For the Name of Himself

- Ray & Doris Prinzing -

"First The God inspected and looked over to take out of the nations a people for the name of Himself." [Acts 15:14, free translation].

"Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of the calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of goodness, and the work of faith with power. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." [2 Thessalonians 1:11-12].
"For I always pray the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation― of insight into mysteries and secrets ―in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him, by having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints― His set-apart ones." [Ephesians 1:17-18, Amplified].
A spirit of revelation, hearts flooded with light― that we might understand in a deeper way the hope to which we are called, not just with the emphasis upon the glory and blessing that we shall receive, but even more important, to know that HE has an inheritance in us, as we become set apart to fulfill all the counsel of His will. Part of HIS INHERITANCE in the saints is that this first fruits, remnant, called out people are to BECOME HIS NAME. While He has His own glorious name, this people are to be the complement and the full expression of His name, so that we might say, in one small sense of meaning, He is partially nameless without them. Before the world at large can bow to worship Him, and know His name, this PURPOSED EXPRESSION OF HIS NAME must be brought forth.
Therefore, in harmony with His purpose of the ages, He first is visiting the nation to take out of them a people for the name of Himself. The word "for" used here is the Greek word "epi" meaning "UPON," and it bespeaks of how He is taking UPON His name a people, they are to be the covering, the protection, and the manifestation of His name. To see and know His name then would be as it is seen and manifested through this people who become His name, and who have enveloped, surrounded, are UPON His name.
Perhaps a brief illustration for this word "upon." When a cloud settles down UPON a mountain top, it envelops that peak, covers it, so that you only see the cloud, though the mountain is there, it must be viewed through the cloud.
Jesus said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," [John 14:9], for He was the expression of the Father. The oneness was precious, to see Jesus was to have seen the Father, not because of the form of man, but because the nature of the Father was revealed through Jesus Christ. Thus, so one are we to become part of His name, we are to be the further expression and revelation thereof to the world. A staggering thought, a truth that plunges us into depths beyond natural comprehension, but the Spirit of Revelation can flood your heart until you know more of this calling in Christ. This puts a purpose to all our daily travail and purification process, to walk worthy of this calling, that ms NAME might be glorified in us, and we in Him.
"And I look, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads." [Revelation 14:1]. Again this oneness is seen, for while we are to be merged into, and become His name, so also His name is upon us, enveloping us. Here it speaks of being written upon the forehead, which is most essential, for it would literally cover all of our mind, until we truly have the mind of Christ. When all of our thoughts are permeated with His name, bearing the mark of His name, we shall speak and act that which will glorify Him.
Proverbs 22:1, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." A name is to be chosen, and with greater importance and value than what one might place upon great riches. This word "chosen" from a Hebrew word meaning TO CHOOSE AFTER TESTING, and this produces two thoughts.
First of all, we need to carefully weigh it over, shall we receive the name of the bestial system of this world, or shall we yield to the inworking of the Spirit and have the name of the Father written upon and in us? Man today is receiving the inscription of this world's system, henceforth to be identified with its name, mannerism, etc. for the mark of the beast is after this manner, "the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." [Revelation 13:17]. But in contrast to this, comes forth a people who have the Father's name inscribed upon their thinking and living. Weigh the evidence for and against― the pro and con, present alignment with the world, for the satisfaction of the flesh, or separation from the world that we might be joined unto Christ, and receive the life of the ages to come. Dare we pay the price to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, and forfeit our calling to partake of the joy of the ages to come? Or, shall we bear the reproach of alienation from this world's system, that we might be purged, purified, and become part of His name?
Esau sold Jacob his birthright for a mess of pottage, the temporary satisfaction of the flesh, and later when he would have changed his mind, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. Even so, many today have despised the vision of the high, holy, heavenly calling in Christ, and have gone on to build their own personal kingdoms in harmony with, and fellowship with this world, and thus forfeit the rights and blessings which belong to the First fruit company of Himself.
There is a price to pay, if we want the Father's name inscribed upon us, but "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." [Romans 8:18].
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." [Matthew 13:45-46]. This man was a pearl merchant, and without a doubt had already bought many fine pearls, but he willingly sold them all when he had found that greatest pearl of them all. So also, many have received spiritual gifts and graces as they have walked with God, paying the price in all that this implies, but there came a time when all is laid back on the altar again, offered up to Him, that we might become one in His Special Purpose, to have His name written upon us, to find our full identity in Him alone.
A name must be had! "In that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach." [Isaiah 4:1]. This is seen as an allegory of what is working today both collectively and individually, especially in reference to divided religious groups that are all merging under "one name" to take away their reproach. They want to have a compromise, to hold their own little traditions and doctrines, food and apparel, but they will all subscribe to one great name that covers them all.
Sad to say, individually also, men would try to take the name of Christ, but they don't want His nature. They prefer their own apparel, their own self-righteousness (which the Scripture calls "filthy rags"), and they want to feed upon their own ideas and carnal concepts, rejecting the truth and the meat of the Word, but they want to be called by His name, and not be branded as a sinner or a heathen. But the name truly speaks of what you are, your character, nature, etc. and to be called by a name, but not one in the nature thereof, is a false thing, a perversion. It's like we read in Revelation 3:1, "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." What good is a name that you are alive, if you are really dead? It's meaningless!
While we must carefully choose the name, character, nature in which we would be identified, there is another side to this. Jesus said, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you..." [John 15:16]. And this choice also is being made after testing― after we have been thoroughly processed, proved, tested, tried, and been found approved. "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." [1 Peter 1:7]. "For not he who recommends himself, that one is accepted after having been put to the test, by he whom the Lord recommends, that one has His stamp of approval placed upon him, that approval being based upon the fact that the approved one has met the test satisfactorily." [2 Corinthians 10:18, Wuest Expanded].
Jesus declared, "I am come in My Father's Name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." [John 5:43]. How true this is even these days. When one has no other desire but to exalt Christ and lift Him up, and they leave their own name off the billboard, and announce only a coming together to seek the Lord, few will come to the gathering. But let a man blazon his own name across the billboard, and the crowds come in to see a man.
But let us press this other point a little farther, Jesus came IN His Father's name, and also stated, "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." [John 14:10]. He was the perfect expression of the Father, to reject Christ was to reject the Father also.
There are many who know the "letter" of His name, and others who will draw battle lines over how the name should be spelled, pronounced, and so on, but it isn't just the letter of the name that is inscribed on the firstfruits, they are to be filled with THE SPIRIT OF THE NAME, for "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." [1 Corinthians 6:17].
Jesus uttered the prayer, "Father, glorify Thy name." And then "there came a voice from heaven, saying I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." [John 12:28]. Also, "I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it..." [John 17:26]. Declared and glorified once, and it will be declared and glorified again! But there is a time interval here between the first declaration and when it will be declared again. It is the same kind of a time interval that we find between "the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God," as we read in Isaiah 61:2. Or the time interval between "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." [1 Peter 1:11].
What does it mean to declare His name? God said of Pharaoh, "For this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power; and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth." [Exodus 9:16, Romans 9:17].
HIS NAME, not just the letter of His name, but the very power of His name, due to the Presence of God that abode with them in "the pillar of the cloud and of the fire." God demonstrates His power and glory through men, revealing the weakness of the flesh, and the glory of His power. With the demolishing of human kingdoms, abasing that which is high, and exalting that which is of low degree, men come to marvel and wonder at the mightiness of God, and to bow before Him in reverence and awe.
Israel of old did not even speak the letter of His name, it was too sacred, and the word Jehovah was used, or other secondary references made. He was high and lifted up, exalted in their eyes. How then was His name declared among the heathen. It was His mighty acts revealed as He guided His people out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the promised land, that caused His fame to be spread abroad on the lips of all who heard about Him. And it was through a people, ISRAEL, who represented His name, so that Rahab told the spies which Joshua had sent into Jericho, "I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt... and as soon as we had heard these things, our heart did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD, HE IS GOD IN HEAVEN ABOVE, AND IN EARTH BENEATH." [Joshua 2:9-11]. All that He was, and did, exalted His mighty name!
Then coming to the New Testament, we find that Jesus declared the Name, by BEING the "I AM" walking among men. Nowhere do we read that Jesus used the "letter" of the Father's Name, i.e. to say, "In the Name of Jehovah" in the casting out of devils, or whatever the work of God was, but because IN BEING He was that name personified, He uttered the words "come out" and the evil spirits had to leave the vessel they were occupying. His was not a ministry of forms, ceremonies, formulas, creeds, sayings, repetitious quotes to recite by rote, for His very personage was IN THE FATHER'S NAME, He was the expression thereof, and hence demonstrated the power and victory thereof. And He, who cannot lie, said, "The works that I do IN My Father's name, they bear witness of me." [John 10:25].
Jesus was clothed upon with the Father. The Spirit was His housing, and He was the housing of the Spirit. The Spirit of God enveloped Him, and He was the dwelling place of the Spirit, a oneness that is beautiful. And because the man, Christ Jesus, was able to say, "I do not seek or consult My own will― I have no desire to do what is pleasing to Myself, My own aim, My own purpose ―but only the will and pleasure of the Father Who sent Me." [John 5:30, Amplified]. Therefore the Father did not leave Him, or withdraw HIS PRESENCE as He did from the first Adam.
When Adam lost his spiritual covering, partaking of a vision which left him naked, he knew his nakedness and sewed fig leaves together for a covering, until God in mercy clothed him with skin. How did Adam know he was naked? When he lost his bright aurora of light, was plunged into the shadows and consciousness of sin; from the higher planes of the spirit realm he was plunged into the gross materialism of this world. Therefore "Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews." [Job 10:11].
"Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of Me; and that cover with a covering, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin." [Isaiah 30:1]. Casting aside the covering of the Spirit of God, and seeking for a covering of the spirit of this world, and the en-wrapments of the flesh, man is found naked before his God. Now, praise God, HE is stripping away the coverings of this world, that once again we might be clothed upon with our house from above, the reality of His Spirit, and all that pertains thereto, even the glory of Himself.
Not until Jesus became our sin-offering, at Calvary, did that PRESENCE in its consciousness, leave Him, and He cried out, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" [Matthew 27:46]. There was a sense of loss, there was a covering which He missed and yearned to have back. Whatever applications this might have, as it relates to the "man" Christ Jesus, there are also some deeply spiritual implications here, involving that intense yearning for the fulness of the sons hip company to be restored and brought forth to be His aurora of glory. And, thank God, that is what redemption is all about, to redeem, buy back all that which was lost in ages past, to restore into full harmony again the creature to his Creator.
Yes, Jesus was the personification of THE NAME, He was the "I AM" and manifested the power and authority of that name everywhere He went, to the glory and praise of the Father. No wonder, when Jesus said, "Father, glorify Thy name," there came back the answer,"1 have glorified it..." for Jesus was that sphere of glory which revealed and magnified His Name. For three and a half years Jesus was the visible expression, in Whom the Father was well pleased. A ministry to mankind that revealed the love and compassion of the Father's heart.
Then there came also the promise, "AND WILL GLORIFY IT AGAIN." As He glorified His name through Jesus Christ, there shall now be another phase of glorification of His name, for He is visiting the nations to take out of them a people for HIS NAME, to become His first fruits of anew creation, and they will be the manifestation of His name, to His glory and praise.
Everywhere He places HIS NAME, He places His presence, for these will be the expression of His presence, His nature, His power, His will, etc.
To separate the letter of His name from His person is to lose the spirit of the name. To hear a name and not be able to associate that LETTER-NAME to a person leaves is empty and meaningless. It is the identity of a person with his name which gives the name meaning for us. As a missionary rightly confessed, when questioned about his labours over on foreign soil, that until a native had a personal experience with Christ, to become acquainted with the Lord and know who He is, that actually all the missionary had done was add another name to the rest of the native's superstitutions, and they had gods many, with Jesus Christ being one more in the list of the unknown deities. The name meant nothing until it became identified in a living way with the reality of the God it represented.
What a challenge, what a purpose in view, to so become one in Christ, that we are fully identified in His name, yes, become a further expression of that name, until once again they shall say, "Blessed be he that cometh IN the name of the Lord." [Psalm 118:26].
There are some marvellous promises relative to the bringing forth of this company, even as we read, "I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth: EVERYONE THAT IS CALLED BY MY NAME: for I have created him for My glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him." [Isaiah 43:6-7].
"As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people, TO MAKE THYSELF A GLORIOUS NAME." [Isaiah 63:14].
Down into the valley, into the cleft of the riven side, to know also the stripping away of the lusts of the flesh, and death to the carnal mind. As a beast we go down, holding our bestial bodies, laden with all the sins of the natural creation, and our minds feeling the impact and clash of the imposter creeds, but there in the valley the Spirit of the Lord causes us to rest. And he that has entered into his rest hath also ceased from his own works. Ended is the struggle to perfect self with ego-centered rituals and will-worship ceremonies. We cast our all upon Christ, to become clay in the Potter's hand, to become HIS total .workmanship. The bestial nature shall not rise again, it is buried in the valley, and that which is raised up is a NEW CREATION IN CHRIST JESUS, HIS GLORIOUS NAME.
"Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For Mine own sake, even for Mine own sake, will I do it: for how should MY NAME be polluted? and I will not give My glory to another." [Isaiah 48:10-11].
Israel polluted His name, they bear His name, were the representatives of His name, but they defiled themselves with the idolatries of the heathen about them, and so it was necessary for God to purge and purify, even by the severity, as it were, of the furnace of affliction. Ah, now He would bring forth a people to be HIS NAME, and lest it be polluted again, the purification must be complete. It is for HIS OWN SAKE that we pass through these trials, for He is a jealous God, guarding His name, and we must qualify to bear that name. "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let everyone that nameth (takes upon himself the name) of Christ depart from iniquity." [2 Timothy 2:19].
He will not give His glory to another, i.e. share it with an inferior god, but for those who become new creatures in Christ, we read, " And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." [John 17:22]. He will share His glory, but only with those who are pure as He is pure, holy as He is holy, ONE IN HIM.
"In that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one." [Zech. 14:9].
"And this his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." [Jeremiah 23:6]. To become the expression of His name is not to rob Him of His glory, for the very name exalts HIM, He shall be revered as THE LORD WHO IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
"Take a good look at your divine summons, brethren ...as for you, out from Him as a source are you in Christ Jesus who became wisdom for us from God, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ..." [1 Corinthians 1:26, 30, Wuest Expanded]. He is our righteousness, and we are summoned to become a part of this name that exalts HIM more and more.

HIS NAME BECOME

Down into the valley, dark, and damp, and cold,
The Spirit led His people, His purpose to unfold,
But though the way led downward, His grace was Manifold.

Our nature which was bestial must in the valley stay,
Its passions, fears, and self-will in death be laid away,
While in His rest abiding, we wait the coming day.

Arising from the valley-what creatures now are these?
His image now they're bearing, His will alone they please,
Fruitage of the valley, with its Gethsemanes.

Enveloped with His Presence, His name they have become,
Partakers of His nature, and sealing up the sum
Of wisdom's glorious purpose, they are His kingdom come.

To God shall be the glory, His name shall all be ONE,
Declared throughout all nations, till victory is won,
Fulfilling all the counsel in ages past begun.

Other Writings in This Series: