Who Are The 144,000?

Throughout Revelation our attention is drawn to Jesus the Lamb. Beginning with the ‘Lamb that was slain’ and ending with the ‘Marriage of the Lamb’ we are reminded of the Jewish Passover. This is the setting for the 144,000 who have their robes ‘dipped in the blood of the Lamb’.

JESUS THE LAMB

The word ‘lamb’ occurs 105 times in the King James Version of the Bible.  It occurs 27 times in Revelation – 26% of the total.  There are 22 chapters in Revelation – 11 of them refer to ‘The Lamb’.

The Lamb that was slain

Lamb who Opens the seals

People who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb

Those who are the first fruit to the Lamb

The Song of the Lamb

The ‘Book of Life’ of the Lamb

Lamb stands on Mt Zion

Light of the Lamb

Wrath of the Lamb

12 apostles of the Lamb

Throne of the Lamb

Marriage of the Lamb

The Passover story continues in Revelation 7.  The angels who have power to pour God’s judgements on the earth are told not to harm the land, sea or trees (pointing to deconstructing first creation) until the servants of God (who have dipped their robes in the blood of the Lamb) are sealed. This mimics the Passover story found in Exodus –

“The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” Ex 12:13

“Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Rev 7:3

Throughout Revelation, people either have the mark of the beast or have robes ‘dipped in blood of the Lamb’ with the Fathers name on their foreheads.

These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Rev 7:14

Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. Rev 14:1

SYMBOLIC NOT LITERAL – The 144,000 are made up of the tribes of Israel.  To take this literally lacks the perception needed to understand the entire symbolic nature of the book of Revelation. When Revelation 5 tells us that the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’ is worthy to open the scrolls, we are then told that the Lamb opens them. When John is told he will be shown the Bride of Christ, he sees a building (New Jerusalem) descending from heaven. One symbol describes another. When we are told in Revelation 1 that Jesus holds 7 stars we are then told they are the angels of the churches. We are told that the lampstands are really churches – a symbol describing something literal.

144,000 = A MULTITUDE WITHOUT NUMBER

This Hebrew writing style is called emblematic parallelism.

Following this same pattern John hears a voice proclaiming the number of the sealed –

Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. Rev 7:4

Then John SEES what the voice is talking about – the 144,000 are in fact a multitude without number from every nation on earth.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes Rev 7:9

Thus Revelation spells out clearly (for those who see it) that the 144,000 are from every nation on earth, the same message as the 4^th Gospel –

Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. John 1:13

God always wanted people from every nation – that was always His intention for ‘Israel’. This is the point the Jews failed to comprehend (“We alone will build a temple to our God” Ezra 4:3)

Just as the Israelites were ‘passed over’ by the angel of death in Egypt, so too the saints are saved during the time of God’s final judgments on mankind

“Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Rev 7:3

(Extract from  Revelation – The Time is At Hand)