it is not We cannot know His name without sharing it If we behold His glory we shall possess it, as the light must enter the eye for vision. There must, no doubt, be great physical changes in order to make us capable of that new light But even these, marvellous as we have reason to believe they will be, are of less importance than those wondrous expansions of spiritual nature and perfectings of moral sympathy with our Saviour, which will follow the flooding of the soul with the light of His new name. The light and the soul which receives will, as it were, act and re-act. The light beheld transforms. The soul transformed is capable of more light. That again flows in, and purifies and beautifies. Thus, in continuous reciprocal energy, the endless process of learning to know an Infinite Saviour, and becoming like a Perfect Lord, goes on with constant approximation, and yet with somewhat ever undisclosed. The gift is not once for all, but is continuous through eternity.
We shall become like Christ by knowing Him. We shall know Him by getting like Him. The water of life takes the shape of the containing vessel, but it has like wise the property of dilating the spirit into which it flows, and, by fruition, enlarging capacity, and hence kindling desire. The sun shines upon the sensitive plate, and an image of the sun is photographed there,
The name received becomes ours by Christ’s communication. His new name is His servants’ new name, according to the deep mystery hidden in the ancient word of symbolic prophecy, which applies to Jerusalem and its King the same designation, and says in the one breath, “This is the name by which He shall be called, the Lord our righteousness;’* and in the other,” This is the name by which Zion shall be called, the Lord our righteousness.” “So, also,” says the Apostle, is Christ,” meaning thereby not the personal Redeemer, but the total sum of the spirits redeemed by His grace, incorporated by living union into Himself, sharers of His likeness, and transformed by His glory.
Then there is a third idea implied in this promise, if the new name be Christ’s, and that is possession or consecration.
His name is given, that is, His character is revealed. His character is imparted, and further, by the gift He takes as well as gives, He takes us for His even in giving Himself to be ours. It is a sign of ownership and authority to impose one’s name — “They call their lands after their own names.” As a man writes his name upon the fly leaf of his books, or stamps his initials on his valuables, so Christ gives His name in token of proprietorship, and builds on that fact at once the assurance of protection and the demand for service. “Bring my sons from far, even every one that is called by my name, for I have created him for my glory.” The slave is branded with the letters of his owner’s name. “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,” and the letters which are here burned in by hot irons will yonder be filled with lustrous gold, and the ownership which on earth was testified by suffering will in heaven be manifested in glory. The High Priest’s mitre bore on its front “Holiness to the Lord,” and one of the last and highest promises of Scripture is cast in the form supplied by the symbol of Aaron’s office and honour, “his servants shall serve him” — in priestly service, that is — “and they shall see his face.” Action and contemplation, so hard to harmonize here, shall blend at last “And his name shall be in their foreheads,” the token of His possession, manifest for all eyes to behold. And thus, when we behold Him we become like Him; and in the measure which we become like Him we belong to Him; not one step farther. That in us which is not transformed hath no part in Christ. That in us which belongs to Him is identified in sympathy, in feeling, in moral character with Him. When our minds think His thoughts, and are occupied with His truth, then they are His, in so far as “we have the mind of Christ.” When our hearts love His loves, then they are His in so far as they throb in sympathy. When our wills go out in the direction of His purposes, then they are His in so far as the touch of His finger upon the keys in the heavens moves the tremulous needles of our volitions upon the earth. We belong to Him in the measure in which we are like Him. He possesses us in the measure in which we possess His name, which is His revealed self.
II. Such, then, being a general outline of the main ideas of the promise itself, let me ask you to look, secondly, at the other thought which is here, namely, that this new name is unknown except by its possessor.
That, of course, is true in all regions of human experience. Did ever anybody describe a taste so that a man that had not tasted the thing could tell what it was like? Did ever anybody describe an odour so as to do more than awaken the memory of some one who had once had the scent lingering on his nostrils? Have all the poets who have been singing from the beginning of the world described love and sorrow, joy and hope, and fear, so as to do more than kindle the reminiscences of men as to their own sorrows and joys? If we have not known the love of a child, no talking will ever make a man understand what a father’s heart is. Religious experiences are not unlike ordinary human experiences in this matter. It is not possible to communicate them, partly by reason of the imperfection of human language, partly by reason that you need in all departments sympathy and prior knowledge in order to make the descriptions significant at all.
And in our earthly life, though your faith and mine, dear brethren, and our joys and our consciousness of Christ’s love are all weak and tremulous, as we know, still we cannot speak them fully out; and if we could, there are no ears to hear except the ears of those who are possessors of like precious faith. The law applies to the heavens as well. Not till we get there shall we know. The text seems to imply what is more wonderful still, that though there shall be no isolation in heaven, which is the perfection of society, there may be incommunicable depths of blessed experience even there. Though appearance and reality shall accurately coincide — though stammering words, breathed through the vehicle of language which has its roots in the material and the sensuous, and so never lends itself kindly to spiritual things, shall have passed away — still there may be words impossible for a man to utter; for each eye shall see its own brightness in God — and amongst the “solemn troops and sweet societies” of heaven, knit together in a closeness of sympathy and union of which we have no experience upon earth, there shall still subsist diversities and distinctions. Each man standing at his own angle will see his own side of the light; it will be enough and the same for all, and yet different in each. “No man knoweth saving he that receiveth.” We must possess to understand; we must stand before the throne to appie hend, and after countless ages we shall have to say — “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
III. Finally, my text gives us the condition and the true cause of possessing this new nature. The new name is won and given.
It comes as the reward of victory; it comes as a bestowment from Christ: “To him that wtrcomcth will I give” And it seems to me that we have much need of trying to unite these two thoughts more closely together than we generally do. The victory is a condition. It is not anything more than a condition. People talk about heaven, about the glories there, as though they were the natural outcome and consequence of a certain course of life upon earth. By no means. That is only a very fragmentary truth. Without such a course, or rather with out the disposition that underlies such a course, they are not attainable, but the course is only a condition. The real cause is Christ’s bestowment I believe as thoroughly as any man can in the application of the idea of reward to Christian service, but I believe that this is a secondary idea, and that the primary one is “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” I believe that all outward discipline, and labour, and sorrows, and disappointments, and struggles, the efforts that we make after victory, that all these prepare Christians, and make us capable of receiving the gift I believe that the gift comes only out of His infinite and undeserved, and, God be thanked! inexhaustible forgiving goodness and
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mercy. The one is, if I may so say, the preparing of the cloth for the dye, and after that you have the application of the colour. No heaven except to the victor. The victor does not fight his way into heaven, but Christ gives it to him. And when you and I stand as, God be thanked! we may hope to stand before that throne, we shall forget all about rewardableness and reward, and say, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, unto thy name” we give glory. Thou dost give me the grace to fight; thou dost teach my hands to war; thou dost cover my head in the day of battle; it is thine own grace in me that thou dost crown. Thou art first, and last, and ail — the motive and the strength of the conflict, the reward and the rewarder of the victory. All, Lord! all that I have is thine, and mine is only weakness, and sin, and defeat.
Dear brethren, make your choice. Fight you must Are you going to win or be beaten? Make your choice of the image you must bear. Whose? “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Loving confidence in that Divine Lord, whose name is the clearest utterance for earth and heaven of the name of God, and in whom our impotence is omnipotence, strengthens us for the battle, and will crown us at the last. They that know Him and love Him shall be like Him, and they that are like Him shall possess in their deepest souls the joy that in Heaven shall be unspeakable and full of glory. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”