9.2 The Father's Name
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
I will write upon Him the name of My God… (Revelation 3:12). I would challenge you to find a more extraordinary statement in the Bible. I don't think there is anything more beyond-all in God's word than this. And then specifically – and His name shall be on their foreheads (Revelation 22:4).
I would really like to know one thing. What on earth is God up to signing His name, Father, on my forehead?
You see, this is God's final Signature upon His full binding Covenant with me, scrawling His name, FATHER, in large, but cursive letters right across my forehead, just above my eyebrows. What on earth does that mean?
Order of Signing. And which signature goes first, every single time? Do I have to sign my name before Father will deign to sign His? Or does Father always boldly and deliberately sign His name on the dotted line (my eyebrows) first?
Who gets the prize first? Does God get His Body first, BEFORE He deigns to grant us His life (as I have actually been taught when I once walked under the shadow of darkness). Or does God grant us His LIFE as our very own BEFORE our bodies become His Body?
What does the Scripture say? We love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). This is always God's order for everything. Christ becomes us before we ever could become Him. God signs His name upon me before ever I could sign my name upon Him.
Signing Goes Both Ways. And that is the most extraordinary thing. Yes, God scrawls His own signature, Father, boldly upon my forehead, but where – and how, exactly, do I sign my name upon Him?
God signs His name upon us first, before we ever could sign ours upon Him. Yet what on earth could that mean and how would we dare do such a bold and provocative thing as to sign our name upon God? This question we must answer personally and for real in our own hearts, for as we shall see, this Covenant with God awaits one thing only – it awaits our final signature.
What Name Is Not. In order to discover a beginning answer to that last question, we must first define two things: name and signature. What is a name? Let's begin with what the name of God is not. God does not Himself speak ancient Hebrew. God speaks with each individual person in their own personal language, dialect, and wording. And the name of God does not ossify into some outward religious and sanctimonious form out from the depths of antiquity.
Studying the several Hebrew and Chaldean names of God in the Old Testament in order to know more deeply this One who fills us with His glory is something we may include at some point and would be of great value to us. But the moment I see someone calling God, “Yahweh,” as if that is “the Holy name of God,” I have already sprinted far faraway. Such treatment of God is for one purpose, so that religious power people can control those who are in awe of their “command of the 'Holy.'” It's not Yahweh anyway, it's YHWH and it is best known as I AM. When God says, “I Am, My son,” He is speaking His name into us.
God and Father. The New Testament writers used only Theos, the Greek word for the supreme God. But the Germanic word, “God,” meaning, good, is best for us because it does not strip from God His invisibility, that is, it does not cast God into an idolatrous form in the modern mind like “Yahweh” and “Jehovah” do. But when we want to know God at a personal level, the New Testament writers give us one name only – Father.
And thus Jesus instructed us, very specifically, to call God, “Father.” Inside of that name, “Father,” are many levels of meaning, none of which creates a super-religious form before which we pretend “to worship.” “Father,” rather, is close, intimate, and of our own hearts. More than that, Father is actually quite literal. God is not “like” a Father to us; God begot us of His own Seed. God is, in all possible and literal meaning, our Father.
Defining Name. Name (from Webster's 1926): 1. The title by which any person or thing is known or designated, a distinctive appellation, whether of an individual or a class. A singular name designates the character of the single individual thing which it denotes. 3. A descriptive or qualifying appellation given to a person or thing, on account of character or acts; as – His name shall be called Wonderful… 4. The designation of a person regarded as representing his individuality and character.
The name of something or someone is far beyond the surface definitions of the word. Yet this definition from 1926 goes far beyond today’s shallow definitions.
Choosing a Name. In our present culture we typically choose names by what they sound like to us or by their popularity or because of prior use in a family. Little thought is given to meaning. In many cultures, however, naming a person was a much bigger deal. The native peoples of North America gave a temporary name to their children. Only when the child was grown did they receive their real name and that name was determined either by their actions and character or through experiencing a semi-religious experience in which their name came to them from the heavens. And most cultures considered first the meaning of the words or syllables in the name above any other quality or reason. My wife and I gave little thought to the meaning of our children's names – a practice which is entirely Christ living as us. Yet the writers of Scripture did follow the deeper practice of choosing names for God that meant the deepest qualities of His character and actions.
A New Name. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it (Revelation 2:17). – He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. 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 out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name (Revelation 3:12).
I think that this “new name” of which Jesus speaks, both ours and His, follows the same cultural practice as the native peoples of America in waiting until a child is full grown and has shown who he or she really is before receiving their real name.
A Vote of Favor. Now, let’s follow out the points made in these two terms in our covenant with God. First, the hidden manna speaks directly of the final fruit inside the Ark of the Covenant, manna which we will explore in the next session. Then, although a “white pebble” is not used as a metaphor of God anywhere else in the Bible, Strong’s Concordance tells us simply that this pebble was used by an official of a city to cast a vote; a white stone was a vote in favor, a black stone against. More than that, the choice of the word “except” alters the meaning of the Greek and makes passive the bold action of “receiving” or lambano. Let’s try that part again from the Greek.
And I will give to the one who overcomes a vote of My full confidence and favor and on that vote a new name written which no one knows if not the one who seizes hold of it.
The Names upon Us. The translation of Revelation 3:12 from Greek to English is straight and simple. The New King James wording cannot be improved. Again, as with the vote of favor, this term of the Covenant also places the receiving as an integral part of the Holy of Holies, the first inside the Ark, this second as the pillars holding up the Veil of Jesus’ flesh. These pillars are inside the Holiest, unseen in the Holy Place.
Let’s list out the several names involved in this Covenant declaration. The first name is our own new name, a name which is given to us, yes, but one which we must seize hold of for ourselves. The remaining names are written upon us by the action of God, names we receive while we stand quietly inside of Him. (1) Our new name seized from Jesus by us. (2) The name, “My God,” which we will consider primarily as “Father,” (3) The name “New Jerusalem," and (4) Jesus’ new name.
On Our Foreheads. Before going further into the place of these names in the Covenant, let’s bring in the line regarding our foreheads. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads (Revelation 22:4). Everything in John’s vision is symbolic, God’s metaphor language, as He gives to us in a visual form the same gospel Paul preached. You see, in all of these things from Revelation, we are not considering anything that is not already plain and simple inside Paul’s gospel. The far stronger truth is 2 Corinthians 3:3, all the speaking that is Jesus written with Spirit lines upon the Covenant tablets of our hearts.
This line in Revelation 22:4, then, is nothing more than an extension of this foundational word, making it even more visual to us and thus, enabling us to grasp what the gospel is about. Sadly, most Christians take the literal statements of the gospel, us IN Jesus and Jesus IN us, to be figurative only and not actually real, but then they take these figurative statements to be literal and outward. Thus they “see” an outward and formed “Jesus” completely separate from themselves, writing His name literally upon our foreheads, signifying ownership, I guess, sort of like putting your name on your laundry.
The Face of Christ. Let me attempt to give the true meaning of these words out from the Greek, but as the realities of Christ in us which they represent. “They shall see with the eyes of faith and truth the reality of Jesus’ outward appearance, a family of people walking together in love, and in seeing Christ as He is, the entire perception of their beings will be marked with the incorruptible nature of Christ, seeing all things good, seeing no offense.”
You see, in Revelation 22:3, the angel told John that the throne of God and the Lamb shall be IN the New Jerusalem, which is Jesus as He is, the revelation of Father through the Church, brethren walking together through all that life entails, loving one another with a pure heart fervently. The throne of God is inside, not just each of us as our hearts, but also inside our life together, which is the very face of Jesus Christ, His only outward appearance. We are the Body of Christ.
Understanding These Things. The thing God is after is that we understand that the simple things of the gospel ARE the most profound things of the heavens, and the most profound things of the heavens are the simplest things of the gospel, Jesus alive in our hearts. (Please note with me that this explanation of the book of Revelation God is giving us is the clearest and most accurate approach to John’s vision we have ever received.)
Thus we understand that every truth regarding the names written upon us, Father, New Jerusalem, the Express Image of God’s Person (Jesus’ new name), and so on, are simply a further outline of the meaning of John 14:20, You in Me and I in you. In fact the entirety of this study of the Covenant is simply an attempt to outline the depths found in this most incredible word, IN, along with Romans 8:29 turning this IN into God through us.
Defining Signature. Next we want the meaning of signing one’s name. If God signs His name upon all of my perception, making me incorruptible as God alone is incorruptible, as the final establishment of our Covenant together, what does this signing, this making a name into a signature, really mean?
Signature (Webster’s 1926): 1. A sign, stamp, or mark impressed, as by a seal. 2. The name of any person, written with his own hand, to signify that the writing which precedes accords with his wishes or intentions. 3. In technical senses, an outward mark by which internal characteristics are indicated.
I want to expand on definition 2, because I think that we can add to this meaning of a signature. First, there is a written Word. This Word is God’s Pro-Thesis, that is Covenant, that is Jesus, etched upon our hearts with Spirit ink. God signs His name in this final signing because He approves of everything written as His Pro-Thesis upon our hearts. But that signature means far more than approval. The signature also means a complete binding of one’s self to all the things written in that Pro-Thesis.
The Story. God approves only the story Jesus tells Himself about Himself, His own psuche. As Jesus’ story becomes our story, only then does God approve of us. Thus “to overcome” means to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” primarily His soul as our own soul. Then, in that approval, God binds Himself to us and we to Him by every Word that is Jesus. And we are back again to the model of human DNA which we will look at a bit more in the session on Life.
This story that is Jesus, a knowing of Himself inside His own Spirit awareness of Himself, is, in fact, this Covenant which we are studying. And the mark, the representation, the outward signifier of this inward Story is what a NAME is. Thus the name on the outside signifies the story of self, the psuche, on the inside. Thus Jesus’ new name coming to us in His good approval of us becomes our own new name, our own personalized version of His same self-story.
Back into Pro-Knowing. We are known by our name. When my name, Daniel Yordy, comes to your ears, everything you recognize of me, of who and what I am to you, both my outward reputation and my inward character, my ways of doing and being, come to you all together in your hearing of my name. And so, my name is not what I think of myself, but what you think of me, me by your knowledge, not me by mine.
Let’s bring that back into the incredible topic of this session, the Pro-Knowing of the Heart of God. All that God is inside His Pro-Knowing is found inside the outer representation of His name. And all that God is and does forever is bound by His signing of that name. When God signs His name, God is signing away His Heart – that Most Holy Thing (the Annie visions).
That they might KNOW You (Father), the only true God – For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12). Jesus and Paul are referring to this final signing of the Covenant.
The Other Signature. God knows us inside His Pro-Knowing; we know Him in the same way. But God’s signing of His name upon all of our seeing, that we see all things only out from within Him and entirely as He sees His creation, that is, as His very Heart, is not enough. We also must sign our name upon the Covenant. Where and how do we sign our name?
God’s name upon our foreheads is the outward mark of God’s name within and as our hearts, the Lord Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus is His face, you and me together, the Heart of Jesus is our heart. Dare we to believe that our signing of our name, who and what we are as present humans loved of God and loving Him in return, that our signing is 100% reciprocal to His? That as God signs His own name upon us, so, in that same manner and to the same degree, we sign our name upon Him?
Is God a Symmorphic God? Does God now see things as we see them? Does our Father share our same interests and delights, our same frustrations and dislikes? Is our joy His joy and our sorrow His sorrow? Is our individual and personal name, made holy and alive out from Jesus’ name given to us, yet still our own name, written upon God’s forehead? When I see God as He is, will I see the name, Daniel Yordy, written upon Him as His own? Will I see your own name, you as you ARE, written upon the forehead of God as well?
Is God a Symmorphic God? Does God live as He is inside of us as we are and do we, in all that we are, live inside of all that our Father is?
Is John 14:20 really true? If God first calls me by Himself, do I then call God by myself, God as He is, meek and lowly of heart, bearing all for all?
Calling Those Things that Be Not. As I have fellowshipped with brethren on this trip to my daughter’s wedding and back home again, a recurring puzzle has been brought up in more than one conversation. Symmorphy is a great mystery. It must be believed full-heartedly long before our understanding could ever catch up with the incredibleness of our Father.
We have all that is God inside of us right now, yet we are looking for something far more from the Word God speaks that is not yet our experience. We call those things that are not in our outward sight as they ARE the only substance by which we live. Life is NOT found in what IS. Life is found in KNOWING what is. God IS, but if we don’t know that, we are dead.
Everything in Its Place. Paul said: “I shall KNOW as I am known.” I shall enter into God’s Pro-Knowing only as God enters into mine. My heart shall be His Heart only as God causes His Heart to be mine. God fills me with ALL that He is and binds Himself to me utterly through Christ Jesus by Word and by Oath, by Blood and by Oil, by every measure God can dream up to enable us to KNOW.
Everything is in place. All of God already fills us full. All that God is, all the Pro-Knowing of His Heart is already bound utterly to us without reservation.
The Final Signature. The Covenant awaits one thing only – our own signature. Will we sign that final line? Will we write our own name upon God? Will I put all that Daniel Yordy is and means entirely upon the Face of God as my final declaration that I live only in and as His Heart? Will you do the same?
We put Jesus upon ourselves first, His own self-story now ours. The seal of all things is that moment when, in full knowing, we place our name, our own self-story, upon the very Face of God. He that has seen me, Daniel Yordy, has seen the Father.