The Lamb of God on Mount Zion in the Book of Revelation

Below is the 26th 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:

"6. The Lamb on Mount Sion [Zion]. "Chap. xiv. 1-13 [Rev. 14:1-13]---‘And I saw, and behold, the Lamb stood on the mount Sion [Zion], and with him an hundred and forty and four thousand, having his name, and the name of his Father, written in their foreheads,’ etc. "This portion of the vision scarcely needs an interpreter; it speaks for itself. There is a striking contrast between the wild beast that rules as vicegerent of the dragon and the Lamb that governs in His Father’s name. There can be no doubt that the hundred and forty and four thousand, having the name of Christ and the Father inscribed on their foreheads, are identical with the hundred and forty and four thousand out of all the tribes of the children of Israel, who have the seal of God on their foreheads, who are alluded to in chap. vii [7] [Revelation 7]. They are the elect Hebrew-Christian church of Judea, possibly of Jerusalem, and are represented as standing with the Lamb on the Mount Sion, redeemed, triumphant, glorified; no longer exposed to danger and death, but gathered into the fold of the Great Shepherd. Of course the representation is proleptic [anticipatory]---an anticipation of what was now imminent; in fact, a repetition of the glorious scene described in chap. vii. 9-17 [Rev. 7:9-17]. Is it possible to believe that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews had not this vision in his thoughts when he wrote that noble passage, "Ye are come unto mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem [Hebrews 12:22]," etc.? The points of resemblance are so marked and so numerous that it cannot possibly be accidental. The scene is the same,---Mount Sion; the dramatis personae are the same,---‘the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven [Hebrews 12:23],’ corresponding with the hundred and forty and four thousand who bear the seal of God. In the epistle [of Hebrews] they are called ‘the church of the first-born' [Hebrews 12:23]; the vision [in Revelation] explains the title,---they are ‘the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb' [Rev. 14:4]; the first converts to the faith of Christ in the land of Judea. In the epistle [Hebrews] they are designated ‘the spirits of just men made perfect [Hebrews 12:23];’ in the vision [Revelation] they are ‘virgins undefiled, in whose mouth was found no guile; for they are without fault before the throne of God' [Rev. 14:4-5]. Both in the vision and the epistle we find ‘the innumerable company of angels’ and ‘the Lamb,’ by whom redemption was achieved. In short, it is placed beyond all reasonable doubt that since the author of the Apocalypse [Revelation] cannot be supposed to have drawn his description from the epistle [Hebrews], the writer of the epistle must have derived his ideas and imagery from the Apocalypse. "Events are now hastening rapidly towards the consummation. The Seer [John] beholds three angels fly in succession across the field of vision, each bearing a prophetic announcement of the approaching catastrophe. The first, who is charged with the proclamation of the everlasting Gospel, in the first instance to them that dwell in the land, and next to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, crises with a loud voice, ‘Fear God, and give glory to him; because the hour of his judgment is come’ (ver. 7 [Rev. 14:7]). There is a manifest allusion here to the fact predicted by our Lord that, before the coming of ‘the end' [Matthew 24:14, consistent with the closing of the Old Covenant age, as described in Hebrews 8:7-13], the Gospel of the kingdom would first be preached in all the world [Greek: oikoumene, meaning "the inhabited earth," i.e., the Roman Empire] ‘for a witness to all the nations’ (Matt. xxiv. 14 [Matt. 24:14]. [Note: the Apostle Paul declared this worldwide preaching had already taken place in Colossians 1:5-6: "...the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you, as it is in all the world..." and Col. 1:23: "...the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven']. This symbol [angelic warning], therefore, indicates the near approach of the catastrophe of Jerusalem,---the arrival of the hour of Israel’s judgment. "A second angel swiftly follows, and proclaims the fall of Babylon, as if it had already taken place, saying, ‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, which made the all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’ This is plainly another declaration of the same impending catastrophe, only more distinctly indicating the doom of the guilty city--- the great criminal about to be brought to judgment. We shall presently have occasion to discuss the identity of the great city here and elsewhere designated as Babylon [which Russell will identify later as Jerusalem, not Rome].