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Okay, we covered verses 1-2 last week of Revelation 7 and pretty much covered verse 3 too.
Let’s re-read our first three verses and then we will bust into our verses for today.
Revelation 7:1 “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,”
(Verse 3) saying . . .
Revelation 7. Part II
Meat
July 23rd 2017
3 Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
Again we covered this last week and I suggested, based on biblical proof texts, that the sealing in the forehead of individuals was that of the Holy Spirit, and the placement of the forehead has to do with the Word or words of God being firmly planted in the renewed mind of such.
Could be wrong and others have a number of differing views on this – even John Steven says that the mark is the name of Jesus.
So let’s read on with our text for today where John says:
4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.
7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.
8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
John adds:
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
So let’s go back to verse 4 where we are introduced to the magical biblical number of 144,000.
4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
Alright, let’s get into this a bit more. First of all let’s state some of the obvious things.
John hears the number of them that were sealed with the mark in their foreheads – he does not see – it was communicated to him.
The number was 144,000 and this number will be equally divided among twelve tribes, assigning 12,000 to each of them.
You may see this as a literal number or you may see it as representative. There are arguments for both, after all there were twelve literal tribes so why wouldn’t there be 12,000 in each?
I just personally, due to other times where a thousand is representative, see 12000 being too on the nose, and it representing the total number of those in each tribe whom God has sealed with the Holy Spirit.
We also note that the number that would be sealed were said to all be of the specifically named tribes of the children of Israel.
Now, if the number 12,000 is not literal are these twelve tribes? I mean how, in the very same verse, am I able to say that the number stated is figurative but the tribes are literal?
I really shouldn’t be able to. Quite frankly it is sort of inconceivable this could mean, at this time and in that day and age, that the meaning of the tribes was literal.
Ten of their literal tribes had been long before carried away into dissimulation – totally scattered as it were. I mean their distinction as an actual tribe by this time was lost and would never be recovered.
Therefore, if we are going to remain honestly consistent, what John says in terms of literalness in name or number is far-fetched. However, we have to ask, what are these tribes named by name representing? What are they a symbol of?
First of all, the only ones to be saved in the chronological truth of this book were going to be those of the House of Israel who had received the mark of the Holy Spirit in their foreheads.
Secondly, we are speaking primarily of Jews who converted to the faith at the hands of Jesus and or His chosen apostles.
This was whom Jesus came for, it is who His apostles preached to first, and then – and this is important – those who received Christ from the pagan heathen gentile world were adopted into the House of Israel – into which exact tribe I would suggest all gentile converts were adopted into the tribe of Judah as it was through another of that tribe that redeemed them – even Jesus.
So third, we might suppose that any Jew who converted did so and whether they knew what tribe they were of or not, God did, and so John simply says that this amount came from this tribe and this amount came from that.
Because the number is representational, I can’t help but believe the tribes are as well, and while there were some of every one, that “some” is unknown.
I do think, however, that the representational sum of 12,000 is a relatively small number relative to the number of Jews in each tribe that was on earth at the time (if they could have been assembled and counted).
I mean when we consider the number that were killed – some million two-hundred thousand – the total saved represented a tithe (or ten percent) with each individual tribe contributing only 1 percent to the whole.
In other words, hardly any from the tribe at large were sealed, but those who were sealed were “of all the tribes.”
In fact when we consider the Greek it better reads that the number of 144,000 “came out of these tribes” so in the specification in each tribe some out of the tribe, to wit, twelve thousand, were sealed.
Let me try and explain this another way.
Greek New Testament scholar Elliott says frankly of this verse:
(ON BOARD)
“When the preposition “ek,” (or out of), stands after any such verb as “sealed,” between a definite numeral and a noun of multitude in the genitive, sound criticism requires, doubtless, that the numeral should be thus construed, as signifying, not the whole, but a part taken out.”—
Elliott, i. 237.
So . . . (verses 5-8)
5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.
7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.
8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
Again, I believe that each portion of the Christ’s church would furnish a definite part of the whole number sealed and saved.
Again and in other words, a selection of the true servants of God were made from the whole number of the tribes of Israel.
Notice that Judah was mentioned first.
Judah was not the oldest of the sons of Jacob, and there was no settled order in which the tribes were usually mentioned except by birth, which, in Genesis was
“Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin.”
But in the blessing of Jacob, this order is changed, as follows:
“Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, Benjamin.”
Then in the blessing of Moses, found in Deuteronomy 33:1, a different order still is observed:
“Reuben, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Joseph, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Dan, Naphtali, Asher; and in this last order Simeon is
Missing!
So again in Eze 48:1 and then 48:31-34, there are two enumerations of the twelve tribes both differing from each other within the same chapter!
From facts like these, it is clear that there was no certain and settled order in which the tribes were mentioned by the sacred writers.
That being said, Judah is NEVER mentioned first, and I personally think that Judah is first here because the most converts (from the Gentiles) came from them and therefore his line through Christ.
I have no proof of this but for some reason I believe there were more Gentile converts to Christ in 70AD than Jews.
Could be greatly mistaken on this but that’s where I stand presently.
In terms of what is actually being described here in verses 1-8 a number of interpretations exist (or course).
Obviously, from the exposition of the words and phrases given, it’s obvious that we are looking a series of events that will include:
(1.) Some impending danger that will in some fashion sweep everything away–like winds that were ready to blow on the earth.
(2.) That tempest was restrained or held in check by an angel, and were not suffered to sweep over the world.
(3.) That a command was given that until all that were supposed to receive a mark in their forehead, a seal received it, nothing was to be harmed.
(4.) That a selection of either a specific or a representational number were to be sealed in their foreheads to God. And that
(5.) This number taken from all the divisions of the professed people of God, in my opinion, Jew and Gentile.
The futurist believe the elect are still being gathered and stamped today.
The historicists suggest that this gathering is an on-going event that reoccurs frequently over the course of human history OR that it is a picture of spiritual redemption having zero basis in reality (the idealist).
Of course the position I take is the fulfilled view which suggests that everything Jesus has said, and everything that the apostles have said, was coming to pass when they said it would – including the destruction of Jerusalem, and all who were not sealed in their forehead with the Holy Spirit of God prior to his coming.
Of course, I simultaneously believe that the content we are reading here in this chapter is a spiritual type or picture for every individual today.
That God continues to draw and call all men to come to His Son by the Spirit, and the grim reaper, the whirlwind, is set for every man.
Those who are not found with the stamp in their forehead, that of a renewed mind by the holy spirit through the washing of the Word, will too reap the whirlwind in the afterlife, while those seal will reap all that the Father has for them.
Okay let’s move on into verse 9 – a new topic where John says:
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
We tend to read this as in succession but it may or may not be. The Greek is simply “meta tauta,” after these things I saw or had another vision.
This seems to imply that after the sealing of the 144,000 the following would be seen but as we’ve learned this is not always the case.
Thus far, is seems so, but we don’t know the space of time between the sealing of the 144,000 and the events of this next vision.
Quite frankly, the vision sort of seems to be transferred from earth to heaven–for the multitudes which he saw appeared “before the throne,” (Re 7:9) that is, before the throne of God in heaven and we don’t read anything about the throne of God in relation to the sealing of the 144,000.
To me it SEEMS that the design of this vision is to carry the reader forward and beyond the storms on earth to the gathering of the church in heaven.
So instead of leaving us with the idea that just 144,000 – a limited number, fixed as it were – were going to be saved, we are now given an entirely different impression – as the host of heaven is now described as “innumerable” and they are gathered from all nations, (all ages – all ages) all climes, and all people who are triumphant in glory.
I am going to say it as I see and believe it.
There are times when I read Jesus coming to earth and telling the people that He has only come to the House of Israel, even to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, and when He tells His chosen disciples to only go to all of Israel but to avoid the Samaritans etc., that in my flesh I get selfishly bothered.
Add in that without question the New Testament is a record of God’s dealing with them then, and it is not a material record for us on what is to come (except in cases like this 9th verse in Revelation 7) I start to think, “what the heck? Are we all just chopped liver?” (Whatever that means).
This attitude can be tempting if we allow ourselves to think that what Jesus did among His brethren the Jews was primarily to them and them alone.
But then we read other factors that were applicable to them and them alone. Factors that include:
The horrors of destruction for all who rejected Jesus in that day and age.
Dark punishment in sheol of the faithless who were not faithful in the Old Testament economy.
The limit of a total of 144,000 who were sealed and protected at the end of the age by the Romans, which represented about 10% of the whole Jerusalem population.
The fact that as believers they went through tribulation we could only have nightmares about.
And then I remind myself of the following:
That after the vision of the 144,000 sealed before the unleashing of the seventh seal, John sees what he describes in verse 9:
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
And I see the great and grand victory God has had through His Son – that any and all, of every ethnicity, every population, every tongue – were there clothed in white, standing before the throne of God, and having palm branched in their hands – symbolic of victory.
John says the number of the multitude is so big no man could count them. So when we read in scripture few be there that find it, we can’t help but wonder if this was speaking more to the Jews of that age then the masses of gentiles who, over the ages, would come to receive and believe.
All things considered I personally have to believe this. That in and through Christ innumerable masses will, dressed in white as a symbol of purity and holiness to the Lord, will be gathered around the throne of God.
That the idea of very very few was tied to the Jews then, and the number of 144,000, which was a slight number considering the total number, but we make a mistake in continuing to use this idea of few be there that find it upon ourselves in our day and age.
John says it – after that he say innumerable multitudes dressed in white. I suggest that this represents the body of believers over the course of all human history.
Theirs “is” the Kingdom of heaven. And while I am similarly convinced that all people will reap what they have sown after this life, that such only relates to how God seeks to equip them in their resurrected bodies, but has nothing to do with citizenship in the heavens, any more than being five foot 1 or six foot seven has any bearing on people being human.
So after John says:
“I then beheld,” he adds, “and lo!” Which is sort of like admitting surprise.
“Lo and behold, right dare in the supramarket was an red lipped bat fish!” sort of thing.
Our attentions were just last week fixed to a relatively small number (by and which God worked to bring about the salvation of human kind) and now our attention has been moved to a countless multiple.
John adds that they were of all ethnicities, all families, all peoples, all tongues – proving that the Good News was for all.
And where were they – standing before the throne of God.
If they are standing before the throne of God this suggests pretty strongly that they have been saved.
There are three general views on salvation in Christianity today.
The first is that of Calvinism which says God is the one who elects who will be saved and He does this of His own free will and it has nothing to do with the individual in the least.
The five point Calvinist then naturally infers that God does not elect some (many, to be factual) and these are elected to an eternity in fiery hell.
The second main view is the Arminian view which says God really really wants all men to be saved but by and through man’s free will few will because few have the desire to set their will aside for his.
The unspoken implication to this is God created human beings, subjected us to the effects of the fall (which made us selfish in our flesh) and therefore knew that most would not choose Him over themselves – therefore in Arminianism most are going to, again, burn in hell forever, but we have to wonder, is it really their fault if they entered the world disabled in their ability to choose him in the first place.
The third view is Christian universalism. This says that God through Christ has had the victory and therefore all will be saved no matter what, that there is no burning hell and God is so good He simply saved all of us irrespective of our desires.
This view is actually similar to Calvinism except in the positive. To a Calvinist God chooses some and there is no choice. To a Universalist God chooses all and there is no choice. Both systems present a despotic God who simply says, “My way only.”
The Arminian view fails in my estimation because man’s limited choices and abilities keep God from getting His desires – that all would come to Him and none would perish.
To me there is a fourth biblical view that allows for the sovereignty of God, the love of God, the free-will of man, and his or her inherent limitations that come by all sorts of factors in the flesh.
This view, which I call total reconciliation, says the following:
That God is a loving creator and as such includes free will – including factors of the Fall, genetics, nurture, etc. – into the configurations of the human experience.
By His foreknowledge of all things He allows all human beings to do what they will do and choose what they will choose working out all things to His good and expected end.
Those who desire and seek Him will find Him, those who don’t will not.
But ever knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and since no man can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit, all someday, will be moved by the Spirit to confess Him.
Since the wrapping up of the age of all things (relative to material religion) with Jesus having had the victory over all things (which I think is evidenced in the scene John is seeing here.
For God to have the total victory (making Him capable of redeeming all) but to simultaneously honor the free-will He has given to man (which makes Him good and not a despot), He allows for all to pursue what they want from the heart, and will reward them in the realms of the spirit accordingly.
So while all will ultimately, come to Christ bowing and confessing, those who did so freely and of their own desires will reap spiritually what they have sown while in their flesh.
Therefore, since the destruction of all things material in 70AD, all men and women who pass have been saved from their sin, and are immediately raptured (taken up) judged, and God gives them the body they will have for their eternities according to His free will.
Some will be given a resurrected body of honor and others a resurrected body of dishonor.
The end.
As we read in Revelation chapter 5, there was God on the throne, the one God, and the Lamb was in the midst of the throne.
They were in white robes and were waving palm branches, an ancient practice done in the presence of victory.
(verse 10)
10 And (they) cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
Another translation puts it this way:
Revelation 7:10 “And they are crying in a loud voice– ‘ Salvation be ascribed to our God who is seated on his throne and to the Lamb.’”
Again – and Im sorry, but I can’t let this go – I cannot ignore that even here in Revelation, from the mouths of the saved hosts gathered around the throne, that the cry is:
“Salvation be ascribed to our God who is seated on his throne and, and, and . . . to the Lamb.”
Oh, we need to be so careful not to make an idol of the creedal God called trinity. Don’t take this wrong or partially, I’m just saying, the preponderance of scriptural evidence for One God and his Only Human Son far outweighs what men have created for us to conveniently worship and use.
But we note that the redeemed ascribe their salvation to the Lamb as well as to Him who is on the throne.
I want to take the term, the Lamb here, which obviously speaks to Jesus, the One God’s only human Son, and speak as if we are talking about a real lamb.
The host cries “Salvation to our God” meaning, God is the author of the salvation of man; He is the provider of the plan, the implementer of the system, the one who chose to reach down and save us, and our salvation has been had by and through the Lamb, who took on wool and hooves and bleeting, and did not walk as other sheep or goats, but did all that His actual Father told Him to do, on our behalf, willing going to the slaughter, shedding its innocent blood for the remission of sin, and the resurrecting from the grave, having overcome all things for all sheep, all goats, and all wolves.
Attribution for salvation then is given BOTH to the One true God on the throne and, and, and . . . the Lamb.
At verse 11, we see a repeat of what we’ve seen in previous chapters that speak to what is occurring in heaven at this time as it says:
11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders (there are twenty-four of them) and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
12 Saying, “Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.”
In Revelation chapter five we saw a similar scene but the glory and praise was given to the Lamb. In my estimation, this was before the final scene of the body of believers gathered around the throne of God and so as our mediator to the Father, glory and honor were naturally ascribed to the Lamb of God.
There the hosts said:
Revelation 5:12 “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”
As the Only begotten (only made) human son of God who overcame the Law, sin and death, this was appropriate praise.
Was it different than what was said to God when He was praised? Let’s look:
and worshipped God, saying, “Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.”
Said to the Lamb but not to God:
He was slain . . .
to receive . .
“Riches” and “strength”
Said to God but not to the Lamb:
That unto our God be . . .
Thanksgiving
And might
Forever and ever.
Look are these terms carefully – and their context!
Jesus, the Lamb, was praised because HE was slain (the Only True God was NOT slain) and because He was slain he would RECEIVE . . . riches and strength (which is dunamis, which means, “miraculous strength” or strength to do miracles)!
The only true God was not said to receive riches or strength! See the difference?
And then to God, the hosts of the Redeemed did not say anything about his receiving riches or might through being slain but they merely say,
“Unto Him be thanksgiving and might.”
But the phrase, “unto Him,” means he has or possesses, and NOT that because of anything He did He would then “obtain or receive.”
That is a very different form of praise that was given to the Lamb earlier.
So, where both are praised in heaven, the praise is of a subtly but I think significant different kind or type.
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