THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST TO HIS SERVANT JOHN
The Unveiling of the Kingdom on Earth and in Heaven
Lesson 10
The Ethical Stipulations Concluded
Chapter 7
The True Israel and the Reward of the Saints
Eternal
Father,
You have sealed us as Your own in the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy
Orders, sanctifying us by the indwelling of Your Holy Spirit to guide us on our
journey to eternal salvation. Your seal gives us a share in Christ's
priesthood, placing upon our souls an indelible mark that remains forever as a
positive disposition for grace and a promise and guarantee of Your divine protection
because not even sin can erase this mark. We thank You, Lord, for sealing us
as Your own. We pray in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
+ + +
The glory of the God of
Israel rose from above the winged creature where it had been, towards the
threshold of the Temple. He called to the man dressed in linen with a scribe's
ink-horn on his belt and Yahweh said to him, "Go all through the city, all
through Jerusalem, and mark a cross (a taw) on the foreheads of all who grieve
and lament over all the loathsome practices in it."
Ezekiel 9:3-4
It is God who gives us, with
you, a sure place in Christ and has both anointed us and marked us with his
seal giving us as pledge the Spirit in our hearts.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22
Jesus' warning to the priests of
the Temple: "I tell you, then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from
you and given to a people who will produce its fruit."
Matthew 21:43
Revelation Chapter 1 began with John's vision of Jesus holding seven stars in His hand (1:16), and in Chapter 5, he sees Jesus holding a document with seven seals. When Jesus took the biblion (little book) that was His will and testament (Rev 5:7), He began opening the seals, releasing a Holy War as He disinherits old covenant Israel for denying Him as their Messiah and making His New Covenant disciples His heirs (See Rom 9:6, 8; Gal 3:29).
The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews gives the reasons for the Holy War released by the opening of the seals. Read Hebrews 9:1-10 and 12:21-29 in which the writer addresses the Jewish-Christians of the New Covenant Church in circa AD 60. In Hebrews 9:8, the inspired writer, believed to be St. Paul, wrote: By this, the Holy Spirit means us to see that as long as the old tent (or tabernacle, meaning the Temple in Jerusalem) stands, the way into the Holy Place (the heavenly Jerusalem) is not opened up. When Jesus died on the cross, the Gospel of Matthew records that the thick curtain separating the Temple's Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was ripped in half from top to bottom (Mt 27:51). Because of Christ's work in His redemption/salvation of humanity from sin and death, no longer will anything separate us from the presence of God as the curtain separated the faithful from the Divine Presence of God in the Holy of Holies. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the miracle of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost inaugurated the New Covenant in the blood of Christ, but as long as the Temple (the "old tent") of the Old Covenant (and its imperfect animal sacrifice) remains, it impedes the full establishment of the New Covenant Kingdom.
In the second passage from Hebrews 12:21-29, the inspired writer compares the inauguration of the Sinai Covenant (when God came down in fire, smoke, and trumpet blasts on Mt. Sinai) and the New Covenant in Christ. The contrast is not so much between Moses and Christ but between the receivers of the two Covenants: the children of Israel and the Old Sinai Covenant with its Temple in Jerusalem, its temporal blessings and earthly symbols, and the faithful of the New Covenant, in which Jesus Christ is the eternal high priest in a heavenly Jerusalem (as viewed by John in Revelation) from whom all who belong to Him receive eternal blessings. The Old Covenant regulated life on earth only as an imperfect shadow of the heavenly life, the Baptized Christians' New Covenant inheritance in the blood of Christ. Therefore, for the Jews of Jesus' generation, to turn away from the New Covenant merits greater punishment (see Heb 12:25) than what befell the people of Judah when they turned away from the Old Covenant in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587/6 BC.
"The removal of what is shaken" in Hebrews 12:27 refers to the removal of the earthly Temple ("the old tent") to establish the unshakable kingdom of the New Covenant. The passage prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of Temple liturgical practices in AD 70. In every case, when God brought judgment on Old Covenant Israel in 722 BC and Judah in 587/6 BC, He ordered His prophets to give an advance warning concerning the coming destruction of divine judgment, providing an opportunity for repentance. If John's message was not written before AD 70, and if it was not a prophecy of the destruction of the Old Covenant Temple and the sanctions of the covenant curses on the Jews who rejected the Messiah (see Luke 19:44), then, for the first time in Salvation History, God did not send more than one warning just before the sentence of judgment was carried out. John is God's holy prophet in the same tradition as Isaiah, Habakkuk, Amos and the other prophets who foretold the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians before 722 BC, and Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel who were prophets of the judgment against Judah before its destruction by the Babylonians in 587/6 BC.
>The parallels between Ezekiel visions seven years before the destruction of Judah and John's visions in Revelation support this interpretation. In the chart below, you will notice that six of John's visions parallel Ezekiel's and even appear in the same order:
| Vision | Book of Ezekiel | Book of Revelation |
| 1. The Throne Room of God | Ezekiel Chapter 1 | Revelation Chapter 4 |
| 2. The book written on both sides | Ezekiel Chapter 2-3 | Revelation Chapter 5 |
| 3. The Four Horsemen | Ezekiel Chapter 5 | Revelation Chapter 6 |
| 4. The slain under the altar | Ezekiel Chapter 6 | Revelation Chapter 6:9-11 |
| 5. The wrath of God | Ezekiel Chapter 7 | Revelation Chapter 6:12-17 |
| 6. The seal on the Saint's foreheads | Ezekiel Chapter 9 | Revelation Chapter 7 |
If the Book of Revelation, recording John's visions, was reaching Christian churches of the New Covenant in Asia Minor in AD 64 or AD 66, the judgments of Chapter 6 were already taking place. "The Day of the Lord," as Peter predicted by quoting from Joel Chapter 3 on Pentecost in AD 30, was fast approaching (see Acts 2:14-20). Peter finished his homily by calling on all the Jews of Jerusalem who were listening to him to "Save yourselves from this perverse generation!" (Acts 2:40). Peter's statement recalls Jesus' warning to the citizens of Jerusalem that "you will draw down on yourselves the blood of every upright person that has been shed on earth, from the blood of Abel the holy to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. In truth I tell you, it will all recoil on this generation" (Mt 23:36). Jesus was not speaking of some future generation hundreds or thousands of years later but His generation that was also Peter and John's.
A generation is generally understood to be 40 years. The Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple approximately 40 years after Jesus' Ascension, on the 9th of Ab, AD 70. The Babylonians also destroyed the 1st Temple (Solomon's Temple) on the 9th of Ab in 587/6 BC. The destruction of both Temples of Yahweh occurred on the same date centuries apart. Is it a coincidence that both Old Covenant Temples were destroyed on the same day centuries apart, and the Jews of Jesus' generation, like the Israelites of the Exodus generation, had 40 years until each entered their "Promised Land"? Concerning the necessity of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the writer of Hebrews wrote: The Holy Spirit was showing thereby that while the first tabernacle was still standing, the way into the sanctuary had not yet been revealed. This is a symbol of the present time, in which gifts and sacrifices are offered that can never make perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but can only cleanse in matters of food and drink and various ritual washings: regulations concerning the flesh, imposed until the time of the new order (Heb 9:8-10, NAB translation). While the old Temple still stood, it was a symbol of the past. When it fell, and the old liturgy and animal sacrifices ended, the way into the New Covenant order was fully opened for New Covenant believers, the New Israel of the Universal Church (CCC 877).
It is important to remember that before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70, Christians, who were mostly converted Jews, especially in what had been Israel, still identified internally and externally with Israel. The founders of the New Covenant Church were not separatists. They believed themselves to be, as Paul defined them, the true heirs of Moses and Abraham (Gal 3:29; 4:21-31). The New Covenant Church was the fulfillment of all the prophecies and promises made to God's people down through Salvation History. The faithful remnant of Galilean Israelites and Judean Jews could not imagine that they would exist apart from Israel, Yahweh's Covenant Bride. Christ's message to the Church is that she is the New Israel who will be preserved in the collapse of the Old Covenant Israel and will obtain salvation through the risen Christ. In 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, St. Paul wrote to Gentile-Christians: you broke with the worship of false gods when you were converted to God and Jesus, His Son, whom He raised from the dead, to come from Heaven. It is He who saves us from the Retribution which is coming, that means preserving the New Covenant Bride of Christ from the judgment coming on the old.
In Matthew 24:15-25, Mark 13:14-23, and Luke 21:20-24, Jesus gave explicit instructions on how to escape from the tribulation that would befall Jerusalem. When the four Roman legions began to march on Judea in AD 68, the Christians remembered, obeyed, and were saved. Flavius Josephus recorded that about a million Jews died in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (Jewish Wars, 6.9.3 [420]), but there is no account of Christians perishing in that destruction. It was as Jesus promised in Matthew 24:13 when he said, "But he that endures to the end shall be saved." It is evident from the context of this verse that the end is not the end of the Christian's life on earth at the end of time when Christ returns, but instead the end of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the Old Covenant. Luke 21:18 repeats this same promise.
Revelation Chapter 7: The True Israel
Chapter 7 is an intermission or interlude between the breaking of the sixth and seventh seals of destruction. But in this interlude, there is another kind of seal, the Seal of the Living God. Its purpose is to secure the safety of God's people before the destruction the seventh seal unleashes. John's vision in Chapter 7 deals with the theme of salvation, which will continue in Chapters 12, 14, the end of 19, and in Chapter 21. John's vision in Chapter 7 has been and continues to be a vision of hope for suffering Christians down through the centuries.
Revelation 7:1-8 ~ God's Seal Upon the Faithful of the True Israel
1 Next I saw four angels, standing at the four
corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the world to keep them
from blowing over the land or the sea or any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel rising where the sun
rises, carrying the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful voice to
the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea, 3 "Wait before you do any damage on land or at
sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads of the
servants of our God." 4 And I
heard how many had been sealed: a hundred and forty-four thousand, out of all
the tribes of Israel. 5 From the
tribe of Judah, twelve thousand had been sealed; from the tribe of Ruben,
twelve thousand; from the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand, 6 from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand; from
the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand; 6 from
the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand; 7 from
the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand;
from the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand; 8 from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand; from the tribe of
Joseph, twelve thousand; and from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand had
been sealed.
Chapter 7 takes place in the interlude between opening the sixth and seventh seals and answers the question of the holy martyrs in 6:10 concerning the delay in delivering justice. Verses 1-8 are the first of two visions; the second is in verses 9-14.
1 Next I saw
four angels, standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four
winds of the world to keep them from blowing over the land or the sea or any
tree.
The symbolism in verse 2:
John sees four angels standing at the four corners of the world. Four is the number of the earth (four seasons, four cardinal directions, four winds). Yahweh commands the four angel-messengers to hold back His wrathful judgment, temporarily protecting the land, sea, and trees. The destruction for the four corners of the earth is reminiscent of Ezekiel 7:1-2 ~ The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows, "Son of man, say, "Lord Yahweh says this to the land of Israel: Finished! The end is coming for the four corners of the country."
While the words "land" and "sea" are in the genitive case, "trees" is in the accusative, indicating that St. John wishes to draw special attention to it. Throughout the Bible, trees are images of men; for example, see the parable in Judges 9:7b-15 that begins: Hear me, leaders of Shechem, so that God may also hear you! One day the trees went out to anoint a king to rule them. They said to the olive tree, "Be our king!" Usually, trees are symbols for the righteous people of God (see Ex 15:17; Ps 1:3; 92:12-14; Isaiah 61:3; Jeremiah 17:5-8 and Mk 8:24). In Jeremiah 17:7 the prophet says: "Blessed is anyone who trusts Yahweh, with Yahweh for his reliance. He is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it has nothing to fear, its foliage stays green; untroubled in a year of drought, it never stops bearing fruit."
The wind in Scripture is often connected to the coming of God and the action of His angels in either giving blessings for obedience or curse-judgments for Covenant for disobedience (Gen 8:1; 41:27; Ex 10:13, 19; 14:21; 15:10; Num 11:31; Ps 18:10; 104:3-4; 107:25; 135:7; 147:18; 148:8; Hos 13:15-16; Jn 3:8; Acts 2:2). The four angels are holding back God's judgment on the land, sea, and humanity.
2 Then I saw another angel rising where
the sun rises, carrying the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful
voice to the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea. 3 "Wait before you do any damage on land or at
sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads of the
servants of our God."
According to Jewish tradition, angels divided into two
groups, and verses 1-3 represent both groups:
The four angels are restrained from bringing judgment by another angel who St. John sees coming from the East where the sun rises and where God's actions in history traditionally came (Is 41:1-4, 25; 46:11; Ez 43:1-3), and the direction in which the entrance to the desert Tabernacle and later the Temple of God faced (also all early Christian churches).
This powerful messenger coming for the rising sun is either a representative of Christ or, as some scholars suggest, Christ Himself. Holy Scripture may help in interpreting this passage. See, for example, the verses from the Song of Zechariah quoted in Luke 1:77b-78 ~ because of the faithful love of our God in which the rising Sun has come from on high to visit us, to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow dark as death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Also see Malachi 4:2 and Ephesians 5:14; and in 2 Peter 1:17-19, St. Peter writes concerning Christ: He was honored and glorified by God the Father, when a voice came to him from the transcendent Glory, This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favor. We ourselves heard this voice from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have confirmation of the words of the prophets; and you will be right to pay attention to it as to a lamp for lighting a way through the dark, until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds."
The messenger carries the seal of the living God; in other words, He possesses the Spirit in abundance. St. John wrote, concerning Jesus: He who comes from heaven bears witness to the things He has seen and heard, but His testimony is not accepted by anybody; though anyone who does accept His testimony is attesting that God is true, since He whom God has sent speaks God's own words, for God gives Him the Spirit without reserve (John 3:31c-34b).
Question: On whom is the angel instructed to place God's seal, and why?
Answer: He is to seal all God's servants against the coming disaster.
Question:Are we also sealed as God's servants? See Ephesians 1:13-14.
Answer:Yes, in the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders.
In Ephesians 1:13-14, St. Paul wrote: Now you too, in Him have heard the message of the truth and the Gospel of your salvation, and having put your trust in it; you have been stamped with the Seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance, for the freedom of the people whom God has taken for His won, for the praise of His glory. And in Ephesians 4:30, he wrote: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with His Seal, ready for the day when we shall be set free. In John 6:27, Jesus declared that He was marked with His Father's seal. Also, see another reference to Christians marked with a seal in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (note the Trinitarian formula), and read CCC 698, 1121, 1295-96.
Historically and Biblically a seal was:
We can summarize by saying that the messenger in verse 2:
Many commentators see the angel-messenger coming from the sunrise as Christ, who has sealed us in His blood as children of God.
Question: Why does the angel who carries the Seal tell the other angels to "wait" before they devastate the land? See Eph 1:13 and 4:30 Answer:The Seal of the Holy Spirit covers the righteous before the applying of the Seals of wrath to the wicked: Pentecost precedes Holocaust!
Verses 1-3 have the same imagery and message as Ezekiel Chapters 7-9, in which God gives Ezekiel a vision of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587/6 BC, but not before those who are righteous are marked with a taw (can also be spelled tav; it is the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet and shaped like a cruciform; Ez 9:3). The early Church Father, Tertullian, (writing between 197-220) believed that God gave Ezekiel "the very form of the cross, which He predicted would be the sign on our foreheads in the true Catholic Jerusalem" (Tertullian, Against Marcion, iii.22, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol III, pp. 340ff.
As previously mentioned, in the ancient world, to mark anything with the "seal" of a person marked ownership, or power, or authority, or a guarantee of protection. In this case, all apply. As in the case of Ezekiel's vision, which parallels John's, the godly are marked as God's possessions for protection by His authority and, for the same purpose as in Ezekiel, for the destruction of the apostates in Jerusalem. Read Ezekiel Chapter 9.
The seal of God on their foreheads also has special Biblical significance:
For us, raised to renewed life in the New Covenant Sacrament of Holy Baptism, the seal of the Holy Spirit marks us as believers and as the covenant-keeping bond-servants of our God, who He will preserve from His wrath in the destruction of the ungodly. In our Revelation passage, the sealing of the faithful was not to save them from tribulation; just as in Ezekiel's time, the godly who were sealed still faced the exile to Babylon. God's messenger ordered the sealing of the faithful to preserve the True Israel of God as a holy seed, saved from apostate Israel to become the "firstfruits" of the New Covenant (see Rev 14:4). Even though the old Israel will perish, the new and Holy Israel, the catholic = universal Church, is to be chosen and sealed with the Spirit of the living God for eternity (CCC 877).
4 And I heard how many had been sealed: a
hundred and forty-four thousand, out of all the tribes of Israel. 5 From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand had
been sealed; from the tribe of Ruben, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Gad,
twelve thousand, 6 from the tribe
of Asher, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand; 6 from the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand; 7 from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand;
from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand;
8 from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve
thousand; from the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand; and from the tribe of Benjamin,
twelve thousand had been sealed.
John hears that the 144,000 sealed are 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of
Israel. It is a symbolic number: 12 x 12 x 1000. 12 is the number of
governmental perfection while 10, and its multiples, symbolize the perfection
of divine order. It is unclear who the 144,000 represent. The elder tells
John that they are collected from the twelve tribes of Israel and are specially
marked/sealed by God, but this list differs from the others of the twelve tribes
by including Levi and not naming Ephraim, but listing Joseph, and excluding Dan.
The first tribe named is Judah, Jesus' ancestral
tribe (c.f., Num 1:5-15, 20-43; 2:3-31). See the chart in Handout 1.
There are various interpretations concerning those who receive God's divine seal:
However, these are not the only ones to receive salvation. Those who receive God's seal are probably also the ones Paul calls the "first-fruits" of the restoration in Romans 11:25-32. In John's next vision, the 144,000 are part of the great multitude "from all tribes, and peoples, and tongues," suggesting Jewish and Gentile Christians united in the family of God. The Gentiles who became Christians throughout history appear in the next vision.
In these verses (Rev 7:4-8), the names of twelve tribes listed hadn't existed as twelve since the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC when the Assyrians dispersed the ten northern tribes of Israel into the Gentile world of the ancient Near East. The names are oddly manipulated to make twelve tribes. As mentioned above, the list omits the tribe of Dan, and the half tribes of Joseph (Manasseh and Ephraim) are manipulated to exclude Ephraim while listing both Joseph and his son Manasseh as tribes.
For centuries, scholars have puzzled over the order of the tribes in this list. Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, is named first instead of the firstborn, Reuben, because Judah is the tribe of Jesus Christ. But why that particular order for the others? The Fathers of the Church mentioned a tradition that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan, and that may be the reason for omitting his name. Dan seems to have been a rather unsavory character, and Scripture has very little good to say about him or his tribe. On his deathbed, his father Jacob/Israel pronounced these words for Dan: "May Dan be a snake on the road, a viper on the path" (Gen 49:17). This verse may be the origin of the tradition that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan. The other possibility for not naming Dan is perhaps that the tribe had no descendants. Many scholars assume the tribal order after listing Judah is without any plan, but given the Biblical writers' attention to detail, especially St. John, this seems unlikely.
If you are interested in working out this puzzle, see the Chart of the Twelve Tribes in handout 2 or in the Chart section. There are thirteen lists of the tribes from Genesis to Revelation, and no two are the same, but each has a reason for the differences. One suggestion for John's peculiar list that seems to have merit is that the names correspond to the pattern the twelve tribes made as they camped around the desert Tabernacle and later with the names of the tribes to be written on the gates of the four-cornered New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:12 (see Ez 48:30-35 for the list), starting from the eastern gate and working north, south, and finally west.
If you are interested, try drawing out the patterns of the encampment around God's holy Tabernacle, as well as the plan of the Temple gates and compare them. When drawing out the layout of the camp, pay special attention to Numbers 2:3. The three tribes on each side of the "Dwelling of the Testimony" are not side-by-side but extend perpendicular to the holy shrine: Encamped on the east side: Furthest toward the east, the standard of the camp of Judah (Num 2:3). Also, take into consideration that Judah was almost twice as large as most of the tribes so that the east side of your plan should extend farthest from the center. You will notice that after placing and labeling the various tribes that they form a cruciform shape around the Tabernacle (see handout 4 in Lesson 7). After working out the encampment plan and the Temple gate plan, compare them. This comparison works for the first six tribes, but then the pattern falls apart by jumping to Simeon and doesn't explain the absence of Ephraim and Dan.
Other lists of the twelve tribes are on the chart. Manasseh and Ephraim were the sons of Joseph and constituted ½ a tribe to equal Joseph. There is also a relationship to the women who gave birth to the twelve sons of Israel: LEAH = Ruben, Simon, Levi, Judah. From Leah's maidservant Zilpah = Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun. RACHEL = Joseph and Benjamin, and from her maidservant Bilhah= Dan, Naphtali. In the Desert Tabernacle plan, the Levites surround the Sanctuary, and twelve tribes (made by dividing Joseph into Manasseh and Ephraim) camp in four sets of three tribes. It is also worth noting that the tribe of Levi has no land. Remember, Israel as a people, was called to the priesthood of believers (Ex 19:6), but they lost that place in the sin of the Golden Calf to the clans of the tribe of Levi, which then belonged to the ministerial priesthood of the chief priests and camped around the Tabernacle. In the New Covenant Israel, the people of God replace the Levites and take their place once again as the "priesthood of believers" along with a ministerial priesthood. Scholars have been trying to figure out the significance of John's list for centuries.
As mentioned, the symbolic number 144,000 makes use of the perfect number 12 = divine perfection in (governmental) order. 12, the number of Israel, is squared then multiplied by 1,000 (the number 10 and its multiples reflect divine perfection in cardinal order). Multiples of 10 always symbolize abundance in the perfection of divine order (c.f., Dt 1:11; 7:9; Ps 50:10; 68:17; 84:10; 90:4). In this symbolic number, the New Covenant Church becomes the ideal Israel. It is Israel as it was meant to be in all its perfection and completeness as the holy army of God when each of the twelve tribes can field twelve full divisions in a numerically perfect divine army of soldiers for Yahweh! The unit of a thousand was the basic military division of the camp of Israel (see Num 10:2-4, 35-36; 31:1-5, 48-54; 2 Sam 18:1; 1 Chron 12:20; 13:1; 15:25; 26:26; 27:1; 28:1; 29:6; 2 Chron 1:2; Ps 68:17).
In the Prophet Micah's prophecy of the birth of the Messiah in 5:1-15, he wrote that even though Bethlehem was too insignificant to be considered seriously in the nation's military strategy as counted "among the thousands of Judah," yet, he wrote: from you One will go forth for Me to be Ruler in Israel. It is a pattern repeated from the first destruction of Jerusalem in 587/6 BC when Isaiah prophesied that a "holy seed," a remnant, would be saved (Is 6:13; 10:21-23). Paul writes about the same remnant when he quotes the Isaiah Chapter 10 passage in Romans 9:27-28: And about Israel, this is what Isaiah cried out: Though the people of Israel are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved; for without hesitation or delay the Lord will execute His sentence on the earth. Paul continued in 11:5 ~ In the same way, then, in our own time, there is a remnant set aside by grace.
God will not destroy 1st-century Jerusalem and make it desolate until He first chooses and seals a select number as the beginning of the redeemed New Israel. The New Israel (the Christian Church) is formed out of the chosen servants of God from the people He set aside as holy at Mt. Sinai, from the "twelve tribes of the dispersion." St James, bishop of Jerusalem, certainly saw the Christian Church this way as he wrote in his letter to the universal church before his death in AD 62: From James, servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Greetings to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion (Jam 1:1). James saw the universal New Covenant Church as the New Israel.
Question:After the first "Pentecost" at Mt Sinai, when God came down in fire on the
mountain and established the Israel of the Sinai Covenant, how long did He give
the Israelites to adjust to the laws of the covenant before taking possession
of the promised land? See Josh 5:6.
Answer: 40 years.
Question:After the second great Pentecost in the Upper Room when God the Holy Spirit
descended on the community in tongues of fire, how long did God give the New
Covenant Israel before He removed the Temple in Jerusalem, which was the center
of worship for the members of the Sinai Covenant? Hint: The Romans destroyed Jerusalem
and the Temple in AD 70, and most Biblical scholars date Jesus' resurrection to
circa AD 30. Do you think there is a connection between these two events?
Answer: 40 years for both generations cannot be a coincidence.
There are 40 days from Resurrection Sunday to the Ascension of Christ to the Father. There are 40 years from coming of the Holy Spirit on the second great Pentecost (50 days from the Resurrection) until the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70 by the Roman Army.
Revelation 7:9-17 ~ The Reward of the Saints
9 After that I saw that there was a huge
number, impossible for anyone to count, of people from every nation, race,
tribe, and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of
the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. 10 They shouted in a loud voice, "Salvation to our
God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" 11 And all the angels who were standing in a circle round the
throne, surrounding the elders and the four Living Creatures, prostrated
themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their foreheads,
worshipping God 12 with these
words: "Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power
and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen." 13 One of the elders then spoke and asked me, "Who
are these people, dressed in white robes, and where have they come from?" 14 I answered him, "You can tell me, sir [kyrios
= lord]. Then he said, "These are the people who have been through [ones
coming out of] the great trial [tribulation]; they have washed their robes
white again in the blood of the Lamb. 15 That
is why they are standing in front of God's throne and serving him day and night
in his sanctuary [naos]; and the One who sits on the throne will spread his
tent over them. 16 They will never
hunger or thirst again; sun and scorching wind will never plague them, 17 because the Lamb who is at the heart of the
throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes."
[...] = Interlinear Bible
Greek-English, vol. IV, pages 669-70.
Once again, John uses the literary device of hearing and then seeing. (1:10-13; 5:5-6; 6:1-8). In verse 4, John tells us, I heard the number of those who were sealed, then after these things, after hearing the number of the redeemed, I looked, and behold, a great multitude in verse 9. John has heard the "things that are," and now he sees "the things that are to come." In another sense, John has heard the people of God, who are definitely numbered; none of the elect is missing or unaccounted for, and the Church is perfectly symmetrical and whole. But now, from another standpoint, the Church is innumerable, a great multitude that no one could count.
From one perspective, the Church is the New, True Israel of God: the lost sons of Jacob (Israel) gathered in Christ, full and complete. From another perspective, equally valid, the Church is the whole world: an uncountable multitude redeemed from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues. John's vision of verses 1-8 can only refer to a part of the whole: those Jews who by accepting Christ as Messiah make up the original nucleus of the Universal Church, but now in verses 9-12, he sees the whole Church without any differences or distinctions. It is the fulfillment of the prophecy to Abraham in Genesis 15:5 that those who inherit the blessing of Abraham are as numberless as the stars of the heavens and in Genesis 22:17-18 that the whole world will be blessed when the Church fills the entire world! The salvation of Israel alone had never been God's intention. He sent His Son "that the world should be saved through Him" (John 3:16-17). It is what God the Father said to God the Son in planning the Covenant of Redemption in Isaiah 49:6 ~ It is not enough for You to be My Servant to restore the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the survivors of Israel; I shall make of You a Light to the nations so that my salvation may reach the remotest parts of the earth.
But why is it that only the 144,000 are to be "sealed"? That the 144,000 are actively being sealed is not to suggest that the multitude hasn't been. That is why most scholars believe that the second vision looks forward in time. In the earlier passage, it seems to be imperative that the faithful remnant receives God's protective seal because they are in imminent danger from the wrath that is shortly to come, just as the faithful remnant in the Ezekiel passage were in danger and must be sealed.
In verses 9-10, the multitude of saints is standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb in worship. They wear white robes symbolizing righteousness and carry palm branches, a symbol of the restoration of God's people to Paradise. In Revelation 7:9-10, the multitude/crowd of Saints shout "salvation" to God. Their shout is similar to the Jews on Palm Sunday, carrying palm branches and shouting "Hosanna," which in Hebrew/Aramaic means "Salvation" or "Save us!" (see Jn 12:13).
11 And all the angels who were standing in a
circle round the throne, surrounding the elders and the four living creatures,
prostrated themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their
foreheads, worshipping God 12 with
these words: "Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power
and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen."
The proper position to honor God/Christ is on our knees. Platitudes like "it
doesn't really matter if I kneel at the consecration or not, after all, it is
what is in my heart that counts" are statements without substance or meaning. Our
actions display the intentions of our hearts!
Question: Once again, the saints and angels pronounce seven themes to God's perfection.
What are the they? Compare them with the chant of the multitude in 5:12 where "praise"
in 7:12 is the same word as "blessing" in 5:12 (eulogia), but "thanksgiving"
(eucharistia) replaces "riches" (ploutos) in 5:12.
Answer:1. praise, 2. glory, 3. wisdom, 4. thanksgiving, 5. honor, 6 power, and 7
strength.
13 One of the elders then spoke and asked me, "Who
are these people, dressed in white robes, and where have they come from?" 14 I answered him, "You can tell me, sir [kyrios
= lord]. Then he said, "These are the people who have been through
[ones coming out of] the great trial [tribulation];
they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb.
In verse 13, one of the elders uses the "Socratic method" to teach the bewildered
John. He asks a question meant to encourage John to find an answer. When John
confesses that he doesn't know the answer, the elder explains that the ones who
have "washed their robes" in the blood of the Lamb have endured the great tribulation,
translated in the New Jerusalem Bible as "great trial." It is the same great
trial or tribulation that Jesus warned his disciples about as He spoke to them
on the Mt. of Olives in Matthew 24:20-21 when He said, "Pray that you will
not have to make your escape in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be
great distress, unparalleled since the world began, and such as will never be
again" (also see Mark 13:19). This is the Great Tribulation that Jesus
stated would take place during their generation in Matthew 24:34 ~ "In truth
I tell you, before this generation has passed away, all these things will have
taken place." (also see Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32).
14b they have washed their robes white again in
the blood of the Lamb.
From the beginning of humanity's fall into sin, blood was the means of atonement and
restoration, beginning with the animal God sacrificed to clothe Adam and Eve's (Gen 3:21) naked condition that was a sign of their spiritual nakedness caused by their
sin (no longer clothed in divine grace) as well as a symbol of providing
atonement with the animal's life. God states His plan for the atonement
quality of blood in Leviticus 17:11 ~ For the life of the creature is in the
blood, and I have given it to you for performing the rite of expiation on the
altar for your lives, for blood is what expiates for a life. The sacrifice
of Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross is the fulfillment of God's plan of expiation
and atonement for humanity's sins.
In verse 14, blood is, therefore, the symbol of the effectiveness of the death of Jesus and the blood He shed to cleanse us of all sin (see Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 11:25; Eph 1:7; Heb 9:11-14), and here the martyred saints receive its effects. There may be a connection to Jacob's prophecy for his son Judah: He washes his clothes in wine, his robes in the blood of the grape (Gen 49:11b) since in the Eucharist it is the "blood of the grape" that becomes Jesus' precious blood (also see Revelation 19:13). That the martyred saints have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb also echoes what the angel Gabriel tells Daniel what will happen to his people in the "final days" when the scroll he was told not to open is opened and will result in the termination of the Tamid sacrifice and the Sinai Covenant (Dan 12:4-13). In 12:10-12a, Gabriel says: "Go, Daniel," he said, "These words are to remain secret and sealed until the time of the End. Many will be cleansed, made white and purged; the wicked will persist in doing wrong; the wicked will never understand; those who are wise will understand. From the moment that the perpetual sacrifice [Tamid] is abolished and the appalling abomination is set up ... Blessed is he who perseveres" (see Daniel 12:4-13). The Tamid sacrifice ended in the summer of AD 70, as four Roman legions surrounded Jerusalem and prepared for the final battle.
Question:
What is the difference between the way the world sees the Christians who
are suffering injustice, and the way God sees those persecuted for His sake?
Answer:
God sees them as conquerors who have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.
Christians persecuted to the point of death because of their faith are united with Christ and purified by His blood. They stand before God's throne clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The washing in blood to be made white in verse 14 is an ironic contrast. It is the promise Jesus made when He announced the seventh Beatitude in Matthew 5:10, saying, "Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs."
In Revelation 7:14-17, the blessed before the throne of God are seen in two different situations:
15 That is why they are standing in front of God's
throne and serving him day and night in his sanctuary [naos]; and the One who
sits on the throne will spread his tent [tabernacle] over them. 16 They will never hunger or thirst again; sun
and scorching wind will never plague them, 17
because the Lamb who is at the heart of the throne will be their
shepherd and will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away
all tears from their eyes."
In verse 15, the elder continues to explain that because of their redemption and
union with Christ through His sacrifice, they stand before God's throne, worshiping
Him in His heavenly Temple. The Greek word translated sanctuary is naos. In
Greek temples, this word identified the sacred space where the image of the deity
stood or was enthroned. In other words, the equivalent of the Holy of Holies
of the earthly Temple in Jerusalem.
The great multitude in verses 9-17 includes all the saved and not just the martyrs because the elder states that they washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, not in their own blood. The Catholic Church teaches that everyone has to become associated with Christ's passion through suffering. St. Paul wrote, And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to share his glory (Rom 8:17). St. Augustine explains it this way: "Many are martyrs in their beds. The Christian is lying on his couch, tormented by pain. He prays, and his prayers are not heard, or perhaps they are heard, but he is being put to the test ... so that he may be received as a son. He becomes a martyr through illness and is crowned by Him who hung upon the Cross" (Sermon 286,8).
Question:What is the special mercy God will extend to the redeemed? See verse 15b.
Answer:He who sits on the throne will spread His tent/tabernacle over them.
The "tent" refers to the shade or covering of the Glory-Cloud of the Divine Presence that hovered over both the earth at creation (Gen 1:2) and guided Israel in the wilderness (Dt 32:10-11).
The blessing in verses 15-16 recalls God's promise of restoration in
Isaiah 49:10.
Question:What will be the result of the blessing? In verses 16-17, what are seven
promises, and what is the message associated with them?
Answer:
The promises are: 1. never hunger; 2. or thirst; 3. protection from the sun; 4.
and wind; 5. the Lamb will be their shepherd (guide); 6. and give them springs
of living water; 7. God will wipe away all their tears. In other words, in
their resurrected bodies, they cannot suffer pain or discomfort of any kind.
The redeemed have what the catechism of St. Pius V calls "the gift of impassibility," the inability to suffer pain or suffering of any kind (c.f., St. Pius V Catechism, I, 12, 13). Also see CCC 1508 and 1521.
Question:What two incidents in the New Testament remind you of the reference to the
springs of Living Water? See Jn 4:1-14 and 7:37 in which Jesus refers to a
prophecy of the Messiah from Isaiah 44:3.
Answer:Jesus promised "living water" to the Samaritan woman He met at a well, and in
7:37, He said: "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who
believes in me come and drink! As scripture says, From his heart shall flow
streams of living water.'"
John's vision of the great multitude of believers has comforted believers throughout the centuries. St. Pope John Paul II, commenting on verses 9-17, said, "The people dressed in white robes whom John sees with his prophetic eye are the redeemed, and they form a great multitude', which no one could count and which is made up of people of the most varied backgrounds. The blood of the Lamb, who has been offered in sacrifice for all, has exercised its universal and most effective redemptive power in every corner of the earth, extending grace and salvation to that great multitude.' After undergoing the trials and being purified in the blood of Christ, they, the redeemed, are now safe in the Kingdom of God, whom they praise and bless forever and ever" (Homily, 1 November 1981).
If John's vision was sometime between AD 64 and 70, the Church of the first century was about to witness the Great Tribulation that Jesus had warned them was to come to His generation. They were also in the early years of persecutions that would continue on and off for several centuries for Christians. It was not the Church's intention to destroy Rome as the Jews wanted. But, faithful to Christ's instructions to spread the Gospel over the entire world, they desired to convert Rome! Many would lose their lives, families, and possessions in these early centuries before the first Christian Roman Emperor would officially protect the Church from persecution (Constantine the Great in AD 313 with the Edit of Milan). But Christian persecution was not death but birth, the birth of the worldwide Kingdom of Christ.
It was John's vision of victorious saints washed in the blood of Christ that would sustain Christians throughout their years of persecution. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom under Roman Emperor Nero's orders in AD 67; Paul by beheading and Peter by crucifixion. Peter requested that the Roman soldiers crucify him upside down because he was not worthy to suffer crucifixion like his Lord. The Romans agreed to his request, and today an obelisk marks the place where Peter entered eternity. The beastly Roman Emperor Nero has long since passed to his eternal judgment, but the obelisk is still standing in the center of the great square in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Chiseled on its base are words which from the martyrs' hymn of triumph inspired by Revelation 6:2: "Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat" = Christ is conquering; Christ is reigning; Christ rules over all!
Please consult Timeline AD 30 " 73 from Lesson 1, handout 2 for a better understanding of the conditions of the world in which 1st century Christians were struggling to spread the Gospel of the Risen Christ.
Catechism references for this lesson
(* indicates Scripture quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Rev 7:1-8 (CCC 1138*);
7:2-3 (CCC 1296*);
7:3-4 (CCC 698, 1121, 1295-96);
7:9 (CCC 775, 1138);
7:10-12 (CCC 2642*)
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2000, revised 2019 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.