Where God Chooses to Place His Name

 Revelation 3:12:  “The name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem.”

             This verse clearly establishes the identity of “The City of God.”  It is not the earthly city, but the heavenly, not the center of Judaism, but rather the Christian Church, the Body of Christ.  This was the understanding of the early Church.  Eusebius calls the Church “the City of God“.[1]  This verse establishes a foreshadowing for the appearing of this City in chapters 21 and 22.

            Throughout the history of ancient Israel, God selected a City and a Temple where He chose to place His name.  It was the fact that His Name was placed there that made it the “City of God”..  The Name is no longer resident in a city or temple made of brick and mortar but rather is in the people of God.  From the beginning it was God’s desire to dwell among His people, and we see this manifested first in the Garden of Eden.  Later He chose to dwell among the nation of Israel in the Tabernacle as they wandered in the wilderness.  Then when they had come into Canaan they built the tabernacle at Shiloh.  But the Lord forsook the Tabernacle at Shiloh because of idolatry, (Psalm 78:60).  After they had become a nation, Solomon built the Temple at Jerusalem where God “chose to place His Name.”  For a time the “City of God” was that literal city, Jerusalem, and the Temple of God that was in it.  However, that city and temple became defiled and were destroyed because of sin when the old Israel broke the covenant.  Here we see that God, in spite of this, still has a chosen people and still “chooses to place His Name” in them

            These people, who worship the Lord Jesus Christ, are now the dwelling place of God Himself and in them He “chooses to place His Name”.  Jesus chose to place His Name in the Church: Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:17; John 14:13, 26; Acts 4:12; Philippians 2:9-10; Colossians 3:17.  Later in chapter 14:1 we again see the Name of God on the foreheads of His people.

 

Heaven(s)

 Revelation 3:12:  “Which comes down from my God out of heaven.”

             Since the term “heaven(s)” is mentioned more than thirty times in the book of Revelation, it is necessary to understand the Biblical definition and concept.  The opening verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1 tells us that God created the “heaven,” (KJV), or “heavens,” (RSV).  The word is neither singular nor plural but is the Hebrew dual form indicating a “double.”  Since the English language does not have a dual form, it is variously translated as either a singular or plural.

            In Genesis 1:6-7, we find that God spoke into existence a “firmament” that separated the waters that were below from the waters that were above.  Then, verse 8, “God called the firmament Heaven.“  The word ‘firmament’ is Hebrew râqîya’ (BDB) which means an extended surface, (thought of by the Hebrew Rabbins as solid).  It is from the root meaning “spread out.”  It would most aptly be called “space” in today’s vernacular.  In Christian Palestinian the word is used for ‘swaddling bands.’  In Phoenician it was used to mean a ‘platter’ or ‘bowl.’ 

            Is there any connection between these various meanings of the word?  Yes.  The term ‘swaddling bands’ aptly describe the great circles of the ecliptic, the equinoxes and the solstices.  The great ‘bowl’ is descriptive of the concept of the sky as a great inverted bowl, which contains the sun, moon and stars for determining time.  In other words, the great bowl of the heavens is filled with “times.”  This concept is also evident in Revelation 15:7, 16:1, etc. as the “bowls” of God’s wrath.  These are the seven “times” of the great tribulation.

            Another illuminating part of this concept is to be found in Genesis 2:6 where the KJV translates:  “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”

            The word translated ‘mist’ is Hebrew, ’êd which RSV translates ‘mist’ but gives an alternate meaning in a footnote as ‘flood.’  BDB lists as perhaps derived from a root meaning ‘something curved or bent’, which would describe the apparent arc of the sky.  The feminine of the form includes the meaning “an enclosing wall” which again could aptly apply to the visual sky.  The meaning of ’êd is given as “be strong…that which affords protection, shade.”

            The word ’êd (אֵד) may be an alternate spelling of the word ‘ad (עַד), meaning “perpetuity…advancing time,”.  The picture that emerges here is that the starry heavens are viewed as a river, or stream of time which can accumulate into a “flood.”  In the Hebrew of Genesis 2:6, it is said that the “mist” or “flood” was “going up” or “was over, or above” the earth. 

            In this context we can see that the “Great River” is the river of the time-telling heavens as it perpetually flows onward.  The river Euphrates is a “great river” but only the earthly shadow or counterpart of the heavenly “great river” of time.  The “waters that are below the firmament” mirror the “waters that are above the firmament”.  This is analogous to the spiritual realities which are mirrored by the physical realities.  This mirroring by analogy is the doubling which is indicated by the dual form hashâmayim, “the heavens”.

            However, 2 Corinthians 12:2 gives Biblical justification for the idea that there are three heavens.  These are: the first heaven where the birds fly, (Gen. 1:20); the second heaven where the sun, moon and stars are, (Gen. 1:14-15), and the third heaven, which is Paradise, (2 Cor. 12:3) where Paul saw things that were not lawful to utter (12:4), probably indicating the Name of God which was considered by the Rabbis to be too holy to be pronounced.  It is the first and second heavens that mirror each other.  The third heaven is only mirrored by spiritual realities.

            In the book of Revelation, we know that John viewed the starry heavens from the isle of Patmos in chapters one through three, where he saw Christ holding seven stars and speaking to the angels of the churches.  Then in chapter four, John saw a door opened “in heaven” and was invited to come up there.  Immediately John was “in the Spirit” where he saw visions of God and of His throne.  This was probably understood to be that third heaven.

            Paul‘s experience of seeing the “third heaven” was such that he could not say whether he was in the body or out of the body, but it seems that John was “out of the body” in his experience, for it is clearly stated that he was “in the Spirit.”  The things which he saw, then, are descriptions of spiritual realities expressed in terms of physical senses and realities.

 

Laodicea

 Revelation 3:14: “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: [2] ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.’”

             The method of ethbash may be suggested by the words “The Amen (the ending)” and “The beginning.”  In the realm of speculation, but suggested by the fact that the apocalyptic writers played with words and alphabets, if the name “Laodicea” was used cryptically using the method of ethbash, (substituting the last letter for the first, etc.) the word may have been from the Hebrew root dal, or dalal, ‘to be languid, feeble, weak…used of men, as being in a feeble condition…of the eyes, as languishing with desire.  (That is, the root would be taking the letters from right to left as in Biblical Hebrew, and leaving off the Greek endings and allowing for Hebrew internal vowel changes.)

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. (Revelation 3:15-18)

             Another play on words may have come from the Greek word Laodicea by using the meaning of the Hebrew word which sounds the same, La’at, ‘swallow down, speak confusedly … eat greedily or devour.’  “I am about to spit you out of my mouth,” the nauseating effects of gorging food too hurriedly.  This also in the context of the fact that Laodicea had warm, soda-laden springs that, when one drank of them, induced vomiting.  The nearby city, Hierapolis, had beautiful springs of water but thirsty travelers found it warm and tasting of minerals – very distasteful, and often ‘spewed out’.[3]  This would fit the context of their “lukewarm-ness.”

            Their diseased eyes and nakedness, perhaps also with issues caused from venereal disease made them unclean according to the law, and therefore not to be associated with by the priests.  The writer may have suggested that these people were dâliy, ‘containers for repulsive or obscene liquids.’  To spue out means to vomit, or to loath or abhor.  Ironically, the people were even more loathsome because they considered themselves rich and in need of nothing.

            For their poverty the Lord offers “gold refined in the fire“; for their nakedness He offers “white raiment” to cover their shame; for their diseased eyes He offers a healing salve.  For their languid, feeble condition He challenges them to “be zealous“; for their sin He exhorts them to “repent.”  He reminds them of His love, even in spite of their loathsome condition.  He wants to clean them up, heal them, and even eat with them in fellowship. And as if that were not enough, He offers them the privilege to sit with Him in His throne!