Statesman63
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 | | Subject: Revelation Chapter 2 (Part 20) (The Overcomers Part 6) Fri Dec 12, 2014 11:01 pm | |
| Revelation Chapter 2 (Part 20) (The Overcomers Part 6)
The next overcomer statement is found in Revelation 3:12. It is the largest of the overcomer passages and states:
"Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name."
This statement was first given to the Church in Philadelphia, which prophetically represents the age of revival and missionary as we will later see. We will later have extensive lessons on this “temple of God” that is mentioned here. This part of the verse happens during the 1,000 year Millennium period. The reason why I can confidently say it is not during what we call “eternity” is because Revelation 21:22 says that there is no temple on the New Earth. It reads, “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” If there were to be a temple on the New Earth, it would certainly be placed in God’s capital city of the world, but this verse said that no such temple will exist in the capital city of the world because Jesus’ and Yahweh’s direct presence will fill the city so much that no temple is needed. So this part of the verse that mentions a “temple” will take place during the future Millennium period on this current Earth. We are not going to look at it quite yet, but when we later discuss the Millennium, Ezekiel chapters 40-48 describes this future temple that will be built during the Millennium period. No such temple exists today. No such temple as described in those chapters has ever existed. (Please stay tuned...)
Back to the verse at hand—it says that Jesus will make the overcomer a pillar in the temple that will be erected during the Millennium. But it won’t last forever. It will last for only about 1,007 years and then the entire world will be made new and a New Earth will take the place of this one. While it stands, the verse at hand says “never again will he leave it.” Jews today have abandoned the temple of the LORD. The last temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and was never built again. The New Testament says that the believer’s body is the temple. 1 Corinthians 6:19 reads, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received?” The temple today, in this Day of Grace period, is a spiritual one. There are two more temples yet to be built. The next temple will be built in our future, but will be around during the Tribulation. The abomination that causes desolation, that is, the Antichrist, will take over that temple and sit as a “god” on its throne. It will start off as a temple dedicated to the Yahweh by the Jews, but the Antichrist will take over and claim it. Then the next temple, which will be the last, will be built during the Millennium and will be dedicated to Christ, which we just discussed in the previous paragraph. There is coming a day when 144,000 Jews, a small remnant of Israel, will no longer abandon or leave the temple of the LORD (the one built during the Millennium, and so long as it survives on this Earth.)
It does not explicitly say in this particular passage (Rev. 3:12) (other than addressing the overcomer), but we can tell from other passages in the New Testament that this is also a conditional verse. You must be an overcomer for this verse to apply to you. As stated before, all Overcomers are Christians, but all Christians are not Overcomers. Innately, however, by virtue of the new creation that Jesus changed our spirits into, all Christians are currently priests. 1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” Our new nature is a totally different study than the scope of what we are talking about here. We have already discussed from the other overcomer passages that to be an Overcomer, one needs to do much more than simply believe in the finished work of Christ. That gets you to what we call “Heaven” (but precisely, the New Earth). It saves you from Hell, the lake of fire. But it does not give the Christian the benefits that only the true disciples of Jesus will be granted with. To have these extended benefits, such as entering the Kingdom of Heaven, the Christian must also take up his or her cross and follow Him. The Christian must also accept Truth and deny evil. We must obey Jesus and not be ashamed of Him. We will look at this in great detail when we discuss the Millennium much later. We will see that not all Christians will be invited to the Marriage Super of the Lamb, which is what the Millennium is all about. The Millennium is simply a 1,000 year wedding celebration of the Bride (the Church) marrying the Bridegroom (Jesus). Ancient Jewish betrothal celebrations often lasted 2 weeks and sometimes months. This one will be for 1,000 years.
We discussed the names already. The Overcomer will be rewarded with a tattoo of “Yahweh,” “Jesus,” and “New Jerusalem” on his or her forehead. The New Jerusalem exists only on the New Earth, which will not be manifested until after the 1,000 year Millennium period. We discussed the many names of Jesus, but Yahweh also has many names in the Old Testament, which is a great study. Dr. Tony Evans recently wrote a great book on the many names of God where he details the meaning of each name. For example, El Shaddai means “The All-Sufficient One.” In the context of when it is first introduced in the bible, God wanted Abraham to know that He is the All-Sufficient One. Jehovah Jireh means “God the Provider.” That name was first introduced to Abraham when God provided the ram hiding in the bush to Abraham so that the ram would take the place of Isaac, his only son, whom he was ready to sacrifice to the LORD. The particular Hebrew name of God that the bible writer used is significant to the context of the Old Testament passage itself, especially when it is first mentioned in the bible. The name is not just chosen at random in Scripture, most often it relates to the text at hand. The names of God is a separate study that also goes beyond the scope of what I want to talk about here.
There is nothing metaphorical about the New Jerusalem and the New Earth. Jesus here says what later will be stated in Revelation 21, that the New Jerusalem will come down out of Heaven and will be manifested as a new reality to all of saved creation. The Overcomer will be tattooed with “The New Jerusalem” on his or her forehead during the Millennium in anticipation of the coming new age.
We already discussed the last clause of this verse, which says also tattooed on the heads of the Overcomers will be a new name of Jesus, not yet revealed. Names in the bible depict a quality of the person, especially when God renames the person. It holds true when a prophet of God names someone: like Jacob was named “Trickster” and so he was, because a prophet, his daddy Isaac, named him. This unknown name will reveal some quality about Jesus that has not yet been revealed. To find out this new quality of Jesus, you’ll have to find an Overcomer and read his or her forehead. In Isaiah 65:19, God is speaking to those in the future Tribulation period: to both those who are doomed to eternal damnation and to those who will be saved during the Tribulation. It reads, “You will leave your name to my chosen ones as a curse; the Sovereign LORD will put you to death, but to His servants He will give another name.”
The last Overcomer verse, spoken to the church of Laodicea, is found in Revelation 3:21. It reads, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne.” We also covered the topic of reigning with Christ. We pointed out that not all Christians will reign with Him. We covered 2 Timothy 2:12. I don’t recall if I shared Isaiah 32:1. That reads, “See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice.” We suggested that in order to have rulers that reign, there must also be subordinates who did not get promoted to reign with Jesus. All will not be rulers. But in this day and age, that is, today in history, by position all Christians are reigning with Jesus. Jesus is reigning right now, even though it does not appear that way. Ephesians says that He is right now seated next to the Father’s “right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church” (Ephesians 1:20-23). Ephesians 2:6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” By our given position in Christ we are currently reigning with Him. God’s will for man is to reign and spread His image throughout the Earth. First God made man in His own image. Then in the next verse he said to Adam, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). The problem comes when man tries to rule independently from God.
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