Earlier today I think God was trying to show me something interesting about the 144,000. So I just jotted down a bunch of stuff that came to mind that lead me through this interpretation (I did so in an email to my father, so disregard anything personalized to him... I tried to cut those parts out). I'm not good at formulating explanations on the fly, so I apologize if it's not taught well. I am not saying I'm correct (in fact, some people could probably correct some of my mess-ups, because this was all coming right off the top of my head). I'm just saying that this is interesting to look at, discuss, and study into:
Many times, things from the Old Testament dicypher things in the New Testament. But it's important to recognize that while the things of the Old Testament are actual events, when they are used to teach something in the New Testament, it is used figuratively to make a point about something, especially in prophecy. Prophecy is displayed in symbolic, figurative language.
For instance, here's a prophecy in Daniel 7:
Dan 7:2-4
2Daniel said, "I was looking in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.
3"And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another.
4"The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind also was given to it.
You remember all of this, I'm sure. There are four beasts:
1. A lion with eagle's wings
2. A bear
3. A four headed leopard with four wings of a foul
4. A 10 horned beast
Gabriel dicyfers these symbols for Daniel later in the chapter. He says:
1. Beasts = nations (nations are formed of people, so the waters/seas refer to people)
2. Heads and horns = leaders of those nations
The Medo-Persian Empire
Now, the first empire to rule over the Jews after that prophecy was the Medo-Persian empire. Their symbol is the lion with eagle's wings. Iran is now in that area. If you go to the old Persian empire buildings there, you will see the lions with eagle's wings statues. That's what their symbol was.
The Assyrian Empire
The bear was the symbol that the Assyrians used. The Assyrians came and conquered the Medo-Persiand and ruled over the Jews next.
Alexander the Great (The Greecian Empire)
The next empire to rule over the Jews was the Greecian empire of Alexander the Great. He conquered a tons of kingdoms, and he was known for doing this mindnumbingly quickly compared to everyone else in history. He did it in a matter of a few years. Once Alexander the Great died, his four generals divided up his kingdom into four kingdoms. These were the four heads of the leopard. Also, a leopard is known as the fastest, most efficient and effective killer in the family of cats, and compared to other animals as well. It is extremely fast, as Alexander the Great was, and it is the most cunning of the preditors, as was Alexander the Great. The four heads of the leopard were four leaders (the four generals that took over his empire and split it into four separate nations). The wings are used to represent something bad (I can't remember the scripture that dicyphers this at the moment). So anyway, the four headed leopard's symbolized Alexander the Great's Greecian Empire.
The Roman Empire
The Romans came in and defeated the Greeks and therefore ruled over the Jews next. Alexander the Great was faster than the Romans, but the Romans, over time, conquered more of the world than anyone else. Pure evil. The Romans were still ruling during Christ's time. Now, in Revelation, we see these same symbolic animals, but all combined into one entity. This is God trying to tell us what nations of the world would be included in this empire. So the Romans ended up conquering tons of empires, and each nation they conquered had its own leader, but ultimately, Rome had the power. Many horns on this beast = many leaders.
So, we see that in prophecy, there are symbols which refer to things. Prophecy is not very literal at all. It's very symbolic and figurative. And to really catch all of the symbols, one must know the Old Testament very well and understand the symbols in it that will be used when Jesus and Paul and other apostles speak about. For instance, Revelation speaks of the Fountain of Life coming from under the thrown of Jesus. The Old Testament speaks of this as well. So when Jesus tells the lady at the well He will give her water that will cause her never to thirst again, He is speaking figuratively, of course. You will see this constantly in prophecy and teaching in the New Testament.
Even the feasts are to represent what Jesus would come and do... the passover lamb (and all 25,000 lambs that are slained during the holidays) are symbols for Jesus and His sacrifice. Symbols are very important to understand to dicypher scripture.
Okay, now that the figurative language of prophecy has been established, let's see what the 7,000 people represent:
Paul's going to tell us the symbol of the 7,000 people from the Old Testament:
Romans 11:1-6
1I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 2God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah-how he appealed to God against Israel: 3"Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me"? 4And what was God's answer to him? "I have reserved for myself 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 5So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
God says He reserved 7,000 people whom have not bowed the knee to Baal (Satan). Those 7,000 people were God's saved people. And notice... this was just one tribe. The Tribe of Benjamin. There were 12 tribes. We know many Hebrews were saved in the Old Testament because when Jesus rises from the dead, it says that the "saints of old" rose from their graves and went into the Great City (Jerusalem) and showed themselvs to many (Matthew 27:51-52). Their salvation was completed when Jesus fulfilled it, and so they rose with Him. Those 7,000 people from the Tribe of Benjamin were among those that rose that day, because they were sanctified, sealed by God. You can see evidence of this "seal" in Jeremiah. God has Jeremiah seeing with his spiritual eyes, and Jeremiah says that he is walking through the city and some people have a mark of God on their forehead (aka - a seal). God tells Jeremiah that these are the people He's marked (ie - the people that didn't bow the knee to Satan/Baal).
Now, if there are 12 tribes if Israel, one tribe is only part of the whole 12. And 7,000 is only part this tribe of people. So 7,000 represents a part of a tribe of people, and the tribe of people itself represents only a part of the whole. 12 represents the whole of God's people. 12 tribes = all the tribes. 12 disciples = all the disciples.
Symbols
-7,000 = part of the whole tribe, and refers to people who do not worship Baal/Satan, meaning they serve God instead
-Tribe = Part of the whole of God's people.
-12 = The whole of God's people
-Seal = People which are saved (saints/sanctified) because they have not bowed the knee to Satan/Baal, because they chose the Lord instead
-Jerusalem/The Great City = God's people
-7 = The day on which God rested, the day God's work is complete. As you saw with the 7,000, they were saved by God, so they had "entered God's rest", they had entered the 7th day, God's day of rest. Here's the passage that shows this:
Hebrews 4:9-11
10 For He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
-a city = part of a nation, part of the whole, kind of like a tribe, because cities make up nations, and tribes make up the 12 tribes which is the nation of God.
(if a beast is a nation, according to Daniel 7, and people are the seas from which the beast/nation came, then a city is made up of people as well, and a nation is made up of many cities... Jerusalem, the City of God, was where God's people were in the Old Testament and where the Holy Spirit (God) resided in the Ark of the Covenant. And so the New Jerusalem in Revelation is referring to the people that make up that city, the people of God... the saved people... and the city of Mystery Babylon is referring to people who have bowed the knee to Satan instead of following God. That's why Babylon lead away captive many of the Hebrews back in Daniel's time... this was to show how in the future, many of God's children would be led into the evil of the world, and God would have to come save them out of Babylon and bring them back to Jerusalem. This happened when the 10 northern tribes were taken by Assyria and dispersed into the world, never to be heard again. Later, Jesus came and died for their sins, and they'd already mixed with the rest of the world and missed it. But missionaries went to teach about Jesus, and those people's offspring heard the good news hundreds and thousands of years later, and were saved... and still being saved today.)
-A Thousand = Many
Keep in mind that a "thousand/thousands" is used in scripture to denote many. The "millennium", if you look it up in the original Koine Greek, is an plural infinitive. Which means it doesn't necessarily specify 1,000/a thousand... it means thousands (infinitive). A great example of this is when you and I see a couple hundred people and want to express that there were many people, we would say, "Wow, there are thousands of them". It's a saying that denotes many, even though we know there may be less or more than a thousand. If we were to write that word in Greek, the sentence would say, "Wow, there are millenium/millenia of them". It's an idiom. Let's say you and I see a stadium with thousands of people in it. We wouldn't count the people. We'd just say, "There are thousands of people here." Or in Greek, we'd say, "There were millenia/millenium of people there." It's a Greek figure of speech they used to denote "many". If one of the 12 Disciples back in Jesus' time heard me call them "cool", they'd think I was calling them cold. Why? Because they wouldn't understand the idioms/sayings of my time.
Also, there is the verse that says, "With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like unto a day." Again, thousand is denoting "many", an idiom, a figurative term like our sayings we use in English now-days.
Therefore, we must understand the sayings of their time as well or we will misunderstand what they were saying in the Bible. Thousands is one of those symbolic terms, and idiom, God's own figurative langauge of idioms which He wants us to understand so we can better understand His word.
Symbols Being Used
Now, we're going to see some of this symbolism put into prophetic usage in Revelation:
Revelation 21:14 (The New Jerusalem)
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
There are those 12 popping up again. The 12 disciples are the ones that laid the foundation for Christianity through the Gospel of Peace, which is that Jesus saved us from our sins. So the protection of this city is that it's people have been forgiven and so sin cannot affect them anymore. The 12 disciples completed laid that foundation. 12 people. People make up a city. This city is symbolic of God's people.
Revelation 11:13 (7,000 in the city)
13And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
7,000 here is denoting a part of the city. Not an examct number of people in the city, just a part of the number of people in the city. 7,000 = a part of the whole tribe, or a part of the whole city. And the city is a spiritual city, as we saw with the New Jerusalem and with Mystery Babylon. So, this city being spoken of here has a mix of saved and unsaved people. Notice that when God brings this figurative earthquake on the city and these people die spiritually, this causes the remaining people in the city to worship and praise God. So the result of this catastrophy is that many begin to believe and get saved, apparently (don't necessarily assume this is happening at the end of time when Jesus returns... that's not necessarily the case, actually... it is likely this is referring to the great falling away which happened long ago).
Also take not of this: I probably messed up my explanation of what a "city" is up above. Because to be honest, all people that have ever lived are grouped into New Jerusalem (Believers) and Mystery Babylon (people that bow the knee to Baal/Satan by not following God), since those cities represent either believers or non-believers. That covers everyone. And at the end of the description of Mystery Babylon in Revelation 18, we see that the Bible says ALL the people who have ever died (spiritually) have died in Mystery Babylon. Mystery Babylon is representative of the world and we are being saved out of the world and brought into the New Jerusalem.
The 144,000
Now the 144,000 is going to be more clearly understood for what it actually means.
Revelation 7:1-9
1After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. 2Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 3"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." 4Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.
5From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,
from the tribe of Gad 12,000,
6from the tribe of Asher 12,000,
from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,
from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,
7from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,
from the tribe of Levi 12,000,
from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,
8from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,
from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,
from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.
The Great Multitude in White Robes
9After 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 in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb."
Paul talks about spiritual Israel, Abraham's seed:
Romans 11:1-2
1 I say then, Hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew.
2 Corinthians 11:22
Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.
Galatians 3:16
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
Galatians 3:29
And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Romans 11:24
For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
Spiritual Israel, the people of the Old Covenant and of the New Covenant, are spiritual Israel, Abraham's Seed. 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel were lost, dispersed into the world, back in 724 BC, never to be heard from again. And they have influenced many with their witness about God. Jesus came 700+ years later to save them, and it took many more hundreds of years to spread the news all over the globe to find the offspring of those lost people and get them saved. And they influenced many others and those becamse saved as well. God's plan is amazingly clever.
Now, back to the 144,000 from Revelation 7 (here is part of that passage):
Revelation 7:3
"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."
So, basically, God's saing He wants to wait quite a while to give time for more people to be saved so He can mark them as His people. This time period is a LONG time, ever since Jesus came, even up to today. Jesus is still getting people saved, marking them.
Notice that everything is in thousands. 12,000 from each tribe.
Note:
12 = the whole, complete
thousands = many
12 + thousands = 12,000, which equals the whole of a group/tribe of people
7,000 was only part of the whole, part of a tribe, part of its people. 12,000 represents the whole of a tribe or the whole of that people.
And now God is gathering ALL of His people from all of the world in this prophecy, because He's bringing the saved, the sealed, from all 12 tribes. So, the 144,000 represents all of God's people. He displays this in verses 9-10, right after describing the 12,000 tribes of spiritual Israel:
Revelation 7:9-10
9After 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 in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb."
So these are the saved, this uncountable multitude. God's talking about spiritual Israel being the 144,000, then He tells who this spiritual Israel is: it's the multitude of saved people that cannot be counted.
Now does the 144,000 makes more sense?
