When the Savior Returns, Will He Still Be Called Jesus?

November 5, 2021

In the last days, the Savior Almighty God has already come to earth, expressing truths, appearing and working to fully save mankind. Since the book The Word Appears in the Flesh was put online for the world, people from all over have seen that Almighty God’s words are the truth and heard God’s voice. They may not have seen Almighty God’s face, but they are certain that His words are entirely the Holy Spirit’s words, that this is God speaking to mankind, and the Word appearing in the flesh. They have finally witnessed the appearance and work of the Son of man, and found God’s footprints. Thrilled, they all rush around sharing the news, accepting Almighty God joyfully, coming before God’s throne. They eat and drink God’s current words every day, gaining more enlightenment as they read, enjoying the watering and shepherding of God’s words. They learn many truths and their faith grows. They are rushing to spread the name of Almighty God, bearing witness that the Savior has come to the world to save man. They are overflowing with faith and strength and find comfort from Almighty God’s words. They have the proper goal in their pursuit and direction in life, and are giving their utmost for God, bearing witness for God. More and more people across the world are investigating the true way. Now that all sorts of disasters begin raining down, everyone is forced to seek the true way, the footsteps of the Holy Spirit, and the Savior’s appearance and work. This is the inevitable trend. In religious communities from every country in the world, many are accepting the true way and turning toward Almighty God every day. The Church of Almighty God is being established in many countries, completely fulfilling this verse in Isaiah: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it(Isaiah 2:2). While many are hungrily investigating the true way, there are some who have confirmed that Almighty God’s words are the truth, that they are authoritative and powerful, but seeing that Almighty God has the appearance of a normal person, that He has not appeared as the Lord Jesus’ spiritual form nor has He displayed signs and wonders, they become stuck on that and refuse to accept Him. And some people see without a shadow of a doubt that Almighty God’s words are all the truth, but because they are not recorded within the Bible, they cannot feel certain that Almighty God is the Lord Jesus returned. This is where they get stuck, and won’t accept Him. There are yet others who acknowledge that Almighty God’s words are the truth and come from God, but seeing that the Bible says “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8), they believe the name Jesus will never change. They think Almighty God isn’t named Jesus, and the Bible never mentioned the name Almighty God, so they won’t acknowledge that He is the Savior come down. They think accepting Almighty God would be a betrayal of the Lord Jesus, so they get stuck on that, and will not accept Him. These three situations all come back to one underlying problem: Almighty God looks just like a regular person, and everything He says is the truth, and is powerful and authoritative, but He isn’t called Jesus and He hasn’t appeared as Jesus’ spiritual form, so they won’t acknowledge that Almighty God is the Lord Jesus returned. This is understandable based solely on human notions and imaginings, but God’s appearance and work contain great mysteries that humans cannot fathom. Without seeking the truth, and determining things according to God’s words and the facts of His work, one cannot find the correct answer. Blindly clinging to the Bible’s literal text and their notions, refusing to accept Christ who expresses truths will bring unthinkable consequences. This is just like those in the Jewish faith who refused to accept the Lord Jesus’ redemption and were damned. This painful lesson has been right before us for a long time. Now that the Savior has come, we can imagine what the consequences of failing to seek the truth will be. Well, would the Savior still be called “Jesus” when He returns? I’ll share a little of my own understanding on this topic.

First we need to understand how to confirm this is the Savior come down. We can’t just go by whether He has the name the Lord Jesus, whether He looks like the Lord Jesus. What’s key is whether He can express the truth and do the work of God, if He can purify and save mankind. As long as He can express the truth, express the voice of God and do the work of saving mankind, it doesn’t matter what He’s called or how ordinary He appears. We can be sure this is God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus returned. He is the Savior come to earth. If we just go by His name or His outward appearance it’s too easy to go wrong. We all know that God went by the name Jehovah in the Age of Law, and by the name Jesus in the Age of Grace. He was no longer called Jehovah, instead taking the name Jesus, but the Lord Jesus was Jehovah God incarnate. He was Jehovah God clothed in flesh as the Son of man, come to humanity to appear and work. The Lord Jesus and Jehovah God shared one Spirit, and were one God. The way of repentance and the mysteries of the kingdom revealed by the Lord Jesus, along with His work of redemption, entirely proved He was God in the flesh, the appearance of the one true God, and the Savior. Those within Judaism couldn’t see that at the time. Although many of them recognized that the Lord Jesus’ way was powerful and authoritative, because He wasn’t called “Messiah,” and looked like a regular person, they denied and condemned Him. No matter how lofty the Lord Jesus’ way was, they wouldn’t seek or investigate it, but accused Him of blasphemy, and even had Him crucified. They were damned and punished by God. Where did they go wrong? They didn’t know what the incarnation was, and they didn’t know the divinity of God incarnate was shown through expression of the truth, so no matter how much truth the Son of man expressed or how great His work, they wouldn’t acknowledge Him as God. They defined Him as being human; they were utterly certain of this and refused to believe. As a result, they missed out on God’s salvation and ended up punished and damned. Isn’t that human foolishness and ignorance? And now, although many in the religious world recognize that Almighty God’s words are the truth and come from God, they still cling to the literal Scripture, following their notions and imaginings, insisting that God is named Jesus and that will never change, and that’s what He’ll be called when He returns. Since Almighty God isn’t named Jesus, and He didn’t come on a cloud in Jesus’ image, they absolutely refuse to accept that He is the Lord Jesus returned. Aren’t they making the same mistake as the Jewish people? As a result, they still haven’t welcomed the Lord, so they’ll fall into the great disasters, beating their breasts, weeping, and gnashing their teeth. Their hope to welcome the Lord and be raptured before the disasters will be utterly unfulfilled. Isn’t that sad? Is it true that God’s name of Jesus would never change? Is this supported by the Bible, by God’s word? In fact, the Bible long ago prophesied that the Lord would come with a new name. Isaiah clearly prophesies: “And the Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory: and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah shall name(Isaiah 62:2). And Revelation says: “Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God: and I will write on him My new name(Revelation 3:12). Both of these verses clearly mention God having a new name. Since it’s a new name, one He’s never had before, it is certain that when the Lord returns He won’t be called Jesus. Then what is His new name? It is Almighty God. This is perfectly in line with Revelation’s prophecy: “I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty(Revelation 1:8). “Alleluia: for the Lord God Almighty reigns(Revelation 19:6). And in many other verses such as Revelation 4:8, 11:17, and 16:7, the name “the Almighty” is mentioned. Clearly, when the Lord returns in the last days, He’s called the Almighty, Almighty God. There is no doubt about this. This belief that God’s name of Jesus will never change, that our last days’ Savior will be called Jesus, is entirely a human notion that doesn’t remotely conform to reality.

At this point, some may ask why God would change His name. What’s the meaning behind this? Almighty God has revealed all these mysteries of the truth. Let’s take a look at Almighty God’s words to understand this better. Almighty God says, “Some say that the name of God does not change. Why, then, did the name of Jehovah become Jesus? It was prophesied that the Messiah would come, so why then did a man by the name of Jesus come? Why did the name of God change? Was such work not carried out long ago? May God not do newer work today? The work of yesterday can be altered, and the work of Jesus can follow on from that of Jehovah. Cannot, then, the work of Jesus be succeeded by other work? If the name of Jehovah can be changed to Jesus, then cannot the name of Jesus also be changed? None of this is odd; it is just that people are too simple-minded. God will always be God. No matter how His work changes, and regardless of how His name might change, His disposition and wisdom will never change. If you believe that God can only be called by the name of Jesus, then your knowledge is far too limited(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How Can Man Who Has Delimited God in His Notions Receive the Revelations of God?).

In each age, God does new work and is called by a new name; how could He do the same work in different ages? How could He cling to the old? The name of Jesus was taken for the sake of the work of redemption, so would He still be called by the same name when He returns in the last days? Would He still be doing the work of redemption? Why is it that Jehovah and Jesus are one, yet They are called by different names in different ages? Is it not because the ages of Their work are different? Could a single name represent God in His entirety? This being so, God must be called by a different name in a different age, and He must use the name to change the age and to represent the age. For no one name can fully represent God Himself, and each name is able only to represent the temporal aspect of God’s disposition in a given age; all it needs to do is to represent His work. Therefore, God can choose whatever name befits His disposition to represent the entire age(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Vision of God’s Work (3)).

‘Jehovah’ is the name that I took during My work in Israel, and it means the God of the Israelites (God’s chosen people) who can take pity on man, curse man, and guide the life of man; the God who possesses great power and is full of wisdom. ‘Jesus’ is Emmanuel, which means the sin offering that is full of love, full of compassion, and which redeems man. He did the work of the Age of Grace, and He represents the Age of Grace, and can only represent one part of the work of the management plan. … Only Jesus is the Redeemer of mankind, and He is the sin offering that redeemed mankind from sin. Which is to say, the name of Jesus came from the Age of Grace and came into existence because of the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. The name of Jesus came into existence to allow the people of the Age of Grace to be reborn and saved, and is a particular name for the redemption of the whole of mankind(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a “White Cloud”).

If man still longs for the arrival of Jesus the Savior during the last days, and still expects Him to arrive in the image He bore in Judea, then the entire six-thousand-year management plan would have stopped in the Age of Redemption, and could not have progressed any further. The last days, furthermore, would never arrive, and the age would never be brought to an end. This is because Jesus the Savior is only for the redemption and salvation of mankind. I took the name of Jesus only for the sake of all the sinners in the Age of Grace, but it is not the name by which I shall bring the whole of mankind to an end. Although Jehovah, Jesus, and the Messiah all represent My Spirit, these names only denote the different ages of My management plan, and do not represent Me in My entirety. The names by which people on earth call Me cannot articulate My entire disposition and all that I am. They are merely different names by which I am called during different ages. And so, when the final age—the age of the last days—arrives, My name shall change again. I shall not be called Jehovah, or Jesus, much less the Messiah—I shall be called the powerful Almighty God Himself, and under this name I shall bring the entire age to an end(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a “White Cloud”).

Now I think we can see the significance of God changing His name. God is always new, never old, and His work is always moving forward. His name continues to change as the age changes, as His work changes. With every stage of His work, with every new age, God takes on a name with particular meaning to represent the work He’s doing and the disposition He’s expressing for that age. Seeing this, we won’t delimit God within just the two names of Jehovah and Jesus. We won’t delimit God within our own notions and imaginings. We all know that what God has and is encompasses all things. He is utterly wise and almighty! No human language could express this, so how could one or two names? No number of names could fully represent what God has and is. This is why God takes on a different name for each age. God was called Jehovah in the Age of Law, and He issued the law and commandments under that name. He guided mankind’s life on earth, allowed them to know what sin is, how they should live, how they should worship Jehovah God. Jehovah was the name that God set for the Age of Law, and it only represented His work in that age, and His dispositions of mercy, majesty, and wrath that He expressed then. At the end of the Age of Law, people became more and more corrupted by Satan, more and more sinful. No one could follow the law. If that went on, they all would have been condemned and put to death under the law. To redeem mankind, God personally became flesh as the Son of man to work, doing the work of redemption under the name of Jesus. He began the Age of Grace and brought the Age of Law to a close. The Lord Jesus brought mankind the way of repentance and forgave our sins, bestowing peace and joy, and incredible grace upon us. Ultimately, He was crucified, redeeming the whole mankind. Jesus was God’s set name for the Age of Grace, and it represented His work of redemption for that age along with His disposition of love and mercy. From these two stages of God’s work we can see that each of His names has a special significance. They represent God’s work and disposition for that particular age. Let’s think about it. If the Lord Jesus had kept the name Jehovah in the Age of Grace, God’s work would have stopped at the Age of Law. Then corrupt mankind never would have been redeemed, and we’d all have been condemned and put to death under the law for our sins. We’d never have made it to today. It’s the same in the last days—if the Lord Jesus returned with the name Jesus, God’s work would just stay in the stage of redemption, and people could only gain the Lord Jesus’ redemption and forgiveness of sins. The sinful nature we all possess couldn’t be resolved. We’d have no way of escaping sin and being cleansed, and we’d never become worthy of the kingdom of heaven. The Lord Jesus prophesied His return in the last days many times, that He would express the truth and do the work of judgment to cleanse mankind, fully save mankind from sin, and take us into God’s kingdom. Just as the Lord Jesus said, “And if any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day(John 12:47–48). “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth(John 16:12–13). So in the last days, when God initiates a new age and His new work, would He really still be called Jesus? Certainly not. The Lord Jesus has returned in the last days to work as Almighty God, beginning the Age of Kingdom and ending the Age of Grace. He expresses truths to do the work of judgment beginning with the house of God, to fully save mankind from sin and from Satan’s forces, to complete a group of overcomers. After that, He will rain down the great disasters to punish evil and reward good, obliterating the dark, evil old age, and then Christ’s kingdom will be realized on earth. This entirely fulfills Revelation’s prophecies: “I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty(Revelation 1:8). “Alleluia: for the Lord God Almighty reigns(Revelation 19:6).

Almighty God says, “I was once known as Jehovah. I was also called the Messiah, and people once called Me Jesus the Savior with love and esteem. Today, however, I am no longer the Jehovah or Jesus that people knew in times past; I am the God who has returned in the last days, the God who shall bring the age to an end. I am the God Himself that rises up from the end of the earth, replete with My entire disposition, and full of authority, honor, and glory. People have never engaged with Me, never known Me, and have always been ignorant of My disposition. From the creation of the world until today, not one person has seen Me. This is the God who appears to man in the last days but is hidden among man. He resides among man, true and real, like the burning sun and the blazing flame, filled with power and brimming with authority. There is not a single person or thing that shall not be judged by My words, and not a single person or thing that shall not be purified through the burning of fire. Eventually, all nations shall be blessed because of My words, and also smashed to pieces because of My words. In this way, all people during the last days shall see that I am the Savior returned, and that I am the Almighty God that conquers all of mankind. And all shall see that I was once the sin offering for man, but that in the last days I also become the flames of the sun that incinerate all things, as well as the Sun of righteousness that reveals all things. This is My work in the last days. I took this name and am possessed of this disposition so that all people may see that I am a righteous God, the burning sun, the blazing flame, and so that all may worship Me, the one true God, and so that they may see My true face: I am not only the God of the Israelites, and I am not just the Redeemer; I am the God of all creatures throughout the heavens and the earth and the seas(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a “White Cloud”).

Almighty God’s words are crystal clear. Jehovah, Jesus, and Almighty God are the names of the one true God. He takes on different names for the Age of Law, Age of Grace, and Age of Kingdom. Even though His work and His name change with the age, and He appears in different ways, His essence never changes, and His disposition, and what He has and is will never change. He is eternally one God, one Spirit, working to lead, redeem, and fully save mankind. In the last days, He incarnates as Almighty God, and though He’s not called Jesus and He looks like a regular person, He’s expressed all truths that cleanse and save mankind, doing the work of judgment beginning with God’s house. He judges and exposes people with His words, revealing our profound corruption by Satan and our satanic natures, and He shows us all aspects of the truth that we need to be cleansed and saved. His chosen people eat and drink His words every day, accept being judged, chastised, dealt with, tested, and refined by His words, and their corrupt dispositions are gradually cleansed and changed. They gradually escape evil and Satan’s forces, and are fully saved by God. Almighty God has already completed a group of overcomers before the disasters, fully showing God’s wisdom and almightiness. During Almighty God’s work, in spite of the nonstop brutal persecution and arrests by the Communist Party’s satanic forces plus the religious world’s antichrist forces’ crazed condemnation and blasphemy, Almighty God’s kingdom gospel has spread from East to West, traversing the entire globe. This shows that God’s great work is being completed, that Almighty God is entirely triumphing over Satan and gaining all glory! The great disasters have already begun and the religious world has fallen into disarray, but so many of them are still stubbornly hanging on to the name of the Lord Jesus, waiting for Him to come on a cloud. They refuse to acknowledge and accept it, no matter how much truth Almighty God expresses, how great His work is. They even madly condemn and resist His appearance and work. How are they any different from those Pharisees who clung to the name of the Messiah, crazily resisting the Lord Jesus? Aren’t they all basically people nailing God to the cross? They cling to the Lord Jesus’ name for nothing, but madly resist and condemn Almighty God. What do you think is waiting for them in the end?

To wrap up, let’s watch a video of Almighty God’s words. Almighty God says, “Do you wish to know the root of why the Pharisees opposed Jesus? Do you wish to know the essence of the Pharisees? They were full of fantasies about the Messiah. What is more, they believed only that the Messiah would come, yet did not pursue the truth of life. And so, even today they still await the Messiah, for they have no knowledge of the way of life, and do not know what the way of truth is. How, say you, could such foolish, stubborn and ignorant people gain God’s blessing? How could they behold the Messiah? They opposed Jesus because they did not know the direction of the Holy Spirit’s work, because they did not know the way of truth spoken by Jesus, and, furthermore, because they did not understand the Messiah. And since they had never seen the Messiah and had never been in the company of the Messiah, they made the mistake of clinging to the mere name of the Messiah while opposing the essence of the Messiah by any means possible. These Pharisees in essence were stubborn, arrogant, and did not obey the truth. The principle of their belief in God was: No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how high Your authority, You are not Christ unless You are called the Messiah. Is this belief not preposterous and ridiculous? I ask you further: Is it not extremely easy for you to commit the mistakes of the earliest Pharisees, given that you have not the slightest understanding of Jesus? Are you able to discern the way of truth? Can you truly guarantee that you will not oppose Christ? Are you able to follow the work of the Holy Spirit? If you do not know whether you will oppose Christ, then I say that you are already living on the brink of death. Those who did not know the Messiah were all capable of opposing Jesus, of rejecting Jesus, of slandering Him. People who do not understand Jesus are all capable of rejecting Him and reviling Him. Moreover, they are capable of seeing the return of Jesus as the deceit of Satan, and more people shall condemn Jesus returned to flesh. Does not all of this make you afraid? What you face shall be blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the ruination of the words of the Holy Spirit to the churches, and the spurning of all that is expressed by Jesus. What can you gain from Jesus if you are so befuddled? How can you understand the work of Jesus when He returns to flesh on a white cloud, if you obstinately refuse to realize your errors? I tell you this: People who do not receive the truth, yet blindly await the arrival of Jesus upon white clouds, will surely blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, and they are the category that shall be destroyed(The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. By the Time You Behold the Spiritual Body of Jesus, God Will Have Made Heaven and Earth Anew).

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