Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Revelation 3:12

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, [which is] new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and [I will write upon him] my new name.

12. Him that overcometh ] Lit. He that overcometh, I will make him, as in Rev 2:26.

a pillar ] Used of chief men in the Church in Gal 2:9, and perhaps 1Ti 3:15. All Christians are living-stones in the Temple (Eph 2:20 sqq., 1Pe 2:5), all necessary to its completeness, but some of course filling in it a more important position than others: and such important position is indicated by the image of the “pillars” ll.cc. But here the promise is not for Apostles or their successors only, but for all the faithful: the point is not “he shall be one of the great and beautiful stones on which the others rest,” but “he shall be so placed that he cannot be removed while the whole fabric stands.”

I will write upon him ] We repeatedly have in this book the image of the divine Name written on the foreheads of God’s servants: see Rev 7:3, Rev 14:1, Rev 22:4. Hence the inscribing the name is here equally appropriate to the figure and the thing signified: probably the metaphor of the pillar is not dropped, but writing the name on the pillar means the same as writing it on the man.

the name of my God, and the name of the city ] Cf. Isa 44:5; Jer 23:6; Jer 33:16; Eze 48:35, for the junction of these two names. The three names joined here are in a manner those of the Trinity, the Church being representative of the Spirit. It is probable that passages like this did much to suggest the use of the sign of the Cross on the forehead, both at Baptism and on other occasions that seemed to call for a profession of faith: and the image of the “new name” (cf. Rev 2:17) harmonises well with the much later usage of conferring a name in Baptism.

which cometh down ] Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10.

my new name ] See on Rev 2:17, and Rev 19:12 there referred to.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Him that overcometh – See the notes on Rev 2:7.

Will make a pillar in the temple of my God – See the introductory remarks to this epistle. The promised reward of faithfulness here is, that he who was victorious would be honored as if he were a pillar or column in the temple of God. Such a pillar or column was partly for ornament, and partly for support; and the idea here is, that in that temple he would contribute to its beauty and the justness of its proportions, and would see the same time be honored as if he were a pillar which was necessary for the support of the temple. It is not uncommon in the New Testament to represent the church as a temple, and Christians as parts of it. See 1Co 3:16-17; 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16; 1Pe 2:5.

And he shall go no more out – He shall be permanent as a part of that spiritual temple. The idea of going out does not properly belong to a pillar; but the speaker here has in his mind the man, though represented as a column. The description of some parts would be applicable more directly to a pillar; in others more properly to a man. Compare Joh 6:37; Joh 10:28-29; 1Jo 2:19, for an illustration of the sentiment here. The main truth here is, that if we reach heaven, our happiness will be secure forever. We shall have the most absolute certainty that the welfare of the soul will no more be perilled; that we shall never be in danger of falling into temptation; that no artful foe shall ever have power to alienate our affections from God; that we shall never die. Though we may change our place, and may roam from world to world until we shall have surveyed all the wonders of creation, yet we shall never go out of the temple of God. Compare the notes on Joh 14:2. When we reach the heavenly world our conflicts will be over, our doubts at an end. As soon as we cross the threshold we shall be greeted with the assurance, he shall go no more out forever. That is to be our eternal abode, and whatever of joy, or felicity, or glory, that bright world can furnish, is to be ours. Happy moment I when, emerging from a world of danger and of doubt, the soul shall settle down into the calmness and peace of that state where there is the assurance of God himself that that world of bliss is to be its eternal abode!

And I will write upon him the name of my God – Considered as a pillar or column in the temple. The name of God would be conspicuously recorded on it to show that he belonged to God. The allusion is to a public edifice, on the columns of which the names of distinguished and honored persons were recorded; that is, where there is a public testimonial of the respect in which one whose name was thus recorded was held. The honor thus conferred on him who should overcome would be as great as if the name of that God whom he served, and whose favor and friendship he enjoyed, were inscribed on him in some conspicuous manner. The meaning is, that he would be known and recognized as belonging to God; the God of the Redeemer himself – indicated by the phrase, the name of my God.

And the name of the city of my God – That is, indicating that he belongs to that city, or that the New Jerusalem is the city of his habitation. The idea would seem to be, that in this world, and in. all worlds wherever he goes and wherever he abides, he will be recognized as belonging to that holy city; as enjoying the rights and immunities of such a citizen.

Which is New Jerusalem – Jerusalem was the place where the temple was reared, and where the worship of God was celebrated. It thus came to be synonymous with the church – the dwelling-place of God on earth.

Which cometh down out of heaven from my God – See this explained in the notes on Rev 21:2 ff. Of course this must be a figurative representation, but the idea is plain. It is:

(1)That the church is, in accordance with settled Scripture language, represented as a city – the abode of God on earth.

(2)That is, instead of being built here, or having an earthly origin, it has its origin in heaven.

It is as if it had been constructed there, and then sent down to earth ready formed. The type, the form, the whole structure is heavenly. It is a departure from all proper laws of interpretation to explain this literally, as if a city should be actually let down from heaven; and equally so to infer from this passage, and the others of similar import in this book, that a city will be literally reared for the residence of the saints. If the passage proves anything on either of these points, it is, that a great and splendid city, such as that described in Rev. 21, will literally come down from heavens. But who can believe that? Such an interpretation, however, is by no means necessary. The comparison of the church with a beautiful city, and the fact that it has its origin in heaven, is all that is fairly implied in the passage.

And I will write upon him my new name – See the notes on Rev 2:17. The reward, therefore, promised here is, that he who, by persevering fidelity, showed that he was a real friend of the Saviour, would be honored with a permanent abode in the holy city of his habitation, In the church redeemed and triumphant he would have a perpetual dwelling; and wherever he should be, there would be given him sure pledges that he belonged to him, and was recognized as a citizen of the heavenly world. To no higher honor could any man aspire; and yet that is an honor to which the most humble and lowly may attain by faith in the Son of God.

The Epistle to the Church at Laodicea

The contents of the epistle to the church at Laodicea Rev 3:14-22 are as follows:

1. The usual salutation to the angel of the church, Rev 3:14,
2. The reference to the attributes of the speaker – the one here referred to being that he was the Amen, the faithful and true witness, and the beginning of the creation of God, Rev 3:14.

(3)The claim that he knew all their works, Rev 3:15.

(4)The characteristic of the church: it was lukewarm – neither cold nor hot, Rev 3:15.

(5)The punishment threatened, that he would spue them out of his mouth, Rev 3:16.

(6)A solemn reproof of their self-confidence, of their ignorance of themselves, an of their pride, when they were in fact poor, and blind, and naked; and a solemn counsel to them to apply to him for those things which would make them truly rich – which would cover up the shame of their nakedness, and which would give them clear spiritual vision, Rev 3:17-18.

(7)A command to repent, in view of the fact that he rebukes and chastens those whom he loves.

(8)An assurance that an opportunity is still offered for repentance, represented by his standing at the door and praying for admittance, Rev 3:20.

(9)A promise to him that should be victorious – in this case, that he should sit down with him on his throne, Rev 3:21; and,

(10)The usual call on those who had ears to hear, to attend to what the Spirit said to the churches.

Laodicea was situated in the southern part of Phrygia, near the junction of the small rivers Asopus and Carpus, on a plain washed at its edges by each. It was about 40 miles from Ephesus, and not far from Colosse and Hierapolis. In the time of Strabo it was a large city; but the frequency of earthquakes, to which this district has been always liable, demolished, long since, a large part of the city, and destroyed many of the inhabitants, and the place was abandoned, and now lies in ruins. It is now a deserted place, called by the Turks Eski-hissar, or Old Castle. From its ruins, which are numerous, consisting of the remains of temples, theaters, etc., it seems to have been situated on six or seven hills, taking up a large space of ground. The whole rising ground on which the city stood is one vast tumulus of ruins, abandoned entirely to the owl and the fox. Col. Leake says, There are few ancient sites more likely than Laodicea to preserve many curious remains of antiquity beneath the surface of the soil; its opulence, and the earthquakes to which it was subject, rendering it probable that valuable works of art were there buried beneath the ruins of the public and private edifices.

The neighboring village contains some 50 or 60 people, among whom, on a visit of a recent traveler there, there were only two nominal Christians (circa the mid-19th century). The name of Christianity, says Emerson (p. 101), is forgotten, and the only sounds that disturb the silence of its desertion are the tones of the Muezzin, whose voice from the distant village (Eski-hissar) proclaims the ascendency of Muhammed. Laodicea is even more solitary than Ephesus; for the latter has the prospect of the rolling sea or of a whitening sail to enliven its decay; while the former sits in widowed loneliness, its walls are grass-grown, its temples desolate, its very name has perished. A thunderstorm gathered on the mountains at a distance while this traveler was examining the ruins of Laodicea. He returned to Eski-hissar, and waited until the fury of the storm had abated, but set off on his journey again before it had entirely ceased to blow and to rain. We preferred, says he, hastening on, to a further delay in that melancholy spot, where everything whispered desolation, and where the very wind that swept impetuously through the valley sounded like the fiendish laugh of time exulting over the destruction of man and his proudest monuments. See Prof. Stuart, vol. ii. pp. 44, 45; Kittos Encyclopedia; Smiths Journey to the Seven Churches, 1671; Leake, Arundell, Hartley, MacFarlane, Pococke, etc. The engraving in this vol. will furnish a representation of the ruins of Laodicea.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rev 3:12

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God.

The Philadelphian conqueror

I. The conqueror is to be a temple-pillar. Not an outside, but an inside pillar. The interior colonnades or double rows of tall pillars in some churches and temples are splendid beyond description. They are part of the vast fabric; not like those who minister there, going out and in, but standing immovable in their surpassing beauty. Such is the reward of the Philadelphian conqueror. An everlasting inhabitant and ornament of that sanctuary of which we read, I saw no temple therein, etc. They shall go no more out! Their home is the innermost shrine in the heaven of heavens. Like Jachin and Boaz (1Ki 7:15; 1Ki 7:21), there they stand for ever. II The conqueror is to be inscribed with glorious names. It is said of Christ that He has on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. It is said of the redeemed in glory that they have their Fathers name written on their foreheads (Rev 14:1); so here on these Philadelphian pillars are many names to be inscribed, each of them unutterably glorious. These inscriptions are written by Christ Himself: I will write. He engraves these names upon these temple-pillars, that they may be eternal witnesses to them in the glorious sanctuary. The inscriptions to be thus engraven are as follows:

1. The name of my God. This is the name which God proclaimed to Moses, the name which is the summary of His blessed character, as the God of all grace. What honour! To be the marble on which Jehovahs name is carved, and from which it shall blaze forth in the eternal temple!

2. The name of the city of my God. Other pillars set up on earth by man have the names of deities, or kings, or warriors, or cities graven upon them. But this inscription excels all in glory.

3. My new name. This is the new name given by Christ, which no man knoweth save he who receiveth it. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

The Christians final triumph

I. The qualification insisted upon in the text. Him that over-cometh.

1. The term evidently implies a struggle and conflict.

2. The term overcometh implies daily advancement and success.

3. A third feature of the man who overcometh is perseverance. His religion is not the mere meteor of the moment, extinguished almost as soon as kindled. He will set his face like a flint against corruption; will resist, even unto blood, the contradiction of sinners against the Master he loves.

II. The promises addressed in the text to the victorious servants of the Redeemer.

1. The successful Christian shall be made a pillar in the temple of his God. In this world the servant of the Redeemer may be a mere outcast in society. Nevertheless, he that overcometh shall be made a pillar in the temple of God. That poor outcast, if a true servant of Christ, shall be stripped of his rags and wretchedness, and be raised as a pillar of ornament in the temple of the Lord. Great will be the changes of the last day: the first shall be last and the last first.

2. He shall go no more out. The sun of his joys shall never go down. The wellspring of his comforts shall never fail.

3. I will write on him the name of My God. In this world, it is possible that the sincere Christian may be perplexed, either by his own doubts of acceptance with God or by the suspicions and insinuations of others; but in heaven his acceptance and adoption will be no longer a disputable point. He shall be recognised by Him who has stamped him with His own name.

4. I will write on him the name of the city of My God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God. Even here it is the city not made with hands which the Christian seeks. And to that city he shall be exalted in heaven.

5. I will write upon him My new Name. (J. W. Cunningham.)

Fidelity rewarded

I. In heaven noble service. Believers are called in the epistles, even while they are on earth, the temple of God. But how often it is desecrated and defiled! Here the same image has a more glorious and fitting application to the perfect life of heaven. We seem to see the entire company of Gods servants fitly framed together into one vast, living temple; the polished stones brought from many distant parts. What worship there, where every stone has a tongue to praise, a heart to feel! But as, in examining a noble pile of building, the great whole distracts you, and you turn from it to look separately at single parts–a window, or an arch–so let us follow our heavenly guide, as, leading us through the temple of His God, He points our attention to one of its component parts, bids us observe the functions of a pillar in it. It is the office of a pillar to support, uphold, an edifice, and also to adorn it. A column, then, is a noble part of any building; noble because of its important function–to sustain within a small compass the weight of the spreading roof and arches; and noble also because there can be joined with this utility beauty of form and wealth of ornament. Then, too, a pillar is not something extraneous, introduced into a building for a temporary purpose, and then to be removed; but it is an essential part of it. So the servant whom Christ makes a pillar in Gods temple shall by that appointment become himself an actual part of heaven itself, bearing its glories up by the unwearied strength of his own hands, and adding to its beauty by his holiness and by the bright success attending all his toils. As a column has no wasted parts, but is so shaped that every atom bears its due proportion of the weight, or carries ornament in keeping with the beauties around it, so you are being moulded, by the Divine Workman who makes the pillars for that temple, in such wise that your energies will neither be left latent nor be overstrained, but developed to the full, and kept in joyous exercise, till you, in your place there, will become a very part of heaven, its beauty and blessedness augmented by the contribution of your pure delight. For the light of God will flash back reflected from the pillars there.

II. No last hours in heaven. This expressive image of a pillar is often applied, and justly, to the positions men occupy on earth. For men of high faculties do often find worthy scope for their powers–fill important posts with eminent success. The warrior who saves his countrys independence–what a noble pillar of its fortunes is he! Or the statesman, who develops its resources, and conducts it to greatness and renown–how fitly is he called a pillar of the state! When the great abilities needed for such high stations are employed in filling them, have we not all we covet, namely, noble faculties in noblest exercise? Well, forget if you will the failures and disappointments which attend such careers, yet will you say that such a lot is comparable to heaven? Look on a few years. A great funeral passes by–the pillar is broken. Out of his high place he goes, and does not return. Oh, what an abatement of pride to know that any day the stately column may fall prostrate in the dust! But he whom Christ makes a pillar in the temple of His God shall go no more out. His strength and beauty will never know decay.

III. Such service is the reward of victory here. For he whom Christ makes a pillar there, is him that overcometh. So that the temptations, the disappointments, the wretched weaknesses, all so harassing, and in such sad contrast to the bright light above, are not hostile to it, but co-operate towards it. The stability of heaven, so firm and glorious, is to be won only by patient endurance of earths changes and earnest conflict with its sins. So if you want to work for God there, with delightful ease, you must learn by hard effort here to use your hands skilfully for Him. The workman who does the hardest task with greatest ease has gained that dexterity only by years of strenuous toll. And so the servants who do Gods work with joyous ease in heaven, have all come out of great tribulation, and have by that hard discipline been schooled into their glorious proficiency, and only after a long, fierce conflict did they overcome.

IV. The double agency spoken of. Him that overcometh: the man must fight and conquer. I will make him a pillar: like a passive column, he is fashioned by anothers hand. Yes; both are true. We must act; not because God does not, but because He does. Christ, by the might and skill of His Divine hand, makes a pillar, not of the man who wishes and dreams, but of the man who overcomes. The blows of misfortune, which were so hard to bear and seemed so disastrous, were the strokes of His Divine chisel, educing beauty from deformity. The bitter deprivation of what they prized so much, and which excited such complaints, was the cutting away of what would have for ever disfigured Gods temple if it had remained. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)

A pillar in the temple, the emblem of moral character

I. Here is the idea of sanctity.

II. Here is the idea of strength. God uses the good in the maintenance of His Church in the world, hence they must give their best sympathy, talent, and effort in its service. The good will be stronger in the temple above.

III. Here is the idea of permanence. In this life moral character in its higher mood is uncertain in continuance; it is beset by many enemies who would carry it out of the temple of God; but there it will be eternally amidst scenes of devotion and splendour.

IV. Here is the idea of inscription. In heaven moral character will be more God-like; it will be transformed by a vision of the Eternal. Every mans life has some inscription on it, which is read by the world. Lessons:

1. That the good are consecrated to Divine uses in life.

2. That the good are to be morally useful in life. That the good should in their lives exhibit the name of God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The promises to the victor

I. The steadfast pillar. Now, I take it that the two clauses which refer to this matter are closely connected. I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out. In the second clause the figure is dropped; and the point of the metaphor is brought out more clearly. Here it cannot mean the office of sustaining a building, or pre-eminence above others, as it naturally lends itself sometimes to mean. For instance, the Apostle Paul speaks of the three chief apostles in Jerusalem and says that they seemed to be pillars. We cannot conceive of even redeemed men sustaining that temple in the heavens; and also, inasmuch as the promise here is perfectly universal, and is given to all that overcome. Now, the second of the two clauses which are thus linked together seems to me to point to the direction in which we are to look. He shall go no more out. A pillar is a natural emblem of stability and permanence, as poets in many tongues, and in many lands, have felt it to be. But whilst the general notion is that of stability and permanence, do not let us forget that it is permanence and stability in a certain direction, for the pillar is in the temple of my God. And whilst there are ideas of dignity and grace attaching to the metaphor of the pillar, the underlying meaning of it is substantially that the individual souls of redeemed men shall be themselves parts, and collectively shall constitute the temple of God in the heavens. The special point in which that perfection and transcendence are expressed here is to be kept prominent. He shall go no more out. Permanence, and stability, and uninterruptedness in the communion and consciousness of an indwelling God, is a main element in the glory and blessedness of that future life. Stability in any fashion comes as a blessed hope to us, who know the cause of constant change, and are tossing on the unquiet waters of life. Sometimes the bay is filled with flashing waters that leap in the sunshine; sometimes, when the tide is out, there is only a long stretch of grey and cozy mud. It shall not be always so. Like lands on the equator, where the difference between midsummer and midwinter is scarcely perceptible, either in length of day or in degree of temperature, that future will be a calm continuance, a uniformity which is not monotony, and a stability which does not exclude progress. He shall go no more out. Eternal glory and unbroken communion is the blessed promise to the victor who is made by Christ a pillar in the temple of my God.

II. Now, secondly, notice the threefold inscription. The writing of a name implies ownership and visibility. So the first of the triple inscriptions declares that the victor shall be conspicuously Gods. I will write upon him the name of my God. There may possibly be an allusion to the golden plate which flamed in the front of the High Priests mitre, and on which was written the unspoken name of Jehovah. How do we possess one another? How do we belong to God? How does God belong to us? There is but one way by which a spirit can possess a spirit–by love; which leads to self-surrender and to practical obedience. And if–as a man writes his name in his books, as a farmer brands on his sheep and oxen the marks that express his ownership–on the redeemed there is written the name of God, that means, whatever else it may mean, perfect love, perfect self-surrender, perfect obedience. That is the perfecting of the Christian relationship which is begun here on earth. In the preceding letter to Sardis we were told that the victors name should not be blotted out of the book of life. Here the same thought is suggested by a converse metaphor. The name of the victor is written on the rolls of the city; and the name of the city is stamped on the forehead of the victor. That is to say, the affinity which even here and now has knit men who believe in Jesus Christ to an invisible order, where is their true mother-city and metropolis, will then be uncontradicted by any inconsistencies, unobscured by the necessary absorption in daily duties and transient aims and interests which often veils to others, and renders less conscious to ourselves, our true belonging to the city beyond the sea. The last of the triple inscriptions declares that the victor shall be conspicuously Christs. I will write upon him My new name. What is that new name? It is an expression for the sum of the new revelations of what He is, which will flood the souls of the redeemed when they pass from earth. That new name will not obliterate the old one–God forbid! It will do away with the ancient, earth-begun relation of dependence and faith and obedience. Jesus Christ is the same for ever; and His name in the heavens, as upon earth, is Jesus the Saviour. That new name no man fully knows, even when he has entered on its possession, and carries it on his forehead; for the infinite Christ, who is the manifestation of the infinite God, can never be comprehended, much less exhausted, even by the united perceptions of a redeemed universe, but for ever and ever more and more will well out from Him. His name shall last as long as the sun, and blaze when the sun himself is dead. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. A pillar in the temple] There is probably all allusion here to the two pillars in the temple of Jerusalem, called Jachin and Boaz, stability and strength. The Church is the temple; CHRIST is the foundation on which it is built; and his ministers are the PILLARS by which, under him, it is adorned and supported. St. Paul has the same allusions, Ga 2:9.

I will write upon him the name of my God] That is, I will make him a priest unto myself. The priest had written on his forehead kodesh laihovah, “Holiness to the Lord.”

And the name of the city of my God] As the high priest had on his breastplate the names of the twelve tribes engraved, and these constituted the city or Church of God; Christ here promises that in place of them the twelve apostles, representing the Christian Church, shall be written, which is called the New Jerusalem, and which God has adopted in place of the twelve Jewish tribes.

My new name.] The Saviour of ALL; the light that lightens the GENTILES; the CHRIST; the Anointed One; the only GOVERNOR of his Church; and the Redeemer of ALL mankind.

There is here an intimation that the Christian Church is to endure for ever; and the Christian ministry to last as long as time endures: He shall go no more out for ever.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God: though by the temple of God in this place some understand the church of Christ on earth, where those always were, and are, and always shall be, most famous, who have overcome temptations best, from the world, the flesh, and the devil; yet, considering that all the promises before made to those who overcome are of another life, it seems best rather to interpret this so, that God would make such a one of fame and renown in heaven, great in the kingdom of heaven, Mat 5:19, to sit upon a throne there, Mat 19:28. He shall have a higher degree in glory, (for stars differ from one another in glory, 1Co 15:41), pillars being not only for support, but ornament, and principal parts in buildings.

And he shall go no more out; he shall have an eternal inheritance, of which he shall not be dispossessed.

And I will write upon him the name of my God; as men use, upon pillars and monuments erected for their own use and honour, to write their names; so I will peculiarly own, and challenge such a one for myself.

And the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem; and I will write upon him: This man is an inhabitant of the new Jerusalem.

And I will write upon him my new name; I will glorify him with that glory of which myself was made partaker, upon my ascension after my resurrection, Joh 17:22,24.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. pillar in the templeInone sense there shall be “no temple” in the heavenly citybecause there shall be no distinction of things into sacred andsecular, for all things and persons shall be holy to the Lord. Thecity shall be all one great temple, in which the saints shall be notmerely stones, as m the spiritual temple now on earth, but alleminent as pillars: immovably firm (unlike Philadelphia, thecity which was so often shaken by earthquakes, STRABO[12 and 13]), like the colossal pillars before Solomon’s temple, Boaz(that is, “In it is strength”) and Jachin (“It shallbe established”): only that those pillars were outside, theseshall be within the temple.

my God(See on Re2:7).

go no more outTheGreek is stronger, never more at all. As the electangels are beyond the possibility of falling, being now under (as theSchoolmen say) “the blessed necessity of goodness,” soshall the saints be. The door shall be once for all shut, as well toshut safely in for ever the elect, as to shut out the lost (Mat 25:10;Joh 8:35; compare Isa22:23, the type, Eliakim). They shall be priests for ever untoGod (Re 1:6). “Who wouldnot yearn for that city out of which no friend departs, and intowhich no enemy enters?” [AUGUSTINEin TRENCH].

write upon him the name of myGodas belonging to God in a peculiar sense (Rev 7:3;Rev 9:4; Rev 14:1;and especially Re 22:4),therefore secure. As the name of Jehovah (“Holiness to theLord”) was on the golden plate on the high priest’s forehead (Ex28:36-38); so the saints in their heavenly royal priesthood shallbear His name openly, as consecrated to Him. Compare the caricatureof this in the brand on the forehead of the beast’s followers(Rev 13:16; Rev 13:17),and on the harlot (Re 17:5;compare Re 20:4).

name of the city of my Godasone of its citizens (Rev 21:2;Rev 21:3; Rev 21:10,which is briefly alluded to by anticipation here). The fulldescription of the city forms the appropriate close of the book. Thesaint’s citizenship is now hidden, but then it shall be manifested:he shall have the right to enter in through the gates into thecity (Re 22:14). This wasthe city which Abraham looked for.

newGreek,“kaine.” Not the old Jerusalem, once called “theholy city,” but having forfeited the name. Greek, “nea,“would express that it had recently come into existence; butGreek, “kaine,” that which is new anddifferent, superseding the worn-out old Jerusalem and its polity.”John, in the Gospel, applies to the old city the Greekname Hierosolyma. But in the Apocalypse, always, to theheavenly city the Hebrew name, Hierousalem. The Hebrewname is the original and holier one: the Greek, the recent andmore secular and political one” [BENGEL].

my new nameat presentincommunicable and only known to God: to be hereafter revealed andmade the believer’s own in union with God in Christ. Christ’s namewritten on him denotes he shall be wholly Christ’s. New alsorelates to Christ, who shall assume a new character (answeringto His “new name”) entering with His saints on akingdomnot that which He had with the Father before the worlds,but that earned by His humiliation as Son of man. GIBBON,the infidel [Decline and Fall, ch. 64], gives an unwillingtestimony to the fulfilment of the prophecy as to Philadelphia from atemporal point of view, Among the Greek colonies and churches ofAsia, Philadelphia is still erect,a column in a scene ofruinsa pleasing example that the paths of honor and safety maysometimes be the same.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

He that overcometh,…. In the hour of temptation, in this period of time; that stands his ground then, sustains the shock of the beast, with courage and intrepidity, and overcomes him:

will I make a pillar in the temple of my God; by which is meant not the church triumphant, though such will have a place, and an abiding one there; but the church militant, so called in allusion to the temple at Jerusalem, for its author, matter, situation, strength, solidity, magnificence, and stateliness, and for its holiness; and may be said to be the temple of God, because it is of his building, and is the place where he dwells, and is worshipped; and the temple of Christ’s God, as he is man and Mediator, through whom all worship is given to God in it; and those who are overcomers by the grace and strength of Christ are made pillars by him here, in allusion to the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, in Solomon’s temple; that is, they become very ornamental in the church, they are made honourable members of it; they come in at the right door into it, and fill up their places, and all relative duties in it, and walk becoming their profession; and, like pillars, are a support to it, to the interest of the church, the truths of the Gospel, and to weak and poor saints; and, as pillars, they are upright in heart and conversation, and are steady, firm, and constant:

and he shall go no more out; out of the church, the temple of the Lord, but shall abide in it unto death: it is a promise of perseverance both in the grace of God, and in a profession of religion; there shall not be such instances of apostasy as now.

And I will write upon him the name of my God; in allusion to inscriptions of names on pillars; the sense is, that it should be manifest that such are interested in God, as their covenant God and Father, in like manner as he is the God and Father of Christ; and this should be as plain and as evident as an inscription on a pillar, or as if it was written upon their foreheads, as the high priest had on his forehead written, “holiness to the Lord”; and indeed it will be by their holiness that it will so clearly appear that God is their covenant God; for in this church state, or spiritual reign of Christ, holiness unto the Lord shall be upon the bells of the horses:

and the name of the city of my God; [which is] new Jerusalem, in allusion to “Jehovah Shammah”; meaning the Gospel church in the latter day glory; and the sense is, that such shall be manifestly citizens of this city, in this new and glorious state of the church, and shall enjoy all the privileges of it, which at this time especially will be many and great. This will not be the new Jerusalem church state, or the thousand years’ reign of Christ in person, for in that there will be no temple, as in this; but it will have the name, and some appearance of it; it will bear some resemblance to it, and be a pledge of it:

which cometh down out of heaven, from my God; as it is before called new Jerusalem, in distinction from the old, so here it is said to come down from heaven, or to be the heavenly Jerusalem, in distinction from the earthly one. The inhabitants of it will be born from above, and be called with an heavenly calling, and their conversation will be in heaven, and all the glory of this church will come from God.

And [I will write upon him] my new name; either the name of “Jehovah” our righteousness; or rather the name of King of kings, and Lord of lords, Re 19:16; which Christ will now acquire, or at least this will now be made more manifest upon the destruction of antichrist, in this church state; in which conquest he will make all his people sharers, and they shall now more openly appear to be kings, and to reign with him in his spiritual kingdom.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

He that overcometh ( ). Nominative absolute as in 2:26, resumed by the accusative (him).

A pillar (). Old word for column, in N.T. only here, Rev 10:1; Gal 2:9; 1Tim 3:15. Metaphorical and personal use with a double significance of being firmly fixed and giving stability to the building. Philadelphia was a city of earthquakes. “Temple” () here is also metaphorical (7:15), as in 1Ti 3:15 for the people of God. In 21:22 we read that there is no temple in the heavenly Jerusalem (21:10-22:5) descending as the new Jerusalem with God himself as the temple, though the metaphorical temple is mentioned in 7:15.

He shall go out thence no more ( ). Strong double negative with the second aorist active subjunctive of . The subject is (the one overcoming). “Fixity of character is at last achieved” (Charles). He, like the (pillar), remains in place.

Upon him (‘ ). Upon (the victor), not upon the pillar (). He receives this triple name (of God, of the city of God, of Christ) on his forehead (Rev 14:1; Rev 7:3; Rev 17:5; Rev 22:4) just as the high-priest wore the name of Jehovah upon his forehead (Exod 28:36; Exod 28:38), the new name (2:17), without any magical or talismanic power, but as proof of ownership by God, as a citizen of the New Jerusalem, with the new symbol of the glorious personality of Christ (Re 19:12), in contrast with the mark of the beast on others (Rev 13:17; Rev 14:17). For citizenship in God’s city see Gal 4:26; Phil 3:20; Heb 11:10; Heb 12:22; Heb 13:14.

The new Jerusalem ( ). Not (young), but (fresh). See also Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10 and already Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22. Charles distinguishes between the Jerusalem before the final judgment and this new Jerusalem after that event. Perhaps so! In the Apocalypse always this form (Rev 3:12; Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10), but in John’s Gospel H (1:19, etc.).

Which cometh down ( ). Nominative case in apposition with the preceding genitive as in Rev 1:5; Rev 2:20, etc.

Mine own new name ( ). For which see Rev 2:17; Rev 19:12; Rev 19:16. Christ himself will receive a new name along with all else in the future world (Gressmann).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Pillar [] . The word occurs, Gal 2:9; 1Ti 3:15; Rev 10:1. The reference here is not to any prominence in the earthly church, as Gal 2:9, but to blessedness in the future state. The exact meaning is doubtful. Some explain, he shall have a fixed and important place in the glorified church. Compare Mt 19:28. Others emphasize the idea of stability, and find a possible local reference to the frequent earthquakes from which Philadelphia had suffered, and which had shaken its temples. Strabo says : “And Philadelphia has not even its walls unimpaired, but daily they are shaken in some way, and gaps are made in them. But the inhabitants continue to occupy the land notwithstanding their sufferings, and to build new houses.” Others again emphasize the idea of beauty. Compare 1Pe 2:5, where the saints are described living stones.

Temple [] . See on Mt 4:5.

Upon him. The conqueror, not the pillar. Compare chapter Rev 7:3; Rev 9:4; Rev 14:1; Rev 22:4. Probably with reference to the golden plate inscribed with the name of Jehovah, and worn by the High – Priest upon his forehead (Exo 28:36, 38). See on chapter Rev 2:17.

New Jerusalem. See Eze 48:35. The believer whose brow is adorned with this name has the freedom of the heavenly city. Even on earth his commonwealth is in heaven (Phi 3:20). “Still, his citizenship was latent : he was one of God ‘s hidden ones; but now he is openly avouched, and has a right to enter in by the gates to the city” (Trench). The city is called by John, the great and holy (Chapter Rev 21:10); by Matthew, the holy city (iv. 5); by Paul, Jerusalem which is above (Gal 4:6); by the writer to the Hebrews, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22). Plato calls his ideal city Callipolis, the fair city (” Republic, ” 7, 527), and the name Ouranopolis, heavenly city, was applied to Rome and Byzantium. For new [] , see on Mt 26:29. The new Jerusalem is not a city freshly built [] , but is new [] in contrast with the old, outworn, sinful city. In the Gospel John habitually uses the Greek and civil form of the name, JIerosoluma; in Revelation, the Hebrew and more holy appellation, Jierousalhm. 78

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Him that overcometh,” (ho nikon) “The one who overcomes,” by faith in Jesus Christ, and by following the system of his teachings in Christian service, is assured of 1) eternal redemption and 2) an honorable position in the New Jerusalem abode of the church in glory, 1Jn 5:4; Rev 2:17.

2)”Will I make a pillar in the temple of my God,” (poieso auton stulon ento nao tou theou mou) “I will make him (to be) a pillar (a support) Gal 2:9 in the temple(shrine) of my God,” the church; assurance of an official position in eternal glory in the church, as used Luk 22:28-30; Gal 2:9; 1Ti 3:15; Rev 21:14.

3) “And he shall go no more out,” (kai ekso ou me ekseltheeti)”And he will no longer go out or go forth, by any means, from which city no friends goes out or departs and no enemy enters – what a home! What a dwelling place! 1Co 3:9; Eph 2:19-22; 1Th 4:17.

4) “And I will write upon him the name of my God,” (kai grapso ep’ auton to onoma tou theou mou) And I will inscribe on him the name of my God; establishing his royal identity to whom he belongs, for “ye belong to Christ,” Mar 9:41; 1Co 6:20.

5) “And the name of the city of my God,” (kai to onoma tes poleos tou theou mou) “And (on him) the name of the city of my God; that eternal abode or dwelling place.

6) “Which is new Jerusalem,” (tes Kaines lerousalem) “The new Jerusalem;” the bride, the Lamb’s wife, the church, which is to have a central place in the new earth, Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10; Rev 22:3-4; Heb 12:22.

7) “Which cometh down out of heaven from my God;” (he katabainousa ek tou ouranou apo tou theou mou) “Which is descending (to descend) out of the heaven from my God,” Rev 21:2-3; Gal 4:26.

8) “And I will write upon him my new name,” (kaito onoma mou to Kainon) “And my new name (I will write upon him)” identify as my own, Isa 62:2.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

(12) Will I make a pillar.A pillar, and an unshaken one. There may be reference to the frequent earthquakes which had shaken down buildings in their city. Those who overcome will prove real supports to the great Christian temple. (Comp. Gal. 2:9.)

Write upon him.Or, grave upon it. On the sides of the four marble pillars which survive as ruins of Philadelphia inscriptions are to be found. The writing would be the name of God, the name of the heavenly Jerusalem and (omit the repetition, I will write upon him) the new, unknown name of Christ Himself. The allusion is to the golden frontlet inscribed with the name of Jehovah. (Comp. Rev. 22:4.) He will reflect the likeness of God; and not only so, he will bear the tokensnow seen in all clearnessof his heavenly citizenship (Php. 3:20; Heb. 12:22-23). And a further promise implies that in the day of the last triumph, as there will be new revealings of Christs power, there will be unfolded to the faithful and victorious new and higher possibilities of purity. Thus does Scripture refuse to recognise any finality which is not a beginning as well as an enda landing-stage in the great law of continuity. (See Rev. 2:17; Rev. 19:12.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. A pillar An emblem of his unchangeable permanence in the final heaven; not limited to a few eminent rulers, like the “pillars” of Gal 2:9, but including every saint in the New Jerusalem. Such a pillar is not, like the Jachin and Boaz of Solomon’s temple, outside, but inside namely, of the living temple, the glorified Church. A tall pillar still stands a most conspicuous object in the city of Philadelphia, reminding the modern traveller of this passage, if it be not the source of the allusion. This permanence is explicitly expressed in the words he shall go no more out. He is, then, a fixed pillar; forever God’s, whose name is written upon him, and the name also of the city which is to be his eternal home. His name is Jehovah, and its name is the New Jerusalem, whose glories are unfolded in 22. In addition to the name of my God, Christ writes upon him his own new name, thus doubling the ownership; a name, as already said, which is not a mere word, but a power; namely, the full, final, glorifying power embraced in the word Jesus, Saviour, Redeemer, and which is new at the glorious resurrection in its renewing effect upon soul and body, and then will be forever and forever new; forever renewing the man in the image of Jesus. Thrice is the phrase my God here repeated; my as a term of claiming affection shared with Christ by all saints: God, as the primordial and eternal author and assurer of the whole great plan; thrice occurring as symbol of the divine threefoldness. In the permanence of the heavenly system and the saints’ abode, the whole Trinity is pledged, with all the omnipotence and immutability of God.

Though we find no temporal promises of prosperity to the little Church, yet it is historically true, that in the midst of the changes of war which have swept over this land, Philadelphia has had a wonderful preservation. The bravery of its inhabitants, whose home overlies the sleeping earthquakes, has ever signalized it in its own defences. On this subject see the impressive language of Gibbon. “In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelation; the desolation is complete; and the temple of Diana or the Church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and the three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes; Sardis is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mohammed, without a rival or a son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamos, and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and the Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and Churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect a column in a scene of ruins a pleasing example that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same.” When Brewer visited the place, in 1831, he found the Greek population about 2,000 souls, being three or four hundred families, amid as many thousand Turkish. “As a whole they have, for a century or two past, had a good name among travellers as a civil and hospitable people.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he will leave it no more, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from Heaven from my God, and my own new name.’

Here is Christ’s clear indication that the coming Temple of God is a spiritual one. Those who are overcomers will be made part of that Temple, the guarantee that they will be in the presence of God forever (see Joh 17:12; Joh 18:9).

They will also be clearly identified as His. He will write on them the name of God, to show they are His, and the name of the new Jerusalem which descends from Heaven (Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10) to show that they belong there, and Christ’s own new name to show that they belong to the glorified Christ.

This new name, only known to those who receive it (Rev 2:17), is the sure sign that they are His. In Revelation 2 they wear it proudly on the pure white stone, probably seen as on their breasts and on their shoulders as with the High Priest. Here the name is written personally on them (see Rev 14:1; Rev 22:4. Compare Isa 49:16 where the names of His own are written on His hands). We must not overpress the symbolism. It is the idea that matters, not the form in which it is put. So once again, in a different form, the overcomer is guaranteed eternal life.

This designation with a new name is spoken of in Isa 65:15. There the so-called people of God have forsaken the Lord, and have prepared a table for Fortune and filled up cups with mingled wine to Destiny, and because of this they themselves are rejected and forsaken and their name will become a curse. They have become enslaved by the occult, and caught up in fortune telling and belief in Fate. So God promises that He will call by another name those who have sought Him and are faithful to Him, His chosen ones, His servants (Isa 65:9-10). How much clearer could He have put it that those who take the new name have replaced those who bore the old, for they are the true seed of Jacob (Isa 65:9).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rev 3:12. Will I make a pillar As a pillar is both an ornament and a support of the building, so these martyrs and confessors shall accordingly have greater power, and thus bear the weight of government in the New Jerusalem more than others. The allegoryis here continued from buildings,and perhaps there may be an allusion to the two pillars of Solomon’s temple, Jachin and Boaz, 1Ki 7:13; 1Ki 7:51. He shall go no more out, plainly implies an eternal state to be enjoyed in the New Jerusalem. He goes on, and I will write upon him the name of my God: it was usual to grave inscriptions on pillars: here the apostle intimates the graving the name of God, as under his divine auspices the victory was gained; as likewise the name of New Jerusalem, to signify that the victor belonged to it, and was free of it. Few texts in the whole New Testament are more illustrated by antiquity than this. Great numbers of inscriptions are yet remaining, brought from the Grecian cities of Europe and Asia, and some from islands in the neighbourhood of Patmos, in which the victories of eminent persons are commemorated. Some of these were placed near the temples of their idol deities,others in the temples themselves, to signify their being put under the particular protection of those deities; whose names were therefore inscribed upon them, as well as the names of the conquerors, and of the cities to which they belonged, together with the names of the generals by whose conduct the victory was gained. See Isa 62:12. Eze 48:35. It is observable, that during the persecuted state of the church, Christ is constantly called the Lamb, or denominated by such symbols as express the same state; but on his entrance into the New Jerusalem, he changes it, and puts on his new, secret, or wonderful name of King of Kings and Lord of Lords; and that is, because he has then wholly changed his state, and entered upon a new one; a secret never yet thoroughly known here below, but wonderful, great, and glorious. Because the true worshippers of Christ have never yet been whollyfree from persecution, Christ has never yet shewn us his new name; wherefore those here spoken of, on whom he bestows it, are such as shall be made partakers of the same state wherein he hath it as mediatorial King.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rev 3:12 . As in all the epistles, so here, the concluding promise to the “victor” (cf. Rev 3:11 ) proceeds to the time of eternal glory after the coming of the Lord. This is, besides, especially indicated here by the expression . . ., . . . The incorrect reference to “the Church militant,” [1501] or “the Church militant and triumphant,” [1502] causes the most perverted interpretations of individual points. Thus N. de Lyra interprets, by understanding . . . . and . . . . of the Church militant, and the . , recalling Gal 2:9 : “Brave and powerful in faith, not only for himself, but also for comforting and sustaining others;” and remarks on , “by apostasy, not by excommunication;” on . . . . . . , “for they [viz., bishops] represent in the Church the person of God;” on . . .: “For the Church militant is ruled and directed by the Holy Spirit;” and on . , . : “As the Lord himself at the circumcision was called Jesus, and afterwards Christ, so believers are first called disciples of Jesus, and then [1503] Christians. [1504] Similar distortions occur in Grot., [1505] Wetst., [1506] etc. The correct reference to the future glory [1507] is not in any way, as with Beng., to be so limited that the first promise . . . . . is fulfilled already at the time of Rev 7:15 , and before that of ch. 19, on the ground that there will be no temple in the new Jerusalem. [1508] For if it be said that in the new Jerusalem there will be no special place for the worship and revelation of God, as God himself will be immediately near all the blessed, this does not prevent, that, according to an idea of an entirely different kind, but of essentially the same meaning, the entire community of perfected believers is contemplated as the temple of God, in which individuals may appear as pillars. This is only a transfer of the figure of the temporal to that of the heavenly communion of saints; [1509] while the figure contains a significant feature, founded neither upon Isa 22:23 , [1510] nor 1Ki 7:15 sqq., [1511] in that [1512] by being compared not to foundation-stones, but to the pillars of the temple, [1513] they are represented in their immutable firmness ( . , . . .) and glorious adornment. Incorrectly, Eichh.: [1514] “The friends of the King, having more intimate access to him, who are admitted to his counsels, maybe called columns.”

. The subject is not , [1515] but . [1516] Therefore the remark on is in no wise necessary, that the verb as intransitive expresses the [1517] sense of a passive. [1518] He who once, in the sense above indicated, is made a victor in the temple of God, henceforth shall no more go forth, either voluntarily (viz., by a fall), or under constraint.

. Cf. in general Tr. Bara bathra , p. 75, Revelation 2 : [1519] “R. Samuel says that R. Jochanan said that three are called by the name of God; e.g., the righteous, [1520] the Messiah, [1521] and Jerusalem. [1522]

, viz., upon the victor, [1523] not upon the pillar. [1524] Areth. says more accurately: [on the mental pillar]; yet here the is entirely identical with the preceding object ( ) . If the question be asked as to where the inscription is to be regarded as written, the answer is to be given otherwise than Rev 2:17 , and according to Rev 14:1 , Rev 22:4 (cf. Rev 17:5 , Rev 7:3 ): “upon the forehead.” Since the is mentioned, the thought is closely connected therewith of the inscription upon the high priest’s [1525] diadem, ; [1526] and that, too, the more as by . . . ft. the holy name [1527] is meant. [1528] At all events, [1529] the holy and blessed state of belonging to God is expressed.

So, too, the name of the city of God which is arbitrarily traced to a breast-shield of the wearer, instead of the names of the twelve tribes [1530] designates the right of citizenship in the new Jerusalem. [1531] The name “city” need not, however, be derived from Eze 48:35 , [1532] although the description (Rev 21:3 sqq.) is applicable as an exposition of that significant designation, but John himself calls the city of God .

, . . . The construction as Rev 1:5 . The meaning of the expression is elucidated by ch. 21. Falsely rationalizing, not only Grot.: “It has been procured by the wonderful kindness of God,” but even Calov.: [1533] “It has God as its author.”

. . . Not the name mentioned in Rev 19:16 , [1534] but that meant in Rev 19:12 . [1535] But he who bears the new name of the Lord is thereby designated as eternally belonging to the Lord as though with the Lord’s own signature. If, however, the name of the Lord in this sense and significance can be placed alongside of that of God and the new Jerusalem, the Lord must verily be the one that in Rev 3:7 he professes to be; in that also he says of himself , , he proclaims himself as one who is to be recognized as the eternal King of the kingdom of heaven.

[1501] N. de Lyra, Areth., Grot., Wetst., Schttg., etc.

[1502] Vitr., C. a Lap., Stern, etc.

[1503] Act 11 .

[1504] The Jesuit C. a Lap. (cf. the brethren of his order, Rib. Vieg .) thinks that, according to “the new name” which the Lord received at his circumcision, the victors will be called “Jesuani” or “Jesuits.”

[1505] : “Will not be compelled again to flee as under Nero.” . . . . . .: “This name is the Catholic Church, viz., as it was free and flourishing under the Christian emperors.”

[1506] ., in opposition to the earthquakes which were frequent at Philadelphia. Cf. Rev 3:1 .

[1507] Calov., Beng., Eichh., Heinr., Ew., De Wette, Hengstenb., Ebrard, Klief.

[1508] Rev 21:22 .

[1509] Cf. 1Co 3:16 sqq.; Eph 2:19 sqq.; 1Pe 2:5 sqq.

[1510] Eichh., Ew.

[1511] Grot., Vitr., Zll.

[1512] Cf. De Wette, etc.

[1513] Gal 2:9 .

[1514] Cf. Rev 3:8 .

[1515] Eich., Ebr.

[1516] Ew., De Wette, Hengstenb., Klief.

[1517] Vitr., Eichh., Ew.

[1518] Possibly . Cf. Mar 4:21 ; Gen 43:18 ; Mat 8:12 ; Mat 9:33 . Syr.

[1519] In Wetst.

[1520] Isa 43:7 .

[1521] Jer 23:6 .

[1522] Eze 48:35 .

[1523] Vitr., Calov., Schttg., Eichh., Heinr., Ewald, Zll., Hengstenb., Ebrard.

[1524] Grot., De Wette.

[1525] Cf. Rev 1:6 .

[1526] Schttg., Eichh., Ewald.

[1527] Cf. Rev 1:8 .

[1528] Grot., Vitr., etc.

[1529] Calov., Hengstenb., Ebrard.

[1530] Schttg.

[1531] Cf. Rev 21:3 sqq.

[1532] Vitr., Ewald, etc.

[1533] Cf. Luk 20:4 ; Jas 3:15 .

[1534] Grot., Calov., Vitr., Hengstenb.

[1535] Eichh., De Wette, Stern, Ebiard, etc.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2500
EPISTLE TO PHILADELPHIA

Rev 3:12-13. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches.

HEARhear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches, and to every individual soul that hath an ear to hear it. We have already heard exceeding great and precious promises made unto the Church: but in the passage before us there is a grandeur which overpowers the mind, and a depth which it is scarcely possible to fathom. What a thought! that you, who are here assembled, are soon to be made pillars in the temple of God above, provided you now fight the good fight of faith, and obtain the victory over the enemies of your souls! Attend then, I pray you, and lift up your hearts to God for his blessing, whilst I endeavour to set before you,

I.

The reward prepared for Gods victorious servants

They shall be pillars in the temple of the Lord
[The precise import of this promise it is not easy to declare; because the allusion which is here made to pillars erected in heathen temples had not any thing to correspond with it in the temple of Solomon. As for the two pillars named Jachin and Boaz, they were in the porch of the temple, and not in the temple itself; nor had they any inscription whatever upon them [Note: 1Ki 7:21.]. For the elucidation of our subject, we must look, not to them, but to a practice which obtained amongst the Greeks and Romans, of erecting monuments to their generals, who had obtained great success against their enemies. These were often pillars, with inscriptions on them; and they were placed, sometimes near the temples of their gods, and sometimes within them. Now, says our blessed Lord, such pillars my victorious saints shall be in heaven: I will make them pillars in the temple of my God. And whereas the pillars constructed in earthly temples must in time fall to decay, the saints should retain their honour through eternal ages: They shall go no more out: the temple in which they are placed shall stand: and they also shall endure as long as heaven itself shall endure, even through all eternity.]

On them, also, shall there be a suitable inscription
[On the pillars in the heathen temples were inscribed the name of the god to whose power they ascribed the victories, and whom they sought to honour as the author of them. There was also written the name of the city that had given birth to this great general, or been the peculiar place of his residence: and further, there was inscribed also the name of the sovereign whose servant he was, or of the commander under whose direction he fought.
Now, in conformity with these customs, our Lord says, that on his people, who shall themselves be the pillars, he will write the name of his God; (for Jesus, as Man and as Mediator, calls Jehovah his Father and our Father, and his God and our God:) yes, the name of Jehovah, who enabled them to gain the victory, and to whom alone the glory of it is due, shall be written upon them.

On them also shall be written the name of the city of his God, the New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from his God. The New Jerusalem is the Church of God [Note: Gal 4:25-26.]. And it comes down from God out of heaven, precisely as the tabernacle and temple did; a model of the one being shewn to Moses for a pattern [Note: Exo 25:40.], and to David for the other [Note: 1Ch 28:12; 1Ch 28:19.]. This descent of the city from heaven is repeatedly mentioned in the Holy Scriptures [Note: Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10.]: and it is deserving of particular notice in this place, because there is not a stone in the whole building which was not taken out from the quarry by God himself, and formed and fashioned for its station. The strokes that are given to each stone with the hammer and the chisel, are given in this world, at a distance from the temple above. When the stones are carried thither, the sound of any tool is not once heard [Note: 1Ki 6:7.]; every stone being already fitted for the place, which, in His sovereign will, he has ordained it to occupy.

Further, on them also will our blessed Lord write his new name, Jesus which was given him at his birth: for He it is who called them to be soldiers, and directed all their efforts, and strengthened them for the combat, and beat down their enemies before their face; and, consequently, to Him also, as the Captain of their salvation, must all honour be ascribed.
Now then I say, Hear, brethren, if indeed ye have ears to hear, what inconceivable honour is reserved for Gods faithful servants: and attend yet further, whilst I endeavour to point out to you,]

II.

The excellency of this reward

Methinks, nothing can add to the terms that are here used, or enhance the grandeur of the description here given. Yet it may be well to consider this reward in the light in which it will then appear:

1.

As the consummation of Gods eternal purposes

[From all eternity did God determine to take unto himself a people from our fallen race, and to exalt them to thrones of glory in his kingdom. From all eternity, also, did he predestinate persons to be his adopted children [Note: Eph 1:5.], and choose them unto salvation [Note: 2Th 2:13.], even to that very salvation which they will in due time enjoy. In their appointed season he called them by his grace, and justified them from their sins, and sanctified them by his Spirit: and when they shall be glorified [Note: Rom 8:30.], then shall all his counsels be fulfilled, and all the wonders of his love be unravelled, from beginning to end. Then will the reason of all his dispensations appear; just as does the reason of the builders conduct towards every individual stone of a pillar, when it shall be found in a place ordained for it. O! how will this enhance the value of the reward, when the conferring of it shall be found to have occupied the Divine mind from all eternity; and all the wisdom, and power, and love, and faithfulness of God shall be seen to have been employed in preparing the soul for the enjoyment of it.]

2.

As the completion of all Christs glorious engagements

[What he undertook was, to redeem our souls by his own most precious blood, and to search us out, and bring us home, and keep us in his fold, and introduce us finally to his fold above [Note: Eze 34:11; Eze 34:23-24.]. The effecting of this was the joy that was set before him; in the prospect of which he endured the cross and despised the shame, till he sat down triumphant at the right hand of God [Note: Heb 12:2.]. And when he shall behold the exaltation of his redeemed people, then will he see the travail of his soul, and be fully satisfied with all that he ever did or suffered for the attainment of this great object [Note: Isa 53:11.]. Contemplate, then, the satisfaction which Christ will feel, in making us such pillars, and in inscribing all these characters upon us, (for in my text, you see it is his entire work;) and then tell me, whether the reward bestowed upon us be not, beyond all expression, great. If viewed only as a benefit conferred, it is beyond measure glorious: but if viewed as the perfection of the Redeemers work, it absolutely far exceeds all the powers of language to express, or of any finite comprehension to conceive.]

3.

As the crown of all our labours

[This is that reward to which all the patriarchs looked [Note: Heb 11:13-16.]: and for which Moses forsook all the pleasures and honours of the first nation upon earth [Note: Heb 11:25-26.]. And it is by that, that all the saints, at this day, are sustained in their conflicts with sin and Satan. Whilst here on the field of battle, they have some foretastes of that glory; for now have they the Spirit of adoption, to cry Abba, Father [Note: Rom 8:15.]; now do they feel themselves to have come unto Mount Zion [Note: Heb 12:22.], and to be fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God [Note: Eph 2:19.]; and now is Jesus truly precious to their souls [Note: 1Pe 2:7.]. These names, I say, are already written upon their hearts by the Spirit of God; yea, and their own names, too, are written in heaven [Note: Luk 10:20.]. But still they have many conflicts, as long as they continue in this world: it is not till they get to heaven that they rest from their labours [Note: Rev 14:13.]: but there they have their happiness unmixed with any alloy of pain or sorrow; all tears having been wiped from their eyes by God himself; and every thing that can occasion pain having passed away for ever [Note: Rev 21:4.] Was it, think you, a joy to the whole nation of Israel to see all their enemies dead upon the sea-shore? Be assured, that this is the happiness that awaits you: for as, on the one hand, you shall never more go out to meet your enemies, so into that world shall nothing ever enter [Note: Rev 21:27.] to disturb your peace.]

4.

As a monument erected to the honour of God himself

[In monuments raised to out own naval and military commanders, even in those which are erected in the temples of our God, the creature is too much lauded, and God too much forgotten: but in heaven, on every pillar is inscribed the name of God, and of Christ, and of that blessed city, the New Jerusalem, to which we belong: but in no instance is there any record of self. No; self is altogether forgotten there; and no praise is offered but to Him who redeemed us to God by his blood. Even the angels, who never sinned, utter not a word in commendation of themselves; but all unite in one harmonious song of praise, to God, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever.

Now, then, conceive of the millions, more numerous than the sands upon the sea-shore, established in heaven as living and imperishable monuments of Gods power and grace: how will this very circumstance enhance the blessedness of the redeemed! To honour God below, and be witnesses for Him on earth, was no little joy: but to be such monuments in heaven, and to exhibit to all eternity the glory of that God who ordered all, and of that Saviour who accomplished all, this will be indeed the perfection of bliss, and may well determine every soul of man to live only for the attainment of it.]

And now, I ask,

[Who amongst you will not enlist in this army? or who, having once enlisted, will not fight manfully against all his enemies? Come, gird yourselves, brethren, for the combat: put on the whole armour of God: and never cease to fight in your Saviours strength, till he shall have crowned your efforts with victory. You well know what efforts men will make, what labours they will sustain, what privations they will submit to, and what dangers they will encounter, for a corruptible crown, some title of honour, some earthly estate, or some monumental record, that shall transmit their names to posterity; which yet they may never attain, and which, if attained, must soon perish;and shall there be any thing for you to do or suffer in the prospect of this sure reward, which will be perpetuated through eternal ages? Fight ye then, I say, and war a good warfare; and rest assured, that, at the close of your contest, your triumph shall be complete, and this reward be accorded to you by that adorable Saviour under whom you have fought.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

Ver. 12. Will I make a pillar ] Pillars are both the firmament and ornament of temples. Understand it of that fulness and constancy both of grace and of glory in heaven.

Which is new Jerusalem ] It was a pride in Montanus to overween his Peruza and Tymium (two pelting parishes in Phrygia) and to call them Jerusalem, as if they had been the only churches. (Euseb. v. 15.) And surely, it is nothing else but pride in the Brownists to avow that their churches are nothing less than the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven: that the very crown, sceptre, and throne of Christ’s kingdom consists in them. (See Mr Bailey’s Dissuasive, p. 17.)

My new name ] viz. That which he received from his Father in his exaltation, Eph 1:20 ; Phi 2:9 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12 .] The reward of the conqueror. He that conquereth (for the pendent nom., see ref.), I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God (i. e. he shall have a fixed and important place in the glorified church hereafter. That this, and nothing referring to any honour or dignity in the church militant (so Lyra, Aretius, Grot., “Wetst., Schttg., al.), or in that as leading on to the church triumphant (so Vitr., Corn.-a-lap., Stern, al.) is intended, is manifest from the whole diction of this passage, as well as from comparing the corresponding promises, which all refer to the blessings of the future state of glory. It is no objection to this view, that in the heavenly Jerusalem there is no temple, ch. Rev 21:22 ; but rather a corroboration of it. That glorious city is all temple, and Christ’s victorious ones are its living stones and pillars. Thus as Dsterd. well remarks, the imagery of the church militant, 1Co 3:16 ff.; Eph 2:19 ff.; 1Pe 2:5 ff., is transferred to the church triumphant, but with this difference, that the saints are no longer the stones merely, but now the pillars themselves, standing in their immovable firmness. On , see note on ch. Rev 2:7 ), and out of it he shall never more go out (the subject is not the , but ; and the sense, that he who is thus fixed in his eternal place as a pillar in the heavenly temple, will never more, from any cause, depart from it. Those Commentators who have understood the promise of the church militant , have been obliged to take as a passive,” non ejicietur,” justifying this by such expressions as Mar 4:21 . Lyra takes it in both senses “nec per apostasin, nec per excommunicationem.” And thus, except that the latter word will have no place, we may well understand the general word : none shall thrust him out, nor shall he be any more in danger of falling, and thus thrusting himself out. It is well worth noticing, as Wetst. has done, the recorded fact, that Philadelphia was notorious for calamities by earthquake. The language in which Strabo describes this is remarkable in connexion with this promise of the pillar which should not be moved; , , , xii. p. 868 B: and still more so in xiii. p. 936 B, . , . See also Tacit. Ann. ii. 47, where among the twelve cities of proconsular Asia which were overthrown by an earthquake, Philadelphia suffered, and was in consequence excused its taxes, and in common with the others entrusted to a senatorian commissioner to repair): and I will write upon him (the conqueror; not as Grot., the pillar) the name of my God (Wetst. quotes from the Rabbinical book Bava Bathra 75. 2, “R. Samuel filius Nachmanni ait, R. Jochananem dixisse, tres appellari nomine Dei S. B., justos ( Isa 43:7 ), Messiam ( Jer 23:6 ), Hierosolyma ( Eze 48:35 ).” Some think of the mitre frontlet of the high-priests, on which was inscribed “Holiness to the Lord,” Exo 28:36 ; so Schttg., Ewald, al. But this does not seem applicable here, where, from this and the following particulars, it is rather a blessed belonging to God and the holy city and Christ, that is imported, than the priestly office of the glorified Christian) and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which descendeth (the appositive nom., see reff.) out of heaven from my God (on the whole, see ch. Rev 21:2-3 , and notes. It is possible , that the name Jehovah Shammah, Eze 48:35 , may be meant; but hardly probable, seeing that the Holy Name itself has before been mentioned as inscribed on him. The inscription of the name of the city would betoken citizenship), and mine own new name (not the name mentioned ch. Rev 19:16 , which is known and patent, but that indicated ch. Rev 19:12 , : for this is clearly pointed at by the word . By the inscription of this new name of the glorified Saviour is declared, that he belongs to Him in His new and glorious state of eternal rest and triumph).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rev 3:12 . The reward of steadfastness here is a stable relation to God and absolute (trebly verified) assurance of eternal life, permanence (verbally inconsistent with Rev 21:22 ) (four times in this verse). From Strabo (xii. 868 [905] , : xiii. 936 B., . , , . . .) we learn that the city was liable to frequent and severe earthquakes, one of which had produced such ruin a while ago (Tac Ann. ii. 47) that the citizens had to be exempted from Imperial taxation and assisted to repair their buildings. These local circumstances ( cf. Juv. vi. 411; Dio Cass. lxviii. 25; Renan, 335) lend colour to this promise, which would also appeal to citizens of a city whose numerous festivals and temples are said to have won for it the sobriquet of “a miniature Athens” ( E. Bi. 3692). The promise is alluded to in Ep. Lugd., where God’s grace is said to have “delivered the weak and set them up as able by means of their patience to stand all angry onsets of the evil one,” and Attalus of Pergamos is termed a of the local Christians. Permanent communion with God is further expressed in terms of the widespread ethnic belief that to be ignorant of a god’s name meant inability to worship him, whereas to know that name implied the power of entering into fellowship with him. “Just as writing a name on temple-walls puts the owner of the name in continual union with the deity of the temple, so for early man the knowledge, invocation and vain repetition of the deity’s name constitutes in itself an actual, if mystic, union with the deity named” (Jevons’ Introd. Hist. Religion , 1896, p. 245; cf. Jastrow, p. 173). , . . ., inscriptions upon pillars being a common feature of Oriental architecture, cf. Cooke’s North Semitic Inscriptions , p. 266, names on pillars; also Reitzenstein’s Poimandres , 20. The provincial priest of the Imperial cultus erected his statue in the temple at the close of his year’s official reign, inscribing on it his own name and his father’s, his place of birth and year of office. Hence some of the mysterious imagery of this verse, applied to Christians as priests of God in the next world. This is more probable than to suspect an allusion to what was written on the high priest’s forehead (Exo 28:36 , cf. Rev 7:3 ; Rev 14:1 ; Rev 17:5 ; Rev 22:4 ). Pillars were also, of course, sculptured now and then in human shape. For the first ( a ) of the three names, cf. Baba Bathra , 75, 2: R. Samuel ait R. Jochanan dixisse tres appellari nomine Dei, justos (Isa 43:7 ), Messiam (Jer 23:6 ), Hierosolyma (Eze 48:35 ); also Targ. Jerus. on Exod. xxviii. 30, quisquis memorat illud nomen sanctum [ i.e. , ] in hora necessitatis, eripitur, et occulta reteguntur. Where a name was equivalent in one sense to personality and character, to have a divine name conferred on one or revealed to one was equivalent to being endowed with divine power. The divine “hidden name” ( Asc. Isa. i. 7 Jewish: “as the Lord liveth whose name has not been sent into this world,” cf. Rev 8:7 ) was (according to En. lxix. 14f.) known to Michael, and had talismanic power over dmons. Perhaps an allusion to this also underlies the apocalyptic promise, the talismanic metaphor implying that God grants to the victorious Christian inviolable safety against evil spirits ( cf. Rom 8:38-39 ). The second ( b ) name denotes ( cf. Isa 56:5 , Eze 48:35 ) that the bearer belongs not merely to God but to the heavenly city and society of God. Since rabbinic speculation was sure that Abraham had the privilege of knowing the mysterious new name for Jerusalem in the next world, John claims this for the average and honest Christian. On the connexion between the divine name and the temple, see Mal 2:9Mal 2:9 ; Mal 2:14Mal 2:14 , Jdt 9:8 , etc. The third ( c ) “my own new name” (Rev 19:12 ) is reflected in Asc. Isa. ix. 5 (the Son of God, et nomen eius non potes audire donec de carne exibis ); it denotes some esoteric, incommunicable, pre-existent (LXX of Psa 71:17 , En. lxix. 26, cf. R. J. 249, 344) title, the knowledge of which meant power to invoke and obtain help from its bearer. The whole imagery (as in Rev 2:17 , Rev 19:12 ) is drawn from the primitive superstition that God’s name. like a man’s name, must be kept secret, lest if known it might be used to the disadvantage of the bearer (Frazer’s Golden Bough , 2nd ed. i. 443 f.). The close tie between the name and the personality in ancient life lent the former a secret virtue. Especially in Egyptian and in Roman belief, to learn a god’s name meant to share his power, and often “the art of the magician consisted in obtaining from the gods a revelation of their sacred names”. The point made by the prophet here is that the Christian God bestows freely upon his people the privilege of invoking his aid successfully, and of entering into his secret nature; also, perhaps, of security in the mysterious future across death. See the famous ch. 125. of E. B. D. where the successive doors will not allow Nu to pass till he tells them their names ( cf. chapters cxli. f.). Ignatius tells the Philadelphians (obviously referring to this passage, ad Phil. 6) that people unsound upon the truth of Jesus Christ are to him , . The is emphatic. In the survival of 2 Peter during the later conquests which left the other six towns of the Apocalypse more or less ruined, Gibbon (ch. 64.) irrelevantly finds “a pleasing example that the paths of honour and safety may sometimes be the same”.

[905] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[906]. Codex Porphyrianus (sc. ix.), at St. Petersburg, collated by Tischendorf. Its text is deficient for chap. Rev 2:13-16 .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Revelation

VI. – THE VICTOR’S LIFE-NAMES

Rev 3:12 .

The eyes which were as a flame of fire saw nothing to blame in the Philadelphian Church, and the lips out of which came the two-edged sword that cuts through all hypocrisy to the discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart, spoke only eulogium- ‘Thou hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name.’ But however mature and advanced may be Christian experience, it is never lifted above the possibility of temptation; so, with praise, there came warning of an approaching hour which would try the mettle of this unblamed Church. Christ’s reward for faithfulness is not immunity from, but strength in, trial and conflict. As long as we are in the world there will be forces warring against us; and we shall have to fight our worst selves and the tendencies which tempt us to prefer the visible to the unseen, and the present to the future. So the Church which had no rebuke received the solemn injunction: ‘Hold fast that thou hast; let no man take thy crown.’ There is always need of struggle, even for the most mature, if we would keep what we have. The treasure will be filched from slack hands; the crown will be stricken from a slumbering head. So it is not inappropriate that the promise to this Church should be couched in the usual terms, ‘to him that overcometh,’ and the conclusion to be drawn is the solemn and simple one that the Christian life is always a conflict, even to the end.

The promise contained in my text presents practically but a twofold aspect of that future blessedness; the one expressed in the clause, ‘I will make him a pillar’; the other expressed in the clauses referring to the writing upon him of certain names. I need not do more than again call attention to the fact that here, as always, Jesus Christ represents Himself as not only allocating the position and determining the condition, but as shaping, and moulding, and enriching the characters of the redeemed, and ask you to ponder the question. What in Him does that assumption involve?

Passing on, then, to the consideration of these two promises more closely, let us deal with them singly. There is, first, the steadfast pillar; there is, second, the threefold inscription.

I. The steadfast pillar.

Now I take it that the two clauses which refer to this matter are closely connected. ‘I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go no more out.’ In the second clause the figure is dropped, and the point of the metaphor is brought out more clearly. The stately column in the temples, with which these Philadelphian Christians, dwelling in the midst of the glories of Greek architecture, were familiar, might be, and often has been, employed as a symbol of many things. Here it cannot mean the office of sustaining a building, or pre-eminence above others, as it naturally lends itself sometimes to mean. For instance, the Apostle Paul speaks of the three chief apostles in Jerusalem, and says that they ‘seemed to be pillars’; by which pre-eminence and the office of maintaining the Church are implied. But that obviously cannot be the special application of the figure here, inasmuch as we cannot conceive of even redeemed men sustaining that temple in the heavens, and also inasmuch as the promise here is perfectly universal, and is given to all that overcome – that is to say, to all the redeemed. We must, therefore, look in some other direction. Now, the second of the two clauses which are thus linked together seems to me to point in the direction in which we are to look. ‘He shall go no more out.’ A pillar is a natural emblem of stability and permanence, as poets in many tongues and in many lands have felt it to be. I remember one of our own quaint English writers who speaks of men who are bottomed on the basis of a firm faith, mounting up with the clear shaft of a shining life, and having their persevering tops garlanded about, according to God’s promise, ‘I will give thee a crown of life.’ That idea of stability, of permanence, of fixedness, is the one that is prominent in the metaphor here.

But whilst the general notion is that of stability and permanence, do not let us forget that it is permanence and stability in a certain direction, for the pillar is ‘in the temple of My God.’ Now I would recall to you the fact that in other parts of Scripture we find the present relation of Christian men to God set forth under a similar metaphor: ‘Ye are the temple of the living God’; or again, ‘In whom ye are builded for a habitation of God through the Spirit’; or again, in that great word which is the foundation of all such symbols, ‘We will come and make our abode with Him.’ So that the individual believer and the community of all such are, even here and now, the dwelling-place of God. And whilst there are ideas of dignity and grace attaching to the metaphor of the pillar, the underlying meaning of it is substantially that the individual souls of redeemed men shall be themselves parts of, and collectively shall constitute, the temple of God in the heavens.

This book of the Apocalypse has several points of view in regard to that great symbol. It speaks, for instance, of there being no temple therein,’ by which is meant the cessation of all material and external worships such as belong to earth. It speaks also of God and the Lamb as themselves being ‘the Temple thereof.’ And here we have the converse idea that not only may we think of the redeemed community as dwelling in God and Christ, but of God and Christ as dwelling in the redeemed community. The promise, then, is of a thrilling consciousness that God is in us, a deeper realization of His presence, a fuller communication of His grace, a closer touch of Him, far beyond anything that we can conceive of on earth, and yet being the continuation and the completion of the earthly experiences of those in whom God dwells by their faith, their love, and their obedience. We have nothing to say about the new capacities for consciousness of God which may come to redeemed souls when the veils of flesh and sense, and the absorption in the present drop away. “We have nothing to say, because we know nothing about the new manifestations and more intimate touches which may correspond to these new capacities. There are vibrations of sounds too rapid or too slow for our ears as at present organized to catch. But whether these be too shrill or too deep to be heard, if the ear were more sensitive there would be sound where there is silence, and music in the waste places. So with new organs, with new capacities, there will be a new and a deeper sense of the presence of God; and utterances of His lips too profound to be caught by us now, or too clear and high to be apprehended by our limited sense, will then thunder into melody and with clear notes sound His praises. There are rays of light in the spectrum, at both ends of it, as yet not perceptible to human eyes; but then ‘we shall, in Thy light, see light ‘flaming higher and deeper than we can do now. We dwell in God here if we dwell in Christ, and we dwell in Christ if He dwell in us, by faith and love. But in the heavens the indwelling shall be more perfect, and transcend all that we know now.

The special point in regard to which that perfection is expressed here is to be kept prominent. ‘He shall go no more out.’ Permanence, and stability, and uninterruptedness in the communion and consciousness of an indwelling God, is a main element in the glory and blessedness of that future life. Stability in any fashion comes as a blessed hope to us, who know the curse of constant change, and are tossing on the unquiet waters of life. It is blessed to think of a region where the seal of permanence will be set on all delights, and our blessedness will be like the bush in the desert, burning and yet not consumed. But the highest form of that blessedness is the thought of stable, uninterrupted, permanent communion with God and consciousness of His dwelling in us. The contrast forces itself upon us between that equable and unvarying communion and the ups and downs of the most uniform Christian life here – to-day thrilling in every nerve with the sense of God, to-morrow dead and careless. Sometimes the bay is filled with flashing waters that leap in the sunshine; sometimes, when the tide is out, there is only a long stretch of grey and oozy mud. It shall not be always so. Like lands on the equator, where the difference between midsummer and midwinter is scarcely perceptible, either in length of day or in degree of temperature, that future will be a calm continuance, a uniformity which is not monotony, and a stability which does not exclude progress.

I cannot but bring into contrast with that great promise he shall go no more out ‘an incident in the gospels. Christ and the Twelve were in the upper room, and He poured out His heart to them, and their hearts burned within them. But they went out to the Mount of Olives ‘- He to Gethsemane and to Calvary; Judas to betray and Peter to deny; all to toil and suffer, and sometimes to waver in their faith. ‘He shall go no more out.’ Eternal glory and unbroken communion is the blessed promise to the victor who is made by Christ ‘a pillar in the temple of My God.’

II. Now, secondly, notice the threefold inscription.

We have done with the metaphor of the pillar altogether. We are not to think of anything so incongruous as a pillar stamped with writing, a monstrosity in Grecian architecture. But it is the man himself on whom Christ is to write the threefold name. The writing of a name implies ownership and visibility.

So the first of the triple inscriptions declares that the victor shall be conspicuously God’s. ‘I will write upon him the name of My God.’ There may possibly be an allusion to the golden plate which flamed in the front of the high priest’s mitre, and on which was written the unspoken name of Jehovah. But whether that be so or no, the underlying ideas are these two which I have already referred to – complete ownership, and that manifested in the very front of the character.

How do we possess one another? How do we belong to God? How does God belong to us? There is but one way by which a spirit can possess a spirit – by love, which leads to self-surrender and to practical obedience. And if – as a man writes his name in his books, as a farmer brands on his sheep and oxen the marks that express his ownership – on the redeemed there is written the name of God, that means, whatever else it may mean, perfect love, perfect self -surrender, perfect obedience, that the whole nature shall be owned, and know itself owned, and be glad to be owned, by God. That is the perfecting of the Christian relationship which is begun here on earth. And if we here yield ourselves to God and depart from that foolish and always frustrated attempt to be our own masters and owners, so escaping the misery and burden of self -hood, and entering into the liberty of the children of God, we shall reach that blessed state in which there will be no murmuring and incipient rebellions, no disturbance of our inward submission, no breach in our active obedience, no holding back of anything that we have or are; but we shall be wholly God’s – that is, wholly possessors of ourselves, and blessed thereby. ‘He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life, the same shall find it.’ And that Name will be stamped on us that every eye that looks, whoever they may be, shall know ‘whose we are and whom we serve.’

The second inscription declares that the victor conspicuously belongs to the City. Our time will not allow of my entering at all upon the many questions that gather round that representation of ‘the New Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven.’ I must content myself with simply pointing to the possible allusion here to the promise in the preceding letter to Sardis. There we were told that the victor’s name should not ‘be blotted out of the Book of Life’; and that Book of Life suggested the idea of the burgess-roll of the city, as well as the register of those that truly live. Here the same thought is suggested by a converse metaphor. The name of the victor is written on the rolls of the city, and the name of the city is stamped on the forehead of the victor. That is to say, the affinity which, even here and now, has knit men who believe in Jesus Christ to an invisible order, where is their true mother-city and metropolis, will then be uncontradicted by any inconsistencies, unobscured by the necessary absorption in daily duties and transient aims and interests, which often veils to others, and renders less conscious to ourselves, our true belonging to the city beyond the sea. The name of the city shall be stamped upon the victor. That, again, is the perfecting and the continuation of the central heart of the Christian life here, the consciousness that we are come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and belong to another order of things than the visible and material around us.

The last of the triple inscriptions declares that the victor shall be conspicuously Christ’s. ‘I will write upon him My new name.’ All the three inscriptions link themselves, not with earlier, but with later parts of this most artistically constructed book of the Revelation; and in a subsequent portion of it we read of a new name of Christ’s, which no man knoweth save Himself. “What is that new name? It is an expression for the sum of the new revelations of what He is, which will flood the souls of the redeemed when they pass from earth. That new name will not obliterate the old one – God forbid! It will not do away with the ancient, earth-begun relation of dependence and faith and obedience. ‘Jesus Christ is the same . . . for ever’: and His name in the heavens, as upon earth, is Jesus the Saviour. But there are abysses in Him which no man moving amidst the incipiencies and imperfections of this infantile life of earth can understand. Not until we possess can we know the depths of wisdom and knowledge, and of all other blessed treasures which are stored in Him. Here we touch but the fringe of His great glory; yonder we shall penetrate to its central flame.

That new name no man fully knows, even when he has entered on its possession and carries it on his forehead; for the infinite Christ, who is the manifestation of the infinite God, can never be comprehended, much less exhausted, even by the united perceptions of a redeemed universe; but for ever and ever, more and more will well out from Him. His name shall last as long as the sun, and blaze when the sun himself is dead.

‘I will write upon him My new name’ was said to a church, and while the eulogium was, ‘Thou hast not denied My name.’ If we are to pierce the heart and the glory there, we must begin on its edges here. If the name is to be on our foreheads then, we must bear in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus – the brand of ownership impressed on the slave’s palm. In the strength of the name we can overcome; and if we overcome. His name will hereafter blaze on our foreheads – the token that we are completely His for ever, and the pledge that we shall be growingly made like unto Him.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

Temple = sanctuary. Greek. naos. See Mat 23:16 and App-88.

upon. App-104.

new Jerusalem. See Rev 21:2, Rev 21:3, Rev 21:10. Compare Psa 48:1, Psa 48:2, Psa 48:8, Psa 48:9. Eze 48:35. See App-88and App-197.4.

new, new. Greek. kainos. See Mat 9:17.

heaven. See Mat 6:9. Occurs fifty-two times in Rev., always in sing, save Rev 12:12.

new name. See Rev 14:1; Rev 22:4. Isa 62:2; Isa 65:15. Contrast the name branded on the worshippers of the beast, Rev 13:16; Rev 14:11; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:4.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12.] The reward of the conqueror. He that conquereth (for the pendent nom., see ref.), I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God (i. e. he shall have a fixed and important place in the glorified church hereafter. That this, and nothing referring to any honour or dignity in the church militant (so Lyra, Aretius, Grot., Wetst., Schttg., al.), or in that as leading on to the church triumphant (so Vitr., Corn.-a-lap., Stern, al.) is intended, is manifest from the whole diction of this passage, as well as from comparing the corresponding promises, which all refer to the blessings of the future state of glory. It is no objection to this view, that in the heavenly Jerusalem there is no temple, ch. Rev 21:22; but rather a corroboration of it. That glorious city is all temple, and Christs victorious ones are its living stones and pillars. Thus as Dsterd. well remarks, the imagery of the church militant, 1Co 3:16 ff.; Eph 2:19 ff.; 1Pe 2:5 ff., is transferred to the church triumphant, but with this difference, that the saints are no longer the stones merely, but now the pillars themselves, standing in their immovable firmness. On , see note on ch. Rev 2:7), and out of it he shall never more go out (the subject is not the , but ; and the sense, that he who is thus fixed in his eternal place as a pillar in the heavenly temple, will never more, from any cause, depart from it. Those Commentators who have understood the promise of the church militant, have been obliged to take as a passive, non ejicietur, justifying this by such expressions as Mar 4:21. Lyra takes it in both senses-nec per apostasin, nec per excommunicationem. And thus, except that the latter word will have no place, we may well understand the general word : none shall thrust him out, nor shall he be any more in danger of falling, and thus thrusting himself out. It is well worth noticing, as Wetst. has done, the recorded fact, that Philadelphia was notorious for calamities by earthquake. The language in which Strabo describes this is remarkable in connexion with this promise of the pillar which should not be moved; , , , xii. p. 868 B: and still more so in xiii. p. 936 B,- . , . See also Tacit. Ann. ii. 47, where among the twelve cities of proconsular Asia which were overthrown by an earthquake, Philadelphia suffered, and was in consequence excused its taxes, and in common with the others entrusted to a senatorian commissioner to repair): and I will write upon him (the conqueror; not as Grot., the pillar) the name of my God (Wetst. quotes from the Rabbinical book Bava Bathra 75. 2, R. Samuel filius Nachmanni ait, R. Jochananem dixisse, tres appellari nomine Dei S. B.,-justos (Isa 43:7), Messiam (Jer 23:6), Hierosolyma (Eze 48:35). Some think of the mitre frontlet of the high-priests, on which was inscribed Holiness to the Lord, Exo 28:36; so Schttg., Ewald, al. But this does not seem applicable here, where, from this and the following particulars, it is rather a blessed belonging to God and the holy city and Christ, that is imported, than the priestly office of the glorified Christian) and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which descendeth (the appositive nom., see reff.) out of heaven from my God (on the whole, see ch. Rev 21:2-3, and notes. It is possible, that the name Jehovah Shammah, Eze 48:35, may be meant; but hardly probable, seeing that the Holy Name itself has before been mentioned as inscribed on him. The inscription of the name of the city would betoken citizenship), and mine own new name (not the name mentioned ch. Rev 19:16, which is known and patent, but that indicated ch. Rev 19:12, : for this is clearly pointed at by the word . By the inscription of this new name of the glorified Saviour is declared, that he belongs to Him in His new and glorious state of eternal rest and triumph).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rev 3:12. [51] ) A recent error has .[52] See App. on this passage, Ed. ii.

[51] Bengel is silent, indeed, respecting the pillar, both here and in der Erkl. Offenb. (as S. R. Ernesti admonishes, Bibl. th. Noviss. T. T. p. 708); but I think that it should not be concealed, that he endeavoured to illustrate the phrase in den LX. Reden, p. 155, sq., using these words:-Der Tempel Gottes ist, das Heiligthum Gottes. In demselben eine Sule abgeben, ist eine sehr grosse Ehre. Sie gehret, ganz in jene Welt, und da ist eine immerwhrende Ehre, denn er wird nicht mehr hinauskommen. So lang der Tempel selber steht, wird auch der Pfeiler darinn stehen. Wann einer in der Welt schon etwa viel zu bedeuten hat, ist ein General oder Gesandter, oder Staats-Minister, auf welchem ein Knigreich, als auf einer Sule, ruhet; so kann er ber eine Weile gesturzet und weggethan werden, dass man kaum weiss, wo er hingekommen ist. Aber ein Pfeiler in Gottes Tempel komnt nimmer hinaus. (Comp. Rev 22:5, end. See also Gal 2:9.)-E. B.

[52] Viz. in the Elzev. Rec. Text of 1624.-E.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

go no more

See, Psa 23:6, contrast, Heb 13:14.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

overcometh: Rev 2:7, Rev 17:14, 1Jo 2:13, 1Jo 2:14, 1Jo 4:4

pillar: 1Ki 7:21, Jer 1:18, Gal 2:9

I will: Rev 2:17, Rev 14:1, Rev 22:4

the city: Rev 21:2, Rev 21:10-27, Psa 48:8, Psa 87:3, Gal 4:26, Gal 4:27, Heb 12:22

my new: Rev 22:4, Isa 65:15, Eph 3:15

Reciprocal: 1Sa 17:25 – the king Ezr 9:8 – in his holy place Psa 45:15 – they shall Psa 61:4 – abide Psa 65:4 – causest Pro 9:1 – pillars Son 3:4 – I held Son 3:10 – General Isa 33:20 – not one Isa 43:7 – called Isa 56:5 – and a Isa 60:14 – The city Eze 40:49 – pillars Eze 41:1 – to the temple Mar 12:16 – image Luk 2:37 – which Luk 6:23 – your Joh 14:2 – my Gal 6:9 – if 1Ti 4:8 – having 1Pe 2:5 – also 1Jo 5:4 – overcometh Rev 2:26 – he Rev 12:11 – they overcame Rev 13:17 – name Rev 19:12 – a name Rev 22:19 – and from

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Rev 3:12. Him that overcometh is equivalent to being faithful until death. Make a pillar is a figure of speech signifying a fixed or permanent place in the favor of God, and go no more out emphasizes the same thought. Write upon him . . name of the city. Another figure meaning the faithful servant will be recognized as a citizen of the celestial city. (See Php 3:20.) My new name means a name that will signify a victorious life for Christ. (See comments at chapter 2:17.)

Rev 3:13. He that hath an ear is explained at Rev 2:7.

Comments by Foy E. Wallace

Verses 12-13.

5. “To him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out”–Rev 3:12.

This is undoubtedly a reference to the demolition of the old temple. But the reward promised the Philadelphians for their faithfulness was a residence in the new temple, the spiritual temple, which could never be destroyed; out of which they would never be compelled to go, as in the case of the Jews in the destruction of the old temple of Jerusalem. The church is here conceived as a new building; and in this new temple of God the overcomers of the persecutions would be pillars; that is, to uphold the indestructible Cause of Him who had the key of David. The pillar supports the structure. When Samson pulled down the pillars supporting Dagon’s temple, the whole structure collapsed. The faithful constituents in the new building of God would be the supporting pillars to uphold the Cause which would triumph over all persecutions of this approaching “hour of trial.”

The statement of the latter part of verse 12, referring to the “new Jerusalem,” with a new name, simply means that the old Jerusalem, and all for which it stood, would be gone. As stated in chapter 21 of the apocalypse, the old things would pass away, and “behold, I will make all things new.” This new temple would not be the restoration of the old house nor the reconstitutions of its ordinances. The emblem of the new name is used to distinguish a new institution, the church, from Judaism completely. It would not be a new dispensation of old ordinances: “The old things are passed away, behold all things are new.”

The promise to the members of the church at Philadelphia was that in the spiritual temple of the new Jerusalem, in contrast with the old temple of the apostate Jerusalem, the Lord established them as permanent elements of the redeemed society of his church, which nothing could destroy. These principles prevail in the church today, and should ever be a source of strength and encouragement to all of its members.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rev 3:12. We have now the promise to him that overcometh, which is divided into three parts, not two. (1) Him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God. He shall not merely be a living stone in the temple, but something much more beautiful and glorious. It may be doubted if the idea of stability ought to be introduced here in connection with the word pillar. That idea seems to be drawn from the words immediately following, which have been improperly associated with those before us. The thought of the pillar is rather that of ornament and beauty to the building of which it is a part. (2) And he shall in no wise come forth any more. These words are not to be taken in the sense of, he shall be in no danger of being thrust out or of falling away. They rather form, when rightly viewed, a remarkable illustration of the unity of thought between the Apocalypse and the fourth Gospel, as well as of that close identification of the believer with his Lord which is so prominent in each. The verb come forth, as used of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, expresses not only His original derivation from the Father, but His whole manifestation of Himself as the sent of God (Joh 8:42; Joh 13:3; Joh 16:30; Joh 18:1 and note there). It includes, therefore, the thought of all His suffering and sorrow, of all His humiliation and self-sacrifice until He returned to the Father. In a similar sense it seems to be used of the believer here. The Lord is now exalted in glory, and comes forth no more; the believer, when crowned with his glory, shall in like manner be safe from all future trial. (3) And I will write upon him, etc. Three things are to be written, not upon the pillar, but upon the victorious believerfirst, the name of my God. Considering the manner in which one part of the Apocalypse enlarges and explains another, it is hardly possible not to take this part of the promise as an enlargement of what has already met us in chap. Rev 2:17. We are thus led to think again of the inscription upon the forehead of the high priest. Secondly, the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God. The Jerusalem referred to is not the earthly but the heavenly city, the city now with God, but which is hereafter to descend (chap. Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10). Thirdly, my new name, that is, a name of Christ in His character as Redeemer. All three things mentioned refer to the blessings of the covenant. They express in one way or another the relation of the believer to God as his Father, to Christ as the Revelation of the Father, and to the privileges and joys of citizenship in the kingdom made known to us in the Father and the Son. They thus appear not substantially different from the promise of Rev 2:17, but rather an expansion of the new name there spoken of. They contain a fuller statement of its contents, and bring to view alike the Lord whom His people serve, and the spirit in which they serve Him. We may note the correspondence, too, between witnessing to the name of Christ in Rev 3:8, and the bestowal of the name mentioned in the promise. May it also be that there is a correspondence between the description of the Lord in Rev 3:7 as He that is holy, and the name here given to him that overcomes? If so, we shall be the more led to think of the inscription upon the forehead of the high priest as the basis of the description of Rev 3:12.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

In this verse Christ promises a threefold reward to them that finally overcome all the temptations and trials of this life.

1. They shall be pillars in God’s temple, that is, honourable and glorious members of the triumphant glorified church, and shall have a fixed happiness therein; possibly the Holy Ghost here alludes to the pillars in Solomon’s temple, which were very beautiful.

2. They shall go no more out; the pillars in Solomon’s porch were removed and carried away by the Chaldeans, but these pillars shall be perpetual, their glorious state shall be a fixed, unchangeable state; when all the pillars of the earth shall tremble, these pillars in the temple of heaven shall remain immoveable to eternal ages.

3. As in pillars erected by men their names were written and engraved; in like manner does Christ here promise the inscription of a threefold name upon these pillars, the name of God, the name of the city of God, and his new name.

The name of God signifies the person to be an adopted child of God: the name of the city of God, declares such a person to be a citizen of the New Jerusalem, which is said to come down out of heaven: that is, the knowledge of it comes down to us from God, else we had never known it, nor could ever have conceived of it: and Christ’s new name, is that of the glorious Redeemer, and signifies him that overcometh shall be honoured as one of Christ’s redeemed ones; the whole name put together, to wit, the name of God, the name of the city of God, and the new name, signifies an adopted son of God, and heir of the New Jerusalem, and a living member of Christ the glorified Redeemer; thus shall it be done to them whom Christ delighteth to honour: in the New Jerusalem above shall they spend an eternity in the rapturous and ravishing admiration of that love which Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bestowed upon them, in making them first the adopted and now the glorified sons of God.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

3:12 {9} Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: {10} and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, [which is] new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and [I will write upon him] my new name.

(9) The conclusion which contains a promise, and a commandment.

(10) That is, the new man shall be called after his father, mother, and his head Christ.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes