Bible Strands
Revelation 3:12
The one who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will never again leave it. Upon him I will write the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from My God), and My new name.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses the church in Philadelphia, the sixth of seven letters, promising to the one who overcomes. The moment sits between a warning to hold fast (v. 11) and the closing exhortation to listen (v. 13).
The words — στυλόν (stylon), "pillar," denotes a fixed structural support in a building, not a freestanding monument; it implies permanence and function within a larger structure.
The thread — The motif of a name written on a person recurs in Revelation 14:1 (the Lamb's name and the Father's on foreheads) and Revelation 22:4 (His name on their foreheads); the new Jerusalem is identified in Revelation 21:2 as coming down out of heaven from God.
Why it lands — The promise is conditional on overcoming, which in this context means holding fast under pressure rather than achieving a single dramatic victory. The reader is asked to weigh what "never again leave it" costs in the present against the permanence being offered.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
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.
Cross-references
- Revelation 22:4 They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.
- Revelation 21:2 I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
- Revelation 14:1 Then I looked and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads.
- Jeremiah 1:18 Now behold, this day I have made you like a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.
- Galatians 2:9 And recognizing the grace that I had been given, James, Cephas, and John—those reputed to be pillars—gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
- Revelation 2:17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone inscribed with a new name, known only to the one who receives it.
- Hebrews 12:22 Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels
- Psalms 48:8 As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the LORD of Hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish her forever. Selah
- 1 John 4:4 You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
- 1 Kings 7:21 Thus he set up the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jachin, and the pillar to the north he named Boaz.