As what have they been purchased? As firstfruits, as ‘firstborn’, they are consecrated to God and the Lamb. This is looking back to the Old Testament firstfruit sacrifices,1 and also thinking of the ‘part of the dough’ offered as firstfruits that are holy.2 “Israel was holy unto the Lord, the firstfruits of His harvest. Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them,’” declares the Lord.” says Jeremiah.3 This group of firstfruits—a hundred and forty-four thousand—is from Israel, for God and the Lamb. They are virgins. Does this refer to sexual or spiritual virginity?
What is certain is that this text cannot be used to defend the compulsory, mandatory Roman Catholic celibacy of the priesthood, for marriage is not a sin. Nevertheless, Paul says that, with a view to the Lord’s service,4 ‘it is good not to be bound to a husband or wife.’ Paul knows that he has the right to have a wife like all the other Apostles, but he preferred not to – in order to serve Christ without distraction. Compare 1 Corinthians 7 and 9:5. The traditional explanation of the ‘virginity’ of the hundred and forty-four thousand is that they, in contrast to the other inhabitants of the earth, have not prostituted themselves with the ‘whore of Babylon’ and the worshippers of the ‘beast’. They have not committed spiritual fornication or idolatry, as have the others who did indeed worship the beast and its image. They are ‘virgins’, spiritually pure, without any distinction as to gender, for both men and women can be spiritually pure.
Nevertheless, the rather strong expression ‘not been defiled with women’ leads also to the thought that they are ‘Pauls’ who voluntarily abstain from marriage, knowing of a certainty that they are the very last witnesses of the very last things. It is true of all the other people on earth that they will be as ’in the days of Noah, eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage until the Flood came and destroyed them all’.5 Are they ‘the ones who have circumcised themselves’ for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven?6 Whatever will be the case: they are the ones who follow the Lamb, wherever He goes.
They are able to ‘learn’ the new song. The Greek word here means ‘being able to hear’—hearing as deep, inner understanding, which implies an act of making it your own, spiritually. They understand the deep, inner intentions of the Lamb and follow Him. The Greek expression for this means ‘walking in the unknown and the hidden’—indeed, even in areas that instil fear.7 They are, like Paul, led by the Spirit “for the Spirit searches all things, even the ‘depths of God’” 1 Corinthians 2:10. It means being sent as sheep among wolves.8 It means going and bearing fruit,9 sowing with tears and reaping with joy10 under Jesus’ leading. The Lamb is the Shepherd.11 Sacrificial animals and priests had to be unblemished in the Old Testament.12 These are too. The whole world is blaspheming God, but they are not, because they do not worship the ‘beast’.13 They are not following the second beast either, the lying ‘false prophet’. The remnant, the remainder of Israel, will do no wrong, they will tell no lies, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouths, Zephaniah says.14 They are an example to us, like the whole of Israel’s history is given as an example to us – 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 – in their past, their present and their future! We have many lessons to learn!
• The Greek word ‘porneia’, ‘fornication’, is used for the worship of the beast.15 Our word ‘pornography’ is derived from it.
• The addition ‘before the throne of God’ in verse 5 is only found in the King James (Authorised) Version and is considered to be a ‘lesser’ reading by some manuscripts.
• A second line that Scripture attaches to the term ‘firstfruit’ is Christ’s resurrection from the dead.16 Believers are also called ‘firstfruits’.17 The people of the ‘first resurrection’ can also be considered to be ‘firstfruits’.18
• The word ‘defile’ is also used with reference to eating what has been sacrificed to idols, in 1 Corinthians 8:7, as a result of which the conscience is defiled, infected. The reference there is to spiritual uncleanness.
• The Roman Catholic Father Daniel O’Leary, who died on 21st January 2019, said he wanted to point out that one of the fall-outs of a mandatory celibate life is “the violence it does to a priest’s humanity, and the wounds that it leaves on his ministry”. “I now believe, with all my heart, that compulsory celibacy is a kind of sin, an assault against God’s will and nature.”
• Another voice in the Roman Catholic Church said about mandatory, compulsory celibacy: “Our Lord presented celibacy as a legitimate lifestyle not only by His very life since He never married but also in His teaching. When our Lord emphasized that marriage was a covenant between husband and wife and thereby prohibited divorce and re-marriage (cf. Matthew 19:3-12), He concluded, “Some men are incapable of sexual activity from birth; some have been deliberately made so; and some there are who have freely renounced sex for the sake of God’s reign.”
• In the early Church, clerical celibacy was not mandated. The Apostle Paul in his first letter to Timothy wrote, “A ‘bishop’ [‘overseer’] must be irreproachable, married only once, of even temper, self-controlled, modest, and hospitable” (3:2) and “Deacons may be married but once and must be good managers of their children and their households” (3:12). Finally, the First Lateran Council (1123), an Ecumenical Council of the Church, mandated celibacy for the Western clergy. The Second Lateran Council (1139) subsequently decreed Holy Orders as an impediment to marriage, making any attempt at marriage by an ordained cleric invalid.
• The Roman Catholic Church does make an exception of the required Celibacy for converts from Anglicanism and for the priests of the Eastern Orthodox Church if they are already married in hopes of attracting them as converts.
Bible References:
1.Numbers 3 and 18 2.Romans 11:16 3.Jeremiah 2:3 4.1 Corinthians 7 5.Luke 17:26–30 6.Matthew 19:12 7.Comp. John 21:18 8.Luke 10:3 9.John 15:16 10.Psalm 126:5–6 11.Revelation 7:17 12.Leviticus 22:19–25, Leviticus 21; Ephesians 1;4, 5:27; Colossians 2:15; Jude 24 13.Revelation 13:4–6, 8 14.Zephaniah 3:13 15.Revelation 14:8, 17:2 and 4, 18:3 and 9, 19:2 16.1 Corinthians 15:20 and 23 17.James 1:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:15 18.Revelation 20:6
