The Bride and the Revelation 2:17 New Name Reward
Janet Weaver Smith ©gardenministries.org March 8, 2014
Jesus—the Express Image of the Father
Hebrews 1:3: The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. John 14:19: He who has seen Me has seen the Father. John 12:45: The one who looks at Me [Jesus] is seeing the one who sent me. Colossians 1:15: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Genesis 1:27: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
The Bride—the Express Image of Jesus
I saw a vision of Jesus coming out of the Father as His express image. He stood before the Father in human form though I knew him to be God. He (Jesus) was very big. As He stood before the Father with His back to the Father and facing outward, I saw the Father release from His heart an initiative that caused the Holy Spirit to come out of the Father and “move upon” Jesus.
Body Popping
Then Jesus, in full union with the Father and the Holy Spirit, released what the Father had initiated. This is what I saw Him release: Out from, and all over Jesus’ body, “popped” many small expressed images of Jesus (Genesis 1:27). They extended out from Him in a distance that appeared not too far out, maybe 4-7 feet. Humans were what popped out of Jesus. We were extensions of the only begotten Son of God and shared common attributes because we were all created (i.e., we were popped out) for the same purpose and that was to be “little” extensions and expressions of Him as together, we occupied the circumference of His overall body.
Connected to Our Life Source—Jesus
We were tangible, living hologram-like projections suspended out from Jesus’ body yet still connected to Him by multi- fibered cords of light, life, and a tangible energy substance. At the end of each living, multi-fibered cord of light, life, and a dark substance, was a human being. For some reason, in the multi-fibered cord, the darker substance seemed to be what made us tangible. I noted that there was not a cord of any kind from the Father to the Son. The Holy Spirit was the invisible, eternal Connector between them. The multi-fibered cord was only between Jesus and the human beings who had popped out from His body. If a human chose not to stay connected to Jesus, they would be separated from His life and light resources. Ephesians 4:18, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.”
Two-Faced: In a Good Way
It seemed like each human had the ability to look two directions at the same time. One look was outward and the other look was upward and behind. We humans were to look up and back at Jesus from whom we had popped out and extended from. As we chose to continually look at Jesus, we would naturally express Him as we looked outward. As expressions and extensions of Him, we would naturally express His nature outwardly if we chose to stay connected to Jesus.
The Multi-Fibered Life Cord
The choice to stay connected to Jesus provided continual access, through the multi-fibered cord, to Jesus’ life source, which contained tangible energy, and all of the resources we needed to live out and express the revelation of who were in Christ. We gained this revelation as we looked upward at Jesus. We expressed this revelation as we looked outwardly, living out the truth of our God-given identity.
Look to the Rock
The Lord spoke to me a scriptural example of this. Isaiah 51:1, “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn.” Through the new birth, we are now cut directly from Jesus, the Rock of our salvation. We are living stones cut from and founded upon the Chief Cornerstone (I Peter 2).
Transformation
As we continued looking at Jesus and outwardly representing Him, there was something being accomplished. Our hearts were being transformed to be just like Jesus’ heart—pure and undefiled. We all shared the common attributes of being created in His image, but each of us had to individually choose to remain connected to Him for this heart transformation process to happen. As we continually chose to stay connected, we naturally drew from the main vine, Jesus, and our outward life naturally developed as our hearts underwent the transformation process (John 15).
A New Name
There would come a time when this process of transformation would be complete and our heart would be just like Jesus’—pure, undefiled, and blameless before God. Jesus then gave a new name to those who had kept their gaze fixed on Him and had allowed His resources to transform their heart. These new names could only be given to those who had endured the transformation process and had stayed connected to Him as expressed images of His body.
One-of-a-Kind Traits
This new name “package” had concealed information in it that contained expressly unique and exclusive “personality” traits that were of and from Jesus Himself. The new name revealed traits from Jesus Himself that made that person completely unique. They still shared similar heart attributes with all the others who stayed with Jesus, but through the name written on them, they also gained an exclusive relationship with Jesus who fellowshipped with them in their exclusive and unique personality trait(s) that He gave of Himself as His reward. No one’s new name was duplicated and neither were their identity traits.
Revelation 2:17: the Overcomer’s New Name Reward
The reward of Revelation 2:17 is this new name. It is an Overcomer’s reward. Throughout Scripture we learn that Overcomers receive many different rewards including clothing, jewels, scepters, rods, crowns, access to “hidden manna,” and a new name “that no one knows except them.” In my vision, Jesus was revealing the one-of-a-kind nature of the new name and how special that reward is. Revelation 2:17, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” People in ancient times often voted by casting stones. A white stone typically meant “yes” and a black stone “no.”
Obedience Pays Off
I saw that those who chose to stay connected to Jesus by fully obeying Him (Psalm 119:4) were being prepared to receive a fully transformed heart. The new name that no one else had could only be given to those who had a fully transformed heart. For those who proved themselves trustworthy because they stayed faithful and connected to Jesus as He transformed them, He could now give new names to and forever entrust them with uniquely interesting, exclusive expression(s) of Himself (1 Corinthians 4:2).
Rejecting Jesus Will Cost You
Those who rejected Jesus and did not let Him transform their hearts would not receive this reward and furthermore, their trait was given to someone who did. Ephesians 4:18, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.” The distribution of Jesus’ unique traits paralleled the reward distribution principle described in the parable of the Ten Talents (Matthew 25:14-29). Just like the “talent” was taken from the fearful, lazy servant and was given to those who gladly obeyed their master’s assignment, so the “exclusive traits” of Jesus would be given to those who stayed with Him and let Him completely transform their heart.
Enjoying Jesus on a Whole New Level
Once the new name, with it’s unique, exclusive identity “traits,” had been distributed among the faithful, Jesus sought that person out and enjoyed fellowship with them—especially enjoying that exclusively shared trait within them. There is great honor in the kingdom of heaven for those who received the new name with His distinctive traits. I understood that in the Revelation 2:17 scripture, where it says that “no one knows [the new name] except him who receives it” meant that the new name that Jesus wrote on their heart contained new and exclusive identity traits of Him that no one else shared, i.e., “no one knows except him who receives it.”
The New and Exclusive “You”
Just like a fingerprint differentiates people’s identities, so these traits uniquely expressed the image of Jesus in ways that no one else could. Jesus gave those who stayed with Him this wonderful and amazing treasure for their faithfulness.
Sweet Fellowship Forever
The best part about the “new name” reward was that it established an exclusive bond of intimate fellowship between Jesus and His faithful friend and released profuse joy and love between them—forever.