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What can be more a man’s own than this new name which even in eternity remains a secret between God and him? And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely, that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the Divine beauty better than any other creature can.
The giving of the white stone with the new name is the communication of what God thinks about the man to the man… (Rev. 2:17) The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man's own symbol—his soul's picture, in a word—the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone.
C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, once said this,
What can be more a man’s own than this new name which even in eternity remains a secret between God and him? And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely, that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the Divine beauty better than any other creature can.
Every time we encounter the Living God in a deeper way, we are given another glimpse into the reality of who we are uniquely to Him and who He is uniquely to us. For each of us is invited to call upon Him personally as the The One Who Names Me.
George MacDonald, in An Anthology, says it this way,
The giving of the white stone with the new name is the communication of what God thinks about the man to the man… (Rev. 2:17) The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man's own symbol—his soul's picture, in a word—the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone.
This podcast is drawn from a session on The New Name that I offered at a recent Wild at Heart Boot Camp. I pray that it will strengthen you in your inner man as you come to know and believe more deeply who you truly are to God.
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