Who are the 144,000 sealed in Revelation 7?

Question

In Revelation 7:4-8, John hears the number of those sealed: 144,000 from the tribes of Israel (with Dan notably missing, but Manasseh rounding out the twelve). The same(?) 144,000 also appear with the Lamb on Mount Zion in 14:1-5, where they are described as firstfruits. Who are these 144,000 people who are sealed? I've considered a couple options:

• Being "firstfruits" they represent a group of special Christians who have kept themselves especially righteous.

• Being from Israel, they represent the number of Israelites according to the flesh who are also Israelites according to God's Spirit.

• Owing in parallel to a hearing/seeing theme with 5:5-6, the 144,000 from Israel in 7:4-8 might be the same as the uncountable multitude from every tribe in 7:9.

I'm not fully convinced by any of these, though. I realize Revelation is a difficult book to interpret, but I'm looking for any thoughts that might help.

Answer 1

First we must lay out two basic interpretive principles. Then I will list the meaning of the 144,000 (Revelation 7:4-8; 14:1-5) for each of the four main Christian interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation.

Interpretive Principles

First we must decide if the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7:4-8 are the same as those in 14:1-5, or if they refer to separate groups. Early Christians such as Origen understood these to be the same, but some dispensational theologians do not believe that this is the case.

We then have essentially two interpretive choices remaining: to interpret the number symbolically or literally. Assuming both Revelation 7 and 14 refer to the same group, they are either literally 12,000 Jewish male virgins from each tribe or they are symbolically the people of God. There are good arguments on both sides of the fence, but we must be consistent with the approach chosen. For instance, a literalist who believes both Revelation 7 and 14 refer to the same people should not take the number 144,000 literally without also taking the ethnicity, gender, and celibacy of these individuals literally as well.

Four Main Perspectives

All of these approaches are inherently symbolic except for the futurist approach, which is literal (although some futurists also believe the number to be symbolic).

Historicists associate the 144,000 with the Church. They believe the number is symbolic and indicates the totality of the Church.

Preterists believe that 144,000 is a symbolic number of Jewish Christians who escaped the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Futurists claim that the 144,000 are either a remnant of the Jewish people (literal) or the last generation of Christians alive during the Tribulation (symbolic).

Idealists consider the 144,000 to be a symbolic number representing all God's people throughout all history under the old and new covenants (i.e. spiritual Israel).

Sources

^{Origen, "Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John", trans. Allan Menzies In, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume IX: The Gospel of Peter, the Diatessaron of Tatian, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Visio Pauli, the Apocalypses of the Virgil and Sedrach, the Testament of Abraham, the Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena, the Narrative of Zosimus, the Apology of Aristides, the Epistles of Clement (Complete Text), Origen’s Commentary on John, Books I-X, and Commentary on Matthew, Books I, II, and X-XIV, ed. Allan Menzies (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1897), 297-98. The relevant sections referenced in this answer can be read for free online here and here.}

^{John D. Barry, Michael R. Grigoni, Michael S. Heiser et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012).}

^{For a detailed report on how this has been interpreted in Church history see this great article.}

Answer 2

I take the 144,000 to be certainly a symbolic number. A perfect amount of 12,000 people from anything, and that twelves times over, can't under any rational system be literally 144,000 people regardless of the prophetic situation, current, past or future.

The question then is what does it mean as a symbol surrounding the Lord? Naturally the twelve tribes represent the church of God, with respect to the people of Israel and 1000 indicates a full large extension of the meaning it multiplies. Therefore there are only two competing interpretations in my own mind, one which I prefer.

The first possibility, is that they represent the entire invisible church, from the beginning of days until the end (or if one interprets this vision not to encompass all of time, then the church during that time one envisions). Under this possibility, the great multitude are the same, but as seen by John in its more literal sense following right after.

The second possibility is that they represent the Jewish part of all the believers in Messiah and the great multitude represent is the rest of the elect, so that both images combined represent the entire church under all ages (or whatever age one thinks this prophecy speaks of).

My personal view is that the 144,000 represent Jewish believers only, From Abraham until the final judgment. I believe this distinction is made not that the Jewish believer is superior to the Gentile, but because:

...the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. (Romans 1:16, NIV)

I guess that falls in line with your middle bullet. As I understand it all of these believers, Jew and Gentile were sealed from eternity in their election and represented by a definite number for an indefinite. Therefore, I see no difficulty clamping down on this interpretation with a certain amount of confidence. If I took a narrower scope of this vision, for example, only during the destruction of Jerusalem, or only at some future time near the end of the world, I would still hold the same position from the symbolism employed.

Answer 3

The 144,000 must be explained from a hermeneutic at 30,000 feet, and not necessarily in this particular instance from a hermeneutic of parsing nouns and verbs in the original languages.

In the Hebrew Bible, the faithful remnant were a subset of Jews. Please click here. That is, while all Israelites were the biological descendants of Abraham, they were not all sons of the Promise by faith like Abraham. That is, there were disobedient Israelites in the Hebrew Bible, and they were therefore not part of the faithful remnant -- the Apostle Paul specifically mentions the faithful remnant of Israel in Romans 9:27.

When Pentecost occurred, the entire faithful remnant of Israel at that time passed from the Old Covenant and into the New Covenant. (According to Matthew 24:6 in partial fulfillment of Ezekiel 37:12-14, some of the faithful remnant who had died actually rose from the dead in order to participate in Pentecost.) The faithful remnant, again, are those Jews whose faith was in the Promised Seed (Jesus Christ), and of course all unbelieving Jews were cut off from the New Covenant. Please click here. Shortly after Pentecost the Gentiles were added (or grafted) into the “olive tree,” which Paul discusses in Romans 11:11-24. I call this olive tree the Tree of Life, because it is through Jesus Christ that eternal life is restored, which had been lost by Adam when he sinned (please see Genesis 3:22-23).

The New Covenant was never given to the Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible, but was an exclusive right and promise to Israel alone. The grafting of the Gentiles into the olive tree (Tree of Life) is only possible through Jesus Christ. That is, at the present time, both Jews and Gentiles are members of the same body because they are supernaturally baptized into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit – thus they are one body with Christ, and therefore participate in the New Covenant (1 Cor 12:13).

At a certain point in the future, when apostasy will characterize the professing Body of Christ (1 Tim 4:1-5; 2 Tim 3:1-5; and 1 Thess 2:3), the Gentiles will be broken off (Romans 11:22 and Romans 11:25). What that means is that the time of baptizing believers into the Body of Christ has come to an end. What faithful remnant among Gentiles and Jews on the earth at that time will be removed (1 Thess 4:15-17).

Thus, from that point forward, the New Covenant will be the exclusive prerogative of Israel as was promised in the Hebrew Bible. But there is a problem. There are no believers on the earth, since what faithful remnant remained was taken away. Thus the Lord will call 144,000 Jews (who are biological descendants of Abraham) to be his faithful remnant on earth, and they will be the ones through whose ministry peoples of the earth will be able to participate in the New Covenant. They will be witnesses of the Lamb. The Lamb is the Promised Seed, who like Isaac (the Promised Son to Abraham), was the sacrifice to God. If we compare Gal 3:16 with Gen 22:17-18, then Isaac is the type of Jesus Christ, who is the Promised Seed that is sacrificed to God (in this case for the atonement of the sins of the world).

Please note that these 144,000 are sealed not only because they are God’s chosen ones, but so that they will not be killed by the divine judgments that will follow (see Rev 7:3 and compare with Rev 7:16 for those believers who are not sealed). In Rev 14:1 the mark of the 144,000 is in contradistinction to the mark of the Antichrist in Rev 13:18. Thus the mark (seal) of the Antichrist is his false “New Covenant” written on the heart and mind, and the mark (seal) of the 144,000 is the New Covenant of the Lamb (also written on the heart and mind per Jeremiah 31:33 when compared with Hebrews 8:10)... So the gospel message of the 144,000 will be no different than it is today. The only difference will be that believers will become part of the faithful remnant of Israel and not members of the church (Body of Christ).

Do you remember all those passages in the gospels that spoke of the doom of Jerusalem in AD 70? Those same passages now will apply to these believers (living in Israel) in the future. That is, they will be saved if they persevere (and of course they must reject the false “New Covenant” of the Antichrist and suffer accordingly). Now all those unfulfilled predictive prophecies in the post-exilic prophets (such as Joel, Zechariah, et al.) start to come into focus because now we are talking about “Israel” and the faithful remnant again, which will be purged in the Day of the Lord that starts (in darkness) and will end in light.

After the Second Advent, when Jesus Christ saves the faithful remnant living in Israel, these believers (along with the faithful remnant from the Old Testament) will become members of the Body of Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb, when all faithful from all ages will be “one flesh” (or married) to the Body of Christ.

Thus the 144,000 are actual biological descendants of Abraham, who will witness to Jews and Gentiles in the end times concerning the Lamb of God. This hermeneutic is normal, and accepts a plain reading of the Scripture. That is, what was predictive prophecy in the Old Testament still remains predictive prophecy in the New Testament.