Revelation 3:12 tells us that Christ will write upon the overcomers His new name. Christ writes His new name upon the overcomers. Here He is a new Christ, not another Christ; He is the Christ who is exceedingly ancient yet who is new today, having a new name to write upon the overcomers. This indicates that the overcomers are one with this new Christ. In our experience, His newness is according to our enjoyment of Him.
The Lord promises to write upon the overcomer His new name. This new name will be according to our experiences. In other words, what we experience of the Lord will become us. We experience God, and God becomes us. We experience the New Jerusalem, and that also becomes us. We experience the Lord in an intimate and personal way, and that becomes us. Therefore, the Lord will rightly designate us, writing upon us His new name. This will indicate that we have become a person who has experienced the Lord Himself as the One who makes Himself us.
The name which is upon the overcomers indicates that this is what they are. To have the new name of the Lord Jesus means that they are Jesus, because they have His new name written upon them. Of course, their being Jesus is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
That the Lord’s new name is written upon the overcomer indicates that the overcomer is possessed by the Lord, that the Lord Himself belongs to him, and that he is one with the Lord. The overcomer is the possession of Christ, and he is the expression of Christ, who has transformed him with His elements. The name of the Lord denotes the Lord Himself. That the name of the Lord is written upon the overcomer indicates that the person of the Lord has been wrought into the overcomer.
The overcomers’ bearing the new name of Christ does not mean that Christ has a new name. It means that Christ will be experienced by these overcomers in a new way. Thus, the Christ whom they are experiencing is new to them. If we choose to take the overcoming way, we will experience Christ in a new way, and Christ will become new to us. Our Owner will be the new Christ.
To many of us Christ is old, not new. At the beginning of our Christian life, Christ was new to us, but gradually that new Christ became old to us. We have Christ, but Christ may not be new to us. Mostly our experience of Christ may be old. But if we make the decision to be an overcomer in this age, we will have the sense that Christ is exceedingly fresh and new. We will enjoy Him as God’s new compassions refreshing us every morning (Lam. 3:22-23).
The Lord’s name will be on us. If we put a label on a brother with his name on it, everyone will know who he is because he bears a certain name. The overcomers also bear the new name of the Lord. In a sense they are experiencing a new Lord, a new Jesus, a new Christ. Yes, we have the same Jesus, but the defeated believers’ taste of Him may not be as good and sweet as that of the overcoming believers. Today our Jesus should truly be a new Jesus; every day He should be new to us. To have the new name of the Lord means that we experience something new of the Lord and that we have become the new manifestation of the Lord Himself. If we do so, we have the same Jesus, yet the taste of Him is new and better.
We need to have new experiences of Christ. Most Christians have only the limited experience of Christ as their Redeemer. Not many have the experience of Christ as their life. Most of those who experience Christ as life experience this in a shallow way. Christ is not only our Redeemer and our life; He is also our King, Prophet, Priest, light, power, righteousness, holiness, transformation, and many other things. The more we experience Christ, the newer He will be to us, and the more His name will be written upon us. First, Christ as Redeemer is written upon us. Later, Christ as life, light, humility, patience, and love will also be written upon us. His name is inexhaustible. The writing of His name upon us depends upon our experience. The more we experience Him, the longer will be the writing of this name. No one can say what the new name of Christ is because it is simply the designation of our new experience of Christ. When we experience Christ in a certain way, that aspect of Christ will become our designation, the new name written upon us. In this way our experience of Christ will be lengthened, and we will say, “Not my will but His will.” We will not act on our own but according to His heart’s desire. Then the name of God, the name of the city of God, and the Lord’s new name will be written upon us.