The hundred and forty-four thousand from Israel have been sealed. The presence of Israel in the continuing presentation of the events in this world in the Book of Revelation has been pointed out. What is the purpose in the Book of Revelation of the sealing of these servants? Why this obvious presupposed return to and presence of the Jewish people in Israel, a restored nation with maybe even a rebuilt Temple? What is the reason for this elect section of the larger total? Is it to just ensure that their powerful testimony be heard throughout the world during the ‘great tribulation’—a great number of Jewish ‘Pauls’, who confess the Messiah in and outside of Israel and who are unable to be wounded by the terrors affecting the world,2 so that yet untold multitudes are still able to come to Christ in the whole world?
‘After this I saw,’ the New Living Translation and the Revised Standard Version say. ‘After these things I saw,’ the American Standard Version and the God’s Word Translation say. The Greek points more to the latter and that would be ‘logical’: the great multitude from the nations of the world, the goyim, the non-Jewish world, as the fruit of the testimony of these 144.000 Jewish Christians. A final harvest from Israel and the nations. A final mighty work of the Holy Spirit. The last outpouring of grace upon the earth before the full outpouring of the wrath of God and of the Lamb. ‘Before the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?’3
The Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh, according to Joel. Peter, thinking of Joel 2:28 – 32 in Acts 2:17 to 21 ‘all of Israel’ says: “In those days I will pour out My Spirit upon your sons and your daughters, your young people and your old people, indeed, on My servants, both men and women.4 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.” All of this is part of the sixth seal.
Israel was created and chosen to bless the nations. The downtrodden, hated Israel: a blessing for the whole world. But at this moment not yet. Not all Israel and not all the nations of the world. There will be these hundred and forty-four thousand from Israel and a great multitude from every people and tribe and nation and language. The promised outpouring of the Spirit upon the whole house of Israel apparently will take place after they all have been restored to their land.5 Isaiah prophecies about this whole house that it will be a holy remnant.6 Isaiah says: Shear-Jashub,7 whose name means a remnant repents, because the virgin will become pregnant and bear a son,8 who will be called Emmanuel, God with us. The first fulfilment of this prophecy took place in the days of Isaiah. This son of Isaiah had to accompany Isaiah to king Ahaz of Israel, because of the prophetic significance of his name. But the final fulfilment of this prophecy took place when His Jewish mother Mary, a virgin, gave birth to the Son of God, to be slain for the sins of the world. With this result that 144.000 from Israel and a great, countless multitude from the whole world can stand glorified before the throne of God and the Lamb, because they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Do you belong to their number? For the Gospel of the Kingdom will first go out to the ends of the earth, before the end of the age comes.9
• The word ‘multitude’ only occurs in Psalm 42:5 in the Dutch Staten Version, stemming from the 17th century like the English the King James Version. Nobody can count this multitude. It is countless, like the dust of the earth and the seed of Abraham mentioned in Genesis 13:6, 15:5 and 16:10, and as the sand of the sea recorded in Hosea 1:10.
• Counting them as being incorporated in Israel according to the Dutch old rhymed version of Psalm 87:4 “…this one and that one were born in her…” Psalm 87:4-5 NASB. No one can count these saved from the nations; it is a secret, like the ‘new song that no one could learn’, except the 144.000 who had been redeemed from the earth’ (Revelation 14:3)—a secret only known to God.
• Judgment belongs to God and to Him alone, not to us, and He has given it into the Son’s hands, according to John 5:27.
Bible References:
1.NIV 2.Revelation 9:4 3.Revelation 6:17 4.Acts 2:16–21 5.Ezekiel 11:16–20, 36:24–28; 39:25-29; Zechariah 12:10–14; Jeremiah 31:31–34; Romans 11:25–29. 6.Isaiah 10:20–25 7.Isaiah 7:3 8.Isaiah 7:14 9.Matthew 24:14 and 21
