Revelation 3:12 “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.”

“Him that overcometh”

If you overcome. That’s a tribulation thing here again.

“will I make a pillar in the temple of my God,

If you overcome really well, God’s going to give you a pillar in God’s temple.

“and he shall go no more out:”

You won’t be kicked out over here. There’s some property up in heaven where it has your name.

“and I will write upon him the name of my God,”

You’re given a pillar and there’s an engraving on it. It’s God’s name.

“and the name of the city of my God,”

The name of the city of God is also engraved.

“which is new Jerusalem,”

That’s what we figured out now, New Jerusalem is that new city that God has prepared.

“which cometh down out of heaven from my God:”

One day the New Jerusalem property that God’s preparing is going to come down out of heaven and land here on earth.

“and I will write upon him my new name.”

You’re going to get a new name there.

Notice this is very similar to what God promised in the previous chapter. If we look at Revelation 2:17, about a new name written in heaven. What we see back then is that this new name that is written down in heaven is referring to you and your house. What you’re going to find out a lot of times, the house up in heaven is identified with you. The new name is identified with you. They’re all simultaneous together. That’s why it’s very interesting that anytime the Bible mentions the mansion or the house up in heaven, it’s assimilated with the person. You two are more closely entwined than you think. Some Christians believe that depending on how well you do in your works for the Lord, you can use these rewards that you have build up on your house. We’re not sure if that much is true but we do know that the new name and house are identified with you.

If we look at 1 Peter, because you are a priest of God, God engraved a new name on you as He did with the priest at the Levitical law. We noticed that when He engraves this new name, it’s engraved upon the house that you’re building. So this priesthood, house building with the new name, they’re all simultaneous together.

1 Peter 2:4-5 “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

“To whom coming,” If Jesus comes. Remember Revelation 3 says, Behold I come quickly, so make sure you have that new name written upon your house. This is all talking about the same thing here.
“as lively stones,” You’re identified with the stone. Remember in Revelation 2, God talks about ‘I’ll write him a new name and give him a white stone’ and that was the priest who bore that. This white stone could be referring to this house.
“are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood,” They’re all identified together.

If you overcome and do well, God can give you a new name and this white stone as mentioned in Revelation 2, then we saw in Revelation 3 that he’ll give them a pillar in the temple of my God, which is New Jerusalem. It seems that God is putting these white stones together of your new name so that you can build yourself your house.

John 14:2-3 “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

This house building is all connected with Jesus’s coming.
Why would Jesus say in his father’s house are many mansions, not rooms? The New International Version says rooms because it doesn’t make sense that you can put a mansion in a house. Well, all things are possible with God. That must be some big house set so you can squeeze your mansion in there.

God says ‘in the temple of my God’, so he’s referring to New Jerusalem here. In this are mansions. So God puts mansions in His house, in New Jerusalem.

“In my Father’s house” notice that this is singular.


“are many mansions:” Those stones where He can put a pillar and a new name here.


“I go to prepare a place for you.” It’s in a building process right now, it’s still under construction and all that depends on how well you overcome, how you live your life well for Jesus Christ. Then your house can be built up even more and more.


“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself;” Once this is prepared, Jesus Christ is coming. That’s why Jesus warns you ‘Behold I come quickly so make sure you hold fast to your crown and overcome so that I can put the new name in this house up in construction’. 

Returning back to Revelation 3, there are going to be two possible interpretations but the pastor doesn’t know how the second interpretation is going to work.

We can see a lot of spiritual application here for a Christian. The Bible says that New Jerusalem is referring to the bride of Christ in the book of Galatians and Revelation 21. New Jerusalem is the mother of us Christians. So this is a particularly Christian thing, this is not a tribulation application. If a Christian overcome, then God can put the new name in the house and all this working is going to depend on how well you serve Him.

The doctrinal application is this: we are going to apply this to tribulation because there’s a lot of tribulation application phrases here: ‘overcome’. But we can make that phrase ‘overcome’ a Christian application because we covered the book of Ephesus concerning him that overcometh. If you look at 1 John 5, the one who overcomes is those who simply believe in Jesus Christ. Not doing works to overcome but those who believe in Jesus Christ, then you’ve already overcome. But we’ve also seen that that ‘overcoming’ thing is also a tribulation application on works because we compared that with Revelation 21 and 22, it has to do an entrance to God’s holy city if they kept His commandments at Revelation 21 and 22. So the doctrinal application is that if they continue in their works to overcome for the Lord in their salvation, then it seems like they might have some sort of name engraved in New Jerusalem. That’s why Revelation 22 says “Blessed are they that do His commandments that they may have the right to enter into the city.” So they might have their name engraved there and they might even have a place over there.

That’s possible but it seems to contradict the teaching that New Jerusalem is reserved for Christians. How do we know that it’s reserved for Christians? Because Revelation 21 told you it’s referring to the bride of Christ and the bride of Christ is a Christian church, it’s not the tribulation saints. If you read Ephesians 5, the bride of Christ is the church.

So then this passage is a dilemma that you can research for yourself.  In Revelation and every verse by verse Bible study, you’re not going to find answers to everything. But there is one irrefutable fact, which is that this New Jerusalem is something Christian. Not only that, there is something about their house building depending on the Christian’s works. But remember this, if a Christian fails in their works, they never lose their salvation, they cannot go to hell. But they can lose their rewards and it seems like they might lose their house because the building of the house depends upon their works. There are so many verses that we’ve seen of Christians who failed in their works yet they’re going to heaven after they die.

We’ve seen many interesting things on double application. If you have these two things (tribulation application and church age application), then you can see how all these verses can fit on one side or the other. If you don’t do that, you’re going to have a lot more unanswered questions. Why? Because that’s how the verses are made, verses are made not just for one application but for double.

For example, if we take only one application for the book of Psalms where David was crying out ‘My god my god why hast thou forsaken me?’. It’s not going to make sense when you read that whole chapter if you put it only as David. Why? Because it talks about a lot of things where it’s a different application to Jesus Christ: they cast my garments and they tore up my vesture, that’s not David, that’s referring to Jesus Christ. But if you make it only one application to Jesus, it’s not going to make sense either because that chapter mentioned about because I’ve sinned against you, forgive me, don’t remember my sins and iniquities. Well, that can’t be Jesus Christ, that’s referring to David.

When you cover prophecy, like the book of Psalms, do you see the importance of having two applications now? We’ve seen Revelation 2 and 3 so far, you should have seen it by now that the explanations given are always both doctrinal and spiritual application. It filled out every other gap over there. If you don’t do that, there are going to be passages that do not make sense.

Revelation 3:13 “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

If you all have ears, you got to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you.