Revelation's 144,000 and the Great Multitude

Below is the 16th of multiple excerpts of commentary on the Book of Revelation from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell:

"EPISODE OF THE SEALING OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD. "Chap. vii. 11-17 [Rev. 7:1-17].---‘After this, 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. 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, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. 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,’ etc. "In the very crisis of the catastrophe [initiated by the opening of the seven seals in Revelation 6:1, which secure the scroll referenced in Rev. 5:5] the action is suddenly suspended until the safety of the servants of God is assured. The four destroying angels who are commissioned to let loose the elements of wrath upon the guilty land [1st-century Israel] are commanded to stay the execution of the sentence until ‘the servants of our God have been sealed on their foreheads.’ Accordingly an angel, having ‘the seal of the living God,’ sets marks upon the faithful, the nationality and number of whom are distinctly declared,---‘an hundred and forty and four thousand from every tribe of the children of Israel.’ [Rev. 7:4] In addition to these, an innumerable multitude, ‘of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,’ are seen standing before the throne, clothed with white robes and with palms of victory in their hands, ascribing praise and glory to God amid the felicity and splendours of heaven. [Rev. 7:9-11] "This representation is generally regarded as an episode, or digression, from the main action of the piece. No doubt it is so; but at the same time it is essential to the completeness of the catastrophe , and in fact an integral part of it.

"It will be seen that in every catastrophe in this book of visions,---and every vision ends in a catastrophe,---there are two parts, viz. [that is] the judgment upon the enemies of Christ and the blessedness conferred upon His servants. ... "It is this deliverance and salvation promised to the disciples of Christ which is symbolically shadowed forth in the episode to the sixth seal. The imagery by which it is described is evidently [i.e., in an evident manner, thus clearly] taken from the scene beheld in vision by the prophet Ezekiel (chap. ix. [9]), where ‘the men that sigh, and that cry for all the abominations of Jerusalem,’ have ‘a mark set upon their foreheads,’ which was to ensure their safety when the executioners of divine justice went forth to slay the inhabitants of the city [Ezek. 9:4-6].

"It is worthy of remark that Jerusalem is the scene of judgment alike in the prophecy of Ezekiel and in the Apocalypse [Revelation]; and the allusion by St. Peter to this very transaction in Ezekiel’s vision, as about to be repeated in the Jerusalem of his own day, is very significant. (1 Pet. iv. 17. [1 Pet. 4:17: "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at [with] us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"])

"But the fullest light is thrown upon this episode by the words of our Lord: ‘The Son of man shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other’ (Matt. xxiv. 31 [Matt. 24:31]). This episode [in Rev. 7:1-17] is the representation of the accomplishment of that promise. ...The time was now full come; for all this, it must be remembered, was to be witnessed by the apostles themselves, or at least by some of them [Matthew 16:28, 'Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom'; parallels at Mark 9:1 and Luke 9:27] for our Lord’s own generation was not to pass till all these things were fulfilled [Matt. 24:34, 'Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled'; parallels at Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32]. ...

"It will be remarked that there are two classes, or divisions, of ‘the people of God’ who are specified in this episode. The first class belongs to a particular nation,---‘the hundred and forty and four thousand out of every tribe of the children of Israel.’ These must of necessity represent the Jewish Christian church of the apostolic period. But in addition to these there is a multitude which no man could number, belonging to all nationalities; that is to say, not Israelites but Gentiles. This class, therefore, must of necessity represent the Gentile church of the apostolic period; the ‘uncircumcision,’ who were admitted into the privileges of the covenant people, called to be ‘fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel,’ [Eph. 3:6] along with the Jewish believers. This representation implies that the danger and deliverance symbolised by the sealing of the servants of God were not confined to Judea and Jerusalem. ...

"We are thus brought, by the guidance of the word of God itself, to one and the same conclusion; and it is impossible not to be impressed by the concurrence of so many different lines of argument leading to one result. We are justified, therefore, in concluding that the episode of the sealing of the servants of God represents the safety and deliverance of the faithful in the fearful time of judgment which, at the Parousia [Second Coming], overtook the guilty city [of Jerusalem] and land of [1st-century] Israel [Matt. 21:43, 23:32-36, 23:37-39, 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:20, 21:32].

***** Visit russellparousia.blogspot.com