Revelation 19:12

Agur interpreted his ignorance of the name of the Son as a lack of knowledge of the Holy One. To this we could add the words of Jesus, “no one knows the Son except the Father” (Mtt. Mat. 11:27; Luke Luke 10:22). We believe the mysterious name of Jesus is a secret shared between only He and the Father and is intended to indicate their inviolate unity. God only shares His secrets with those who have intimacy with Him (e.g., Daniel, John). The secret name of Jesus will not be revealed until He and the Father choose to do so, possibly at His Second Coming. Whatever the name is, it will undoubtedly reveal some splendor concerning His character, like His many other names.

Overcomers in the church at Philadelphia were promised to have the name of the Father and of the New Jerusalem written upon them as well as Jesus’ new name (Rev. Rev. 3:11+). Perhaps Jesus’ new name is this secret name.

This same idea that shared secrets demonstrate intimacy is found in the promise to the overcomers in the church at Sardis who were promised a white stone with a new name written upon it which no one knows except God and the one receiving it (Rev. Rev. 2:17+).

Notes

¹ John MacArthur, Revelation 12-22 : The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 2000), Rev. 19:12.

² Some object to rendering the plural עֲטָרוֹת [ʿăṭārôṯ] as crowns. The thought is that it is impractical and out of step with OT practice for more than one crown to be placed upon the head of Joshua. They suggest it should be rendered by the crown (NKJV) and that what was made was a single ornate crown combining both silver and gold and indicating the unification of both the priestly and kingly station. This may be possible, but the natural rendering is the plural crowns. The same interpreters don’t express a similar reluctance to take the crowns as plural in the equivalent statement in the NT: : “on His head were many crowns (διαδηματα [diadēmata] )” (Rev. Rev. 19:12+).

³ A. R. Fausset, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” in Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, 1877), Zec. 6:11.

⁴ Οἶδεν [Oiden] is a perfect tense verb with present tense force. See [Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics - Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House and Galaxie Software, 1999, 2002), 578].