Psalm 2:6 reads: “I have installed My King on Zion, My holy mountain.”1 ‘The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah’ is the message John hears under the seven trumpets.2 While the beasts seem to be all-powerful, John can already see the final victory, and also know that their reign will only last a short while, 42 months.3 “For the sake of the elect those days will be shortened,” says the Lord Jesus.4 “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them,” says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews,5 referring to the revelation of the old Covenant on Mount Sinai. “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the City of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the Church of the firstborn, whose names are written in Heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a New Covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”6 Interpreting Mount Zion in the spiritual sense is no hindrance to thinking of the earthly Mount Zion as well. Salvation will be achieved on earth in the end, and so John sees Heavenly Jerusalem coming down to earth.7 The ‘hundred and forty-four thousand’ stand on the earth in contrast to fallen humanity that has the ‘mark of the beast’ on its forehead, and they are distinguished from the martyrs who are paying the ultimate price for their following of Jesus during these days: “And they overcame him [the beast] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death / even unto death.”8
‘And everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance’, says Joel, speaking of the ‘Day of the Lord’.9 Whereas the epistle to the Hebrews 8:13 speaks of the contrast between the Old and the New Covenant—Law and Grace—what is referred to here is that He will ‘keep you from the ‘hour of testing’, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world’, Revelation 3:10 and John 17:15 in the ‘great tribulation’ and the final victory thereafter.
The voice that is heard reminds us of that of the glorified Christ10 and of that of the four living creatures.11 The new song that the four living creatures and the twenty-four angelic princes sang,12 is on the atoning and redemptive work of the Lamb, with a view to the Kingship of the redeemed. They have the harps,13 and the conquerors of the ‘beast’ have these too.14
The voice of rushing water and heavy thunder and the playing of harps and the new song come from Heaven. The new song is one that no one is able to learn except the ‘hundred and forty-four thousand’ from the earth, for they are standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion, where He is reigning in their midst. The expression ‘before the throne’ does not automatically mean that they are in Heaven. For example, prayers are sent up ‘before the throne’ while the believer is on earth.15 These Jewish believers, these 144,000 are redeemed from those who ‘dwell on the earth’. All the other inhabitants of the earth have ‘sold’ themselves to the beast. But they are bought free, bought free from these earth- dwellers, free from the power of sin, with the price Christ has paid for them: the precious blood of the Lamb.16 The same price that was paid for everyone else who on earth was ever saved. They have a special task however in those days, separate from the ‘multitude no one can count’, just prior to His return on the Mount of Olives17 – because that is where His feet will stand, not on Mount Zion.
• These Jewish believers can ‘blow the trumpet in Zion’ as a message for the earth during the time of the ‘beasts’, that God’s Kingship and that of His Anointed One have been proclaimed, and that He is Coming! They are ‘safe’ during the plagues under the fifth trumpet.18
Bible References:
1.Psalm 2:6 2.Revelation 11:15 3.Revelation 13:5 4.Matthew 24:22 5.Hebrews 12:18– 19; Exodus 19:16–22, 20:18–21; Deuteronomy 4:11–12, 5:22–27 6.Hebrews 12:22–24, 11:4; Genesis 4:10 7.Revelation 21:2 8.Revelation 7, 12:7, 13:7 9.Joel 2:32 10.Revelation 1:15 11.Revelation 6:1 12.Revelation 5:9–10 13.Revelation 5:8 14.Revelation 15:2 15.Hebrews 4:16, 10:19–22 16.1 Corinthians 6:20, 7:23; 2 Peter 2:1; Revelation 5:9 17.Zechariah 14:4; Acts 1:11 18.Revelation 9:4
