Revelation 7:4-8

Revelation 7:4-8. One or two subordinate points may be noticed before we ask who these sealed ones are. (1) There is no difficulty in determining the manner in which the number 144,000 is obtained. First we have the number 12, that of the witnessing Church, taken from the 12 tribes of Israel; and, multiplying by 1000, we have the number taken from each tribe. This number is then multiplied by 12 for the twelve tribes, and yields 144,000. (2) In looking at the names of the tribes several remarkable circumstances at once strike the eye. (a) Dan is omitted. The reasons generally assigned for this are either that Dan had been peculiarly given to idolatry (Judges 18:1-31), or that it had disappeared as a tribe in the days of St. John. Both reasons are unsatisfactory; the first, because the idolatry of Dan does not appear to have been so excessive as to warrant its extinction; the second, because the fact has not been ascertained, and because, even though ascertained, it would be little to the purpose; for, as in the case of the Tabernacle, the Apostle takes the ancient condition of things for his guide. A more probable explanation is to be found in the words of Genesis 49:17, ‘Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path,' a prophecy which, interpreted in a good sense denoting subtlety and skill in dealing with enemies, may have been the occasion of the tribe's choosing a serpent for its emblem. When we remember St. John's allusion to ‘the old serpent' in chap. Revelation 12:9, and the possibility that in Revelation 2:24 he has the early heretical sect of the Ophites in his eye, the supposition seems not improbable that this connection of Dan with the ‘serpent' may have been enough to make the Seer leave out that tribe from his enumeration of the twelve which constitute the Christian Church. It may be worth while also to recall to mind that, when the twelve apostles received God's seal of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, one who had originally belonged to their number was no longer there. He had been cast out because he was ‘a devil,' and his place had been supplied in order to make up the sacred twelve. St. John may have seen in this a sufficient indication that, when the twelve tribes making up the Church were to be sealed, it was proper that one of the original number, because found unworthy, should be absent, and its place be taken by another. (b) Levi is included, and this, owing to the peculiar inheritance of Levi, was not usual in the catalogues of the tribes given us in the later books of the Old Testament. The explanation usually offered seems correct. In the Old Testament Levi was the priestly tribe, and stood apart; in the New Testament such distinctions have passed away. All Christians are priests. The distinction between ministers and people are distinctions of function only, and do not touch the personal relations of each man to God. (c) Instead of Ephraim Joseph is substituted. This seems to be due to the fact that throughout the Old Testament history Ephraim was peculiarly untheocratic, so that it became the symbol of opposition to faithful Judah (Psalms 80:2; Isaiah 7:17; Jeremiah 7:15). (3) The order in which the tribes are named is worthy of notice. It is possible, indeed, that because of chap. Revelation 5:5 Judah may come first, and that Benjamin, as the youngest, may with propriety be last. Beyond this it seems as if nothing can be said. The tribes are not mentioned either in the order of the birth of the sons of Jacob, or of any pre-eminence we may suppose to belong to the children of his wives over those of his maidservants; nor is their order that of the lists presented to us in Ezekiel 48:1-27; Ezekiel 48:31-34.

We are now prepared for the further and more important inquiry, Whom do the 144,000 represent? Is it simply Jewish Christians? and, it not, Is it a select number out of the Christian community, or the whole of that community itself? These two inquiries may be taken together, and the following considerations will supply the answer:

1. According to the analogy of the Apocalypse, in which Jewish terms are christianised and heightened in their meaning, the word ‘Israel' must be understood not of Jewish only but of all Christians. Such is also the lesson taught by the strain of the New Testament generally (Romans 2:28-29; Romans 9:6-7; Galatians 6:16; Philippians 3:3). 2. The number 144,000 is a complete number the number of the Church (not of Israel in its more limited sense) multiplied by twelve, and then taken a thousandfold. Christians so numbered can hardly be Jewish believers alone, but must be the Church of Christ in its widest extent and final comprehensiveness. 3. There is no limitation of the 144,000 in the description given of them in the third verse of the chapter, ‘Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.' These words seem to imply that all the servants of God, and not merely a select portion, were to be sealed, just as the whole earth, and not a part of it only, was to be left unhurt 4. In the fourteenth chapter of this book we have again the 144,000 brought before us, and there the vision follows the description of the enemies of Christ, as these enemies have reference not to any one portion of the Church but to it all, while it precedes that harvest and vintage of the earth which are to be wide as the whole world in their effects. 5. In chap. Revelation 14:1 the 144,000 standing with the Lamb upon Mount Zion are spoken of as having ‘His Father's name written on their foreheads;' and in chap. Revelation 22:4 this trait marks all the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem ‘and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.' 6. The changes made in the tribes as here given, although the grounds of them may not be very clear, indicate in part at least that we are not to think of the literal Israel, and thus strengthen the argument. 7. In chap. Revelation 21:12 the ‘twelve tribes' evidently include all believers. 8. There is another marking spoken of in various passages of this book, that by Satan of his own (chaps, Revelation 13:16-17; Revelation 14:9; Revelation 16:2; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:4), and no one acquainted with the style of St. John will doubt that this marking is the direct antithesis of the sealing by God. A comparison of the several passages referred to will also show that in both cases a sealing or marking on ‘the forehead' is spoken of. Now it will not be denied that the mark of the beast is imprinted upon all his servants, and the contrast requires that the seal of God should be equally imprinted upon all His people. 9. The plagues that are to come threaten all, Gentile as well as Jew: the sealing must in like manner protect all believers. 10. The next following vision has its scene laid in heaven, not on earth; so that, if Gentile Christians are not included among the tribes of Israel, they are nowhere spoken of as ‘sealed.' We conclude, therefore, that we have before us neither Jewish Christians in particular, nor a select portion out of the whole Christian Church. To the Church of God in every age and land the sealing is applied, and in it there is neither Jew nor Gentile; all its members are one in Christ Jesus.

A second important question meets us, At what time does the sealing take place? The answer is involved in what has been said of its comprehensiveness. If the 144,000 are the whole Church of God, then the sealing goes on during all the Church's history. Through all the period of their earthly struggle God has been preserving and sealing His own. The vision has relation to no particular or limited period.

Another vision follows.