An Interlude of Promise, Praise, and Protection
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, Revelation 7:9
Revelation 7:1–17– The Book of Revelation: Worship. Obey. Endure.
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 14, 2022 (am)
We finished last Sunday emphasizing God’s unlimited authority and power in and over this world. Every judgment that rolls out on this earth gets the go ahead from His throne room. That could sound troubling to us, until we stop and think about whether God would truly be worthy of our worship if this weren’t true. What sort of God would He be if He were put in response mode by any occurrence in this universe? The very thing that makes Him God is that all things are subject to His power, responsive to His direction, and accountable to His authority. I like the way one pastor put it: … no power on earth can prevent, hinder, or delay God’s judgment. The natural and social forces of the world are at God’s disposal. Famine and plague do his bidding (6:8; 11:6; 18:8). All creation, from untamed animals to earthquakes, serves God’s call for judgment (6:8, 12; 8:5; 11:13, 19; 16:18) (Dever 537).
Today we’re going to see how that power and authority works for the well-being of God’s people. Last Sunday’s passage finished with a question from those who were living under the sixth seal, that introduces the final great tribulation to follow. Those people hadn’t embraced the joy of reconciliation with God through repentance and faith, and they were terrified! They were 6:16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Their assumption, I’m sure, was that no one can stand! But then we’re immediately introduced to two enormous groups of people (c.7) who seem to be standing just fine! In fact, they seem to be thriving! This is our text for today, c.7. And here we’re told what makes the difference between these people and those at the end of c.6. Let’s look at c.7 in its two clear halves.
The Multitude on Earth – 1-8
1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. The four corners of the earth isn’t a reference to first-century cosmology, as though the ancients thought the earth was flat and square. It’s figure of speech. And we should recognize that. We should also note that we have some instincts toward natural adjustments to the language of prophecy and apocalyptic. When we read aloud (1:3) works written in these genre, one of the blessings we receive is that we develop an ear for them, sort of like we do twenty minutes into an evening of Shakespeare.
What’s being referred to here is that these four angels have been given authority over all the winds that blow on the earth. They’re protecting the earth! With all the judgments to follow, we know the danger the earth can face. But with these angels on duty, not a breath of wind will blow awry.
Also, notice their description as the text continues: these four angels had been given power to harm the earth and sea (2), using the four winds or anything else in creation I’m sure! Yet, they could also withhold harm on demand (3). And that’s just what they’re told to do by this additional angel who’s ascending from the rising of the sun (2). 3 … Do not harm the earth or sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. Isn’t this interesting? Fully six-and-a-half chapters before we’re introduced to the mark of the beast (13:16-18), we’re introduced to the mark of the Lamb! The seal of the living God! But which do we hear about more?
This angel who has the seal of the living God [ascends] from the rising of the sun (2). He comes from the east. That’s the same direction from which the glory of the Lord entered and filled the temple in Ezekiel’s vision (43:1-5). God is moving not just to mark His people here, but to seal them. This isn’t just identifying them as His, but authenticating them, validating them, not unlike the seven-sealed scroll (c.5). But even more it’s like the blood on the doorpost during the tenth plague in Egypt (Ladd 112). It’s protection. Under the fifth trumpet (9:1-12), a judgment of locusts with the power of scorpions (9:3), we read: 9:4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And the first bowl judgment (16:2) [comes] upon the people who bore the mark of the beast. This is protection.
Do you think anyone with the seal of God needs to fear the mark of the beast in any way? I think that’s a pretty important question to address. But we’ll get back to it a bit later.
4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. Then the tribes are listed: Judah, Reuben, Gad (5), Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh (6), Simeon, Levi, Issachar (7), Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin (8). This listing matches no other in Scripture (Ladd 114). For instance, in Gen.49, when Jacob was blessing his sons, he lists each of them by name, including Joseph. But then when the tribes are listed in Eze.48, which is generally understood to be describing the millennium or even the eternal state, the prophet replaces Joseph with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, just as we’d expect since they’re tribes that inherited land. And Levi is removed because his offspring were priests in Israel, so the Lord was their inheritance (Eze.44:28); they didn’t receive land. That’s the listing we expect to read here in Rev.7. But we see neither of these. Joseph is included (8). And so is Levi (7). But Dan is omitted, even though he was named first by Ezekiel (Eze.48) (Ladd 115). And Manasseh is listed (6). But Ephraim isn’t.
This is indeed a strange listing, and no one knows for certain why. But that’s what first tips us off to the fact that something unusual is happening here. It can initially seem as though the Jews on earth—and it sounds like every one of them, meaning, an enormously large number that suggests apocalyptic completeness, 122x103—are being sealed by God so that they won’t be harmed as the sky [vanishes] like a scroll… and every mountain an island is removed from its place (6:14). But how are we to understand this?
Before we try to answer, let’s look at this second multitude.
The Great Multitude in Heaven – 9-17
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, recalling God’s promise to Abram (Gen.12:3), standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands—these are conquerors (cf. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; cf. 14), the community of the redeemed clothed in white robes (9). The palm branches are a symbol of victory, of deliverance and peace—shalom. Israel used palm branches to rejoice before the Lord at the Feast of Booths (Lev.23:40), celebrating their deliverance from Egypt (see Beale 1999 428).
10 [And their celebration here was], “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” It’s wholly His work! 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Sevenfold worship!
So, who are these people, this innumerable multitude, clothed in white? Interestingly, that’s the question one of the elders asked John (13)—not vice versa! But John turned it back to him. 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. … Isn’t that interesting? How is it that anyone could say the church doesn’t go through the great tribulation when these are the ones coming out of it—present tense, ongoing action; right now, here, they’re coming out of the great tribulation! With the fifth seal (6:9-11) as background, every insinuation is that they died in the great tribulation, whether as straight-up martyrs or as faithful Christians (conquerors) who endured persecution without compromise until their death. This is the church—the redeemed from every ethnicity in the whole world, clothed in white robes and worshiping around the throne of God!
But how does this group relate to the first group (1-8)? At first blush, it could seem like this would confirm the view that says the church is in heaven at this point, and the great tribulation into the millennium is for the Jews on earth. After all, aren’t these two groups clearly distinguished from one another? The first is explicitly numbered while the second, no one could number (9). The first seems to be on earth (1, 3) while the second is in heaven (9). And the first is explicitly Jewish while the second is omni-ethnic. Isn’t John laboring to help us see these as different groups?
Honestly, I think he’s doing just the opposite. I think he’s laboring to help us see them as the same group. They’re the church. The first group is the church on the threshold of the great tribulation, and the second is church accumulating in heaven during the great tribulation (Ladd 116), along with the redeemed from all the ages.
Please understand, this isn’t what some call replacement theology, where the church replaces Israel as the people of God. In fact, again, I believe it’s just the opposite. This is not the church replacing Israel. This is Israel having come into the church, having trusted in Jesus as their promised Messiah and therefore becoming one new man (Eph.2:15) with believing Gentiles, thus making up the church! I believe John is showing us here that the full number of ethnic Jews, the elect among Israel, will become part of the redeemed community, the church, just as Scripture has promised they will (Rom.11).
The first clue he gives that this is what he’s doing is the odd listing of the twelve tribes. He’s identifying the reconstituted people of God on earth, already having believed (3), now receiving the seal of God on their foreheads to protect them during the hard days to come. It seems odd to think that these are the Jews who come to saving faith during the great tribulation when what I believe we’re seeing here is that they’ve already come to saving faith before the great tribulation. That’s why they’re being sealed before that harm comes to the earth, so they’ll be protected when it does. These believing Jews stand in contrast to the synagogue of Satan mentioned twice in the seven letters (2:9; 3:9); those were unbelievers from ethnic Israel. These are believers who are part of the church. And surely if they had already believed in Jesus before the church had been raptured, they wouldn’t have been left on the earth. The church is one new man made up of Jew and Gentile alike with no dividing wall of hostility separating them any longer. Jesus has broken that down at the cross (Eph.2:13-16).
So, I believe the 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel (4) is intended to show us at once not only an image of the full community of the redeemed on earth, but is also spotlighting the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, reminding us that Rom.2:28 … no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. … It’s reminding us that God’s plan to unite all things in [Christ] (Eph.1:7-10) is being achieved! Gal.3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. This description (3), the servants of God, is used three other times in Rev. (2:20; 19:5; 22:3), and each of those times it refers to the entire community of the redeemed.
Also, Eze.9 is clearly in John’s mind as he finds words for what he’s seeing here. And there the mark that the Lord commanded to be put on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in [Jerusalem] (Eze.9:4) distinguished between genuine believers and unbelievers in that day (Beale 1999 413). The clearest indication is that it does that same thing here.
And one more thing, we’ve seen this pattern before: John says: 4 … I heard…. And then: 9 … I looked…. This is just what we saw in 5:5-6: John heard about a Lion, then he turned and saw a Lamb—not either/or, both/and! I think the same is true here.
All this said, I believe we’re looking at the church in both halves of Rev.7. They’re promised protection at the start of the heavy season. They’re sealed for it. Yet, clearly this is promised protection of their faith, for many of them will yield up their bodies (7:14; cf. 6:9). True believers will be sealed against the possibility of rejecting of their Savior under any form of persecution, and they will eventually, by whatever means, join the 9 … great multitude that no one [can] number…, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! They will continue on 15 … [serving God] day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. I think that’s what this reference to his temple is talking about, his presence, because we know there’ll be no temple in the eternal city (21:22). 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat (apocalyptic images). 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd (No fears! No lack! No unmet need!), and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (see 21:4). This is not just an image of the church as it accumulates in heaven during the great tribulation. This takes us all the way through to the new heaven and new earth. God’s people will be safe in His presence until then! Until forever!
Just one last thing: what about our lingering question? Do you think anyone with the seal of God needs to fear the mark of the beast in any way? With these closing three verses in c.7, the answer is clearly, no. But we’re given additional testimony to this fact as we move ahead in this book. So, let’s look ahead for just a moment as we finish. The saints are sealed in c.7. Then literally all hell breaks loose in cc.8-13. But in c.14 we come back to these 144,000 again and you know how many are missing? Not one! Every single one of them remains standing before the throne (9) with the Lamb (14:1). And now it’s not their ethnicity that’s spotlighted, but their purity, their obedience, their faithfulness (4-5); they follow the Lamb wherever he goes (14:4) (Dever 541).
Conclusion
So, what’s our take-away today? Three simple sentences: (1) God’s people will be preserved until they’re in his presence. (2) God’s people will be shepherded by Him now and forever. (3) God’s people will worship Him in time and eternity. We can count on all this because we’ve already been Eph.1:13 … sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of [God’s] glory (Eph.1:13-14)—the seal of the living God (2).
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Resources
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NEXT WEEK’S SERMON: The Prayers of the Saints Are Answered, 8:1–13