What is the significance of the nameFaithful and Truein Revelation 19:11?

Now heaven opens again. It opened on Jesus as Son of man and Son of God in the Gospels, the object of divine delight. It was opened to Stephen when the Son of man was standing on the right hand of God in heaven, which is the Christian state. And it is now opened for Jesus to come out as King of kings, and Lord of lords, to execute judgment and justice on the earth. Triumphant power as the operation of God first appears, and characterises the vision - a white horse. But there was one that sat on it called "Faithful"; such He had ever been, at all cost, to God, in the testimony of righteousness, in glorifying Him even to death, that His name might be made good. Obedient till it was given to Him to rise up and take the power, and "true," so that the witness of God which He did render was a perfect witness of all God was, and all His thoughts. His name was "Faithful and True." "Holy and True" was His name for Philadelphia, for us. This was what was subjectively needed for us - but now rewarded, and He coming forth as the faithful and true One. He now does not serve but judges in righteousness, and makes war on the power of evil in the same righteousness. His eyes had the piercing discerning power of judgment, many crowns were on His head.

The first thing noted is the white horse on which He sits. The symbology of the white horse has been explained in Rev. 6. It signifies triumphant power, and here as there, in conflict. When Christ, therefore, issues from heaven seated on the white horse, it is the precursor of His victorious conflict with His foes, when, to use the language of the Psalm, His arrows will be sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people (peoples, it should be) fall under Him. Next, follows a description of the glorious Rider. He is called "Faithful and True." These characteristic names are familiar to the readers of this book in other connections. John terms Him "the faithful witness" (Rev. 1:5); in the letter to Philadelphia He is called, "He that is holy, He that is true" (Rev.: 7); and in that to Laodicea both terms are conjoined: "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness." (Rev. 3:14) In Isaiah, moreover, we read that "faithfulness [shall be] the girdle of His reins." (Isa. 11:5.) The combination of these scriptures introduces us at once into the meaning of the words. Faithfulness to God, both inward and outward, marked Him in all His earthly pathway, and when He comes forth to establish His kingdom, to make God's character good in government as against the power of evil, and the rebellion and usurpation of man, He will be governed in all that He does by a single eye to the requirements of the glory of God, as He was also in His death on the cross. Faithfulness to Hint, as already seen, will be the girdle of His loins. Truth in the inward parts, which God sought for, but never found in man until Christ came, will also distinguish Him, so that He will be the perfect expression, and thus a true witness, of all that God is as revealed in His righteous government of the earth. "Faithful and true" reveal, therefore, what He is both to God and for man when He comes forth to assume His rights in this world.

And now mark the contrast with the object of His first coining. Then "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn [judge] the world; but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17); now "in righteousness He doth judge and make war." Grace characterized His first appearing in this world; and righteousness, and consequently judgment, will mark the second, the period of which our scripture speaks. Every one will then be tested by the unerring standard of God's righteous requirements from man, for the day of grace will have closed, and the era of righteous government will have commenced. Christ must, therefore, then "make war" upon everything that opposes itself to, lifts itself up in rebellion against, a holy God.

He sits on a white horse, which speaks of power and victory (cf. Rev. 6:2); He is called "Faithful and True": He is faithful, that is, He does full justice to the relationships in which He stands: to God, to believers, to unbelievers (cf. Rev. 3:7, 14), and He is true, that is, He acts – even in judgment – according to all the truth, especially the truth about God. He judges and wages war in justice: the purpose of his coming is obviously judgment. He is the man whom God has appointed to judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). His eyes are a flame of fire: He is omniscient and incorruptible in his knowledge and judgment. On his head are many diadems: He is the king who has deserved the reign and is worthy to carry it out (Satan the dragon had seven diadems (Rev. 12:3) and the Roman ruler had ten (Rev. 13:1), but Christ will wear “many” diadems). Finally, He who once wore the crown of thorns will wear the crowns of rulers (this was not yet the case with the Son of Man in chapter 1, but will only be the case at the time of the appearing). He bears a name written which no one knows but Himself: Although He appears as the "Son of Man" (Mt. 26:64), He is nevertheless the Son of God – God and Man in one Person – and as such only the Father knows Him fully (Mt. 11:27) – but we may worship Him for this, today as well as at His appearing. He is clothed in a garment dipped in blood: this indicates what will happen in the judgment that He will now execute: His enemies will find death (cf. Isa. 63:1-3). His name is called: the Word of God. Christ is "the Word" from eternity (John 1:1) and once came into the world as full expression of the mind of God, to reveal Him. But then He comes to judgment. In this, too, He will be the expression of God’s mind. He will exercise judgment according to the word of God. In full agreement with this, we read that a sharp double-edged sword proceeds from His mouth: He will judge the nations according to the Word of God (cf. v.21). He treads the winepress of the wine of the wrath of God's wrath, the Almighty: His judgment will correspond to God's righteous wrath. On the Cross Himself, He had suffered the wrath of God vicariously (for those who accept Him). Whoever rejects Him remains under the wrath of God (John 3:36).

Heaven is seen opened, the prophet's stand-point being therefore now on earth, and a white horse appears, the familiar figure of war and victory. It is upon the Rider that our eyes are fixed. He is called "Faithful and True" — known manifestly to be that — and in righteousness He judges and wars: His warring is but itself a judgment. For this, His eyes penetrate as a flame of fire; nothing escapes them. Many diadems — the sign of absolute authority — are on His head. And worthily, for His name in its full reality — name expressing (as always in Scripture) nature — is an incommunicable one, beyond the knowledge of finite creatures. But His vesture is dipped in blood, for already many enemies have fallen before Him. And His name is called — has been and is, as the language implies, — "The Word of God." The gospel of John shows us that in creation already He was acting as that; and now in judgment He is no less so.

— The first part of the description beheld by the Seer was “a white horse,” the symbol of victorious power. The horseman who guides and controls bears the mystic name of “Faithful and True.” Others may in measure be characterised by these qualities, but Christ alone can be so designated without qualification. He is in His Person and ways the perfect embodiment of these attributes. Faithful in the performance of every promise and every threat, while every word and act bears the stamp of absolute truth.

He is the Faithful and the True, in contrast to the false pretensions of men and the lie with which the devil has deceived them (see 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11). "In righteousness He will judge and make war," against all "the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." He is called "the Word of God," for He will reveal God's holy wrath against sin in its completeness, as once He revealed His love to sinners. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and will assert and establish His rights by the sharp sword of His mouth and with the rod of iron. There will be no mercy for those who oppose Him, for He will tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

This is but the prelude to what follows. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire (unsearching judgment), and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself." The heavens had already opened at His baptism by John, when He began His public ministry as God's anointed Servant; they had opened again in order that the dying Stephen might behold the Son of man in the glory of God; and now they were opening for the last time, as the mighty Conqueror, on the white horse, returns to earth, no longer as the lowly Nazarene, but to vindicate His right, and to "smite the nations, and rule them with a rod of iron."

Besides His unrevealed name, He has also three others, each one being in keeping with His solemn work as He "treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." They are as follows: — "Faithful and True," the "Word of God," "King of kings and Lord of lords." He is about to vindicate God's character as faithful and true, whether in connection with the past, the present, or the future; to maintain God's word at all cost, and to bring every opposing force into complete subjection to God's will, as "King of kings and Lord of lords." Let Scripture tell its own tale as to the issue of that stupendous conflict between the respective armies of heaven and earth. "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh."

229 The white horse is the symbol of triumph, and He who sits upon him is called "Faithful and True," the same character in which He is presented to the church of Laodicea, though there He is the "Witness" and the "Amen." Here it is not as a "Witness," but as a Judge, and as executing judgment in the character of God, and He is always the "Amen" to that. His eyes are as a flaming fire, shewing how piercing the judgment is; and then "on his head were many crowns" - or royal glories. His name none knew but Himself. This is Christ's consciousness of what He is. So, in Matthew 11, He says, "No man knoweth the Son but the Father." And why? Because no man can fathom incarnate God; and the way He maintains it is by going down and down, for "He humbled himself," and became obedient unto death," etc. But He is exalted, and "His name is called the word of God," the Revealer of God. He appears in "a vesture dipped in blood," significant of His coming forth as a warrior.

We now arrive at the great announcement of the coming of Christ in power. Heaven, which had been opened on Jesus and to Stephen, now opens for Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords. Holy and true He had been known by faith, and the faithful and true Witness. The last He is now; not as witness, but in judgment, save as judgment itself is the witness of His faithfulness and truth. The characters in which He appears are plain but all-important. It is first in general judgment but in the form of war, not what we may call sessional judgment, but overcoming power. Sessional judgment is in Revelation 20:4. His eyes have the piercingness of divine judgment. He had many crowns, witness of His various and universal dominion. But, though thus revealed as man, He had a glory none could penetrate into; of which He had the conscious power, but which was not revealed. He was the avenger — His garment was dipped in blood. All characterised Him, we may note here, according to that in which He is manifested by the judgment itself. It was the Revealer, the Word of God — His eternal character — what He was before creation; now making it good in judgment.

Then heaven is opened, and for a sight most solemn. It is not now the temple opened there, and the ark of the covenant seen when Israel's security is seen, as the object of God's counsels; nor is it a door opened above, as we saw it when the prophet was giving his introduction to the prophecy of God's dealings with the world as a whole, though in both cases all manifestly clusters round the Lord Jesus. But now heaven is opened for yet graver facts, and of incalculable moment for man and the universe and the enemy. It is Christ Himself about to be displayed in His rights as King of kings, and Lord of lords; and this in the face of the world. "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse." Victorious power put forth to subdue is the meaning of the white horse. "And he that sat upon him called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." It is no longer a question of sustaining His saints in grace, but of sovereign power for judging the earth. "His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many diadems." There was judicial discernment with the distinct possession of all titles to sovereignty.