Revelation 19:12

19:12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many royal crowns, and he has a name written which no one knows except himself.

We begin the description of the conquering Christ.

His eyes are a flame of fire. We have already met this description in Revelation 1:14 and Revelation 2:18 . It stands for the consuming power of the victorious Christ. On his head he has many crowns. The word used here for crown is diadema ( Greek #1238 ), which is the royal crown, as opposed to stephanos ( Greek #4735 ) which is the crown of victory. To be crowned with more than one crown may seem strange, but in the time of John it was quite natural. It was not uncommon for a monarch to wear more than one crown in order to show that he was the king of more than one country. For instance, when Ptolemy entered Antioch he wore two crowns or diadems--one to show that he was lord of Asia and one to show that he was lord of Egypt ( 1 Maccabees 11:13 ). On the head of the victor Christ there are many crowns to show that he is lord of all the kingdoms of the earth.

He has a name known to no one but himself. This is a passage whose meaning is obscure. What is this name? Many suggestions have been made.

(i) It has been suggested that the name is kurios ( Greek #2962 ), Lord. In Philippians 2:9-11 we read of the name above every name which God has given to Jesus Christ because of his complete obedience; and there the name is almost certainly Lord.

(ii) It is suggested that the name is Y-H-W-H. That was the Jewish name for God. In Hebrew writing there were no vowels; the vowels had to be supplied by the reader. No one really knows what the vowels in Y-H-W-H were. The name was in fact so holy that it was never pronounced. We usually pronounce it JEHOVAH but the vowels in Jehovah are really those of the Hebrew word 'Adonay ( Hebrew #136 ), which means Lord, the name by which the Jews called God in order to avoid pronouncing the sacred name. Many scholars think the name should be Y-A-H-W-E-H. The letters Y-H-W-H (Yahweh) are called the sacred tetragrammaton, the sacred four letters.

(iii) It may be that the name is one which can be revealed only at the final union of Christ and the Church. In the Ascension of Isaiah ( Isaiah 9:5 ) there is a saying: "Thou canst not bear his name until thou shalt have ascended out of the body." There was a Jewish belief that no man could know the name of God until he had entered into the life of heaven.

(iv) It may be that here is a lingering relic of the old idea that to know the name of a divine being was to have a certain power over him. In two Old Testament stories, the wrestling of Jacob at Peniel ( Genesis 32:29 ), and the appearance of the angelic messenger to Gideon ( 13:18 ) the divine visitor refuses to tell his name.

(v) It may be that we shall never know the symbolism of the unknown name but H. B. Swete has the very fine idea that in the essence of the being of Christ there must always remain something beyond man's understanding. "Notwithstanding the dogmatic helps which the Church offers, the mind fails to grasp the inmost significance of the Person of Christ, which eludes all efforts to bring it within the terms of human knowledge. Only the Son of God can understand the mystery of his own being."