THE LAMB ON MOUNT ZION
Revelation 14:1-5
James A. Gunn
Preached on September 23, 2007
Copyright © 2007 James A. Gunn
All rights reserved
Used by permission.
All By Grace
Sola Christus
Sola Scriptura Sola Gratia Sola Fida Soli Deo Gloria
Revelation 14:1-5
1 Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father's name written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps.
3 They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth.
4 These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.
5 And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God.
Do you want to go to heaven?
That is a stupid question, because only a fool would want to go to hell.
And those are only two options for your eternal existence after you die.
Brownlow North wrote:
“You will live as long as God lives and you will live somewhere.”
When I was a lost sinner [now I am a saved sinner], I like other fools, said such stupid things as, “I might as well go to hell because that is where all of my friends will be.” Only a lost fool could make the eternal separation from Christ and the unimaginable anguish of a soul in hell to be a trivial matter to joke about.
Revelation 14:1-5 is a picture of heaven. These five verses describe those who are before the throne of God and the characteristics of the saints of God who are forever around the throne of God.
Verses 6-20 begin a description of the final Judgment.
At this point I will make my usual disclaimer and acknowledge my extensive use of the commentary on the Revelation by Mr. Charles D. Alexander. Although I have read several other writers on Revelation, it is Mr. Alexander who is the most consistent in his interpretation from beginning to end and who has extracted the many allusions from the OT from which John the Apostle draws his symbolism.
If you are to understand the symbolic language of the Revelation, you must find many of its symbols in the OT.
Verse 1 and verse 14 begin with “I looked” and verse 6 with “I saw”. This is the language of a prophet. John opens the Apocalypse by stating that he “bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, and to all the things that he saw.” [1:2]
This is the same language of the OT prophets who “saw” the divine things that they wrote about.
Cf. Isaiah 1:1 “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw….”
Cf. Isaiah 6:1 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, ..”
Cf. Jeremiah 1:11 “Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" And I said, I see a branch of an almond tree.”
John is a true prophet, in the same order of those in the OT who saw divine truth in the form of heavenly dramas. These visions of John, like those of Zechariah, were never intended to be taken literally. It is that kind of literalism that insists that the 144,000 in chapter 7 and here in chapter 14 are some elite group of Jews or Christians depending on which camp of literalism is giving its interpretation.
Verse 3 destroys any such literal interpretation.
WHAT JOHN ‘SAW’
John looked and behold “a Lamb standing on the Mount Zion, and with him an hundred and forty and four thousand having His Father’s name written in their foreheads”.
Hengstenberg writes, “Prophecy everywhere notices distresses, dangers, and temptations, for the purpose of fortifying the heart in respect to them, and imparting counsel and consolation, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope” (Romans 15:4).
Hengstenberg adds that the Holy Spirit, who in this book acts peculiarly in that office of Paraclete described exclusively by John in his gospel (John 14), accomplishes this office of Comforter by “suddenly transporting us out of the tribulations of time with its conflicts and trials and placing us on the heavenly Mount Zion where we find the company of saints gathered around their Saviour, their warfare finished, rejoicing in their victory, pure and holy, in spite of all the temptations which the earth presented to them”.
We are reminded that the 144,000 are the completed number of the redeemed Church as seen in chapter 7. The number is a sacred perfection, a multiplication of the number 12, which is the number of the church of OT and NT, the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles [the 24 elders] – 12 x 12 x 1000 equals one unified company of the redeemed from all ages, from the beginning to the end of time, a number not to be broken, but which is complete in the holy purpose of God. It is a number which can be neither increased nor diminished and thus shows the perfection of the divine wisdom which always achieves its goal and can never be thwarted.
The Greek word used for LAMB here is ‘peculiar to the Apocalypse’. It is the diminutive form of the Greek word for lamb [arinon], and is not found elsewhere in the NT. It means a young lamb; weak and small, which it has been suggested may have been used to put forward more prominently the idea of meekness and innocence (Alford).
The inspired writer, John, who in his gospel uses the mature form of the Greek word for lamb [amnos](Cf. John 1:29, 36) chooses the diminutive form here to mark the contrast with the wild beasts of the preceding chapter.
Christ was crucified through weakness, and liveth now by the power of God. “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong,” Paul says, “When I am weak then am I strong”. Again, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness”. (See 2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
Only God would deal with the power of darkness and the evil one through weakness. A helpless babe in the arms of a Jewish girl: The virgin holding the Creator of the womb that bore the babe.
It would not bring glory to God to overcome the devil by sheer power else how shall we explain the Cross? The mystery of God lies in this, that by weakness and by yielding, by God becoming Man, by the helplessness of infancy and by consecration to death, the awful power of evil, personified in the beastly powers of chapter 13 is overcome for ever. Nowhere is Satan made to appear so powerful as in the Book of Revelation, but always he is overcome by the gentle Lamb who gives Himself to death and the grave.
If we were writing a treatise on Christian evidences we should feel happy to rest our case just there. Who could have invented such a means of overcoming death and its dreadful prince, by submitting to the fear and power of it, and by voluntarily becoming the victim of it? If this be not true, there is no truth. CDA
WHERE THE LAMB STOOD
He stands upon Mount Zion. Surely in this Book of Revelation it is not necessary to prove that Zion here means the heavenly and not the earthly. “Ye are come” writes Paul in Hebrews 12:22-24, “to mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven ....” Hebrews is the only other place in the NT where Mount Zion is mentioned, and it signifies the heavenly city and not the city of Zion, earthly Jerusalem.
Because of what follows it seems obvious to me that what John sees here is the final state of the church, the whole body of the redeemed, in heaven.
In Revelation 21 John describes the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven, prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband. So here, we have the consummation of all that Christ set out to do.
Despite all oppositions, and persecutions, fears and conflicts, trials and temptations, the bride is brought home at last to the heavenly marriage.
“With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king's palace” (Psalm 45:15). That we are here looking to the eternal consummation seems to be confirmed in this chapter by the description which follows, of the Last Judgment (v.6-20).
WHO STOOD WITH HIM?
They are the 144,000 whom we have already seen in Chapter 7, who were sealed out of all the tribes of Israel. Recall from our exposition of chapter 7 that John deliberately leaves out the tribe of Dan and he also changes the order of the tribes. This we took to show that John could not mean the ancient tribes of Israel but the Israel of God, the Church.
The term “Israel” never did stand exclusively in prophecy for the twelve literal tribes descended from Jacob. Paul in Romans describes TWO ISRAELS, the earthly and the heavenly. He declares that in Romans 9:6-8
But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac your seed shall be called." 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
The “children of the promise” are the 144,000 around the throne of God.
The Children of the Promise
God entered into a covenant with Abraham whereby He promised to do certain things for him and for his posterity. He renewed His covenant to Isaac, Jacob, and Israel [Exodus 2:23-25; 6:1-9; Psalm 105:7-10]
Exodus 2:23-25
23 Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
24 So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.
Exodus 6:1-9
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land."
2 And God spoke to Moses and said to him: "I am the LORD.
3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them.
4 I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.
5 And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.
6 Therefore say to the children of Israel: “I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.
7 I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
8 And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD.'"
9 So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.
Psalm 105:7-12
7 He is the LORD our God;
His judgments are in all the earth.
8 He remembers His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,
9 The covenant which He made with Abraham,
And His oath to Isaac,
10 And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute,
To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
11 Saying, To you I will give the land of Canaan
As the allotment of your inheritance,"
12 When they were few in number,
Indeed very few, and strangers in it.
God promised to make His people great. He promised them wisdom. He promised them victory over their foes. He promised them peace. He promised them all sorts of blessings [Deuteronomy 28:1-14].
Deuteronomy 28:1-14
1 "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.
2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:
3 "Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
4 "Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
5 "Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 "Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
8 "The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
9 "The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.
10 Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you.
11 And the LORD will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
12 The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.
14 So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
It is a continuing puzzle to me how those who can find all the promises made to Israel after the flesh and insist on their future fulfillment cannot also find that every such promise as to its carnal fulfillment was contingent on obedience.
The Promises were not made to Israel after the flesh
Sometime around 50 A.D. a little group of Jews were huddled together on the Sabbath in a strange city. They were still waiting for God to fulfill His promise [or promises] which He had made to their fathers. They were not a great people. They had not had victory over their foes, for the heel of Rome was heavy upon them. They had no peace. They had no king or kingdom. They had none of the things that the Scriptures promised God would do for them.
There were a couple of visitors in the synagogue that day, apparently visitors from the home country who might bring them some encouraging news. When invited to speak, Paul stood up and said…. [Pay attention to this! The news that Paul brought to these people must have been the most astounding thing any congregation had ever heard. Listen!]
Acts 13:26-33
26 "Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to you the word of this salvation has been sent.
27 For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they did not know Him, nor even the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning Him.
28 And though they found no cause for death in Him, they asked Pilate that He should be put to death.
29 Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.
30 But God raised Him from the dead.
31 He was seen for many days by those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses to the people.
32 And we declare to you glad tidings — that promise which was made to the fathers. 33 God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus….
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was declared to be the fulfillment of what God had promised to Abraham, Israel, and David. Here we have these people still waiting for the fulfillment of what God had promised Israel, and the apostle came and told them the absolutely startling news that it had already been fulfilled.
Did God promise Israel victory over all her foes? The good news is that Jesus had obtained the victory for them. Did God promise He would give them peace…and wisdom? Jesus was their peace [Ephesians 2:15] and their wisdom [1 Cor 1:30]. Did God promise to make Israel great? All power in heaven had been given to the King of the Jews, Jesus Christ [Matt 28:18]. Did God promise them land – an inheritance? Christ had been resurrected and on their behalf had become “heir of the world” and “heir of all things.” [Romans 4:13; Hebrews 1:2] God who fulfills His word in surprising ways, had fulfilled what He had promised to the fathers far abundantly above what any Jew had ever asked or thought.
If those Jews are to be considered backward for not realizing this about twenty years after Calvary, what might be said of Christians today who are still waiting for God to fulfill His promises to Israel after the flesh two thousand years later? Yes, Christians who say they meet once a week in honor of the resurrection are denying what God really did when He raised Jesus form the dead – namely He fulfilled what He had promised to Israel. It took the Holy Spirit’s illumination to see it when Paul preached to the gathering at Antioch; it takes the Holy Spirit’s illumination to see it now! The gift of Jesus and His resurrection from the dead was a finished work. In it God fulfilled what He had promised to the fathers. More than that, Christ was heaven’s gift to the Gentiles – to the whole human race. In Christ, God answered every prayer, every worthy aspiration of every heart, as it is written, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ….” [Ephesians 1:3]
Fulfillment Only in Christ
The blessings which God had promised to Israel were all given on condition – the condition of obedience:
Exodus 19:5
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
From Present Truth, October – December 2004 [Author Unknown]
“They are not all Israel which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh” (that is, of natural descent) “these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise” (that is, Jew or gentile who have the same faith of our father Abraham) – “are counted for the seed” (Romans 9:6-8; see also the epistle to the gentile church of the Galatians, chap. 4:22-31).
The imprint of the Father’s name on the forehead of the 144,000 proves the spiritual nature of the interpretation. The Father’s Name is His character.
In the letter to the Church in Philadelphia (Revelation 3: 12) we are told, “I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is the New Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name”. Let the writings of John be their own interpreter, and discard any theories that find a brand or a tattoo on the skin.
“The name of the city of my God” - see Ezekiel 48:35, “The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord Is There”.
See also the remarkable verse in Jeremiah 33:16 – “... Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness”. In the Hebrew these names in Ezekiel and Jeremiah respectively are “Jehovah Shammah” and “Jehovah Tzidkenu”. The name borne by Christ becomes the name of His Church in spiritual union with Himself.
Revelation 3:12 tells us also, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go no more out”. The scene is a heavenly one, and therefore we are seeing in our chapter 14 the final destiny of the redeemed realized. They shall go no more out.
MARKED WITH THE FATHER’S NAME
The 144,000 are described in our verse as having the Father’s name written in their foreheads. This is in contrast with the Mark of the Beast of chapter 13, verse 16, which is no visible mark at all, inasmuch as the Father’s name written on the foreheads of the redeemed of chapter 14 cannot be literally understood. If the forehead seal denotes only possession, ownership, character (and it can mean nothing else) then we are in the spiritual realm all the way through.
THE NEW SONG
2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.
The voice from heaven appears unquestionably to be the voice of the entire company of the redeemed as they surround the eternal throne and celebrate the glorious consummation of God’s purposes in redemption.
Hengstenberg correctly regards the parallel passage in Revelation 19:6 as conclusive: “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”.
“The new song” can only mean the last, the final, the eternal song of redemption. It is called the new song because the old song is the song of creation: “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7).
At creation, when life sprang forth into the conscious enjoyment of celestial being, the angelic chorus filled all the vast realm of visible and invisible life with rapturous and melodious praise and thanksgiving for the privilege of life in all the intensity and beauty and wonder and mystery of it. The creation of man was designed to be the topstone of this mystery as there was entrusted to him the dominion of the lower creation in anticipation of his ultimate rule over the entire creation. The disruption of this joy by the fall of angels, and afterward by the fall of man, opened the way for a yet higher creation - that of eternal redemption - by which God would participate in the infinite sorrows of that which had fallen, and bear through death its curse, its pain and its tears, to establish that new creation of unsullied joy and peace, love and truth which, because united indissolubly with deity incarnate, could never fall again. CDA
Hence the “new song”, which can only be sung when redemption is finally accomplished and realised in the triumph of the Redeemer over all forces and powers of evil, including the Last Enemy.
1 Corinthians 15:20-28
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.
24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.
25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.
26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
27 For "He has put all things under His feet." But when He says "all things are put under Him," it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.
28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
Singing is the antithesis of sorrow. There will be no cessation to the new song, because Christ has put an end to the reign of sin and death from which all sorrows spring.
The statement, “no man can learn that song but the 144,000 which were redeemed from the earth” is proof that in that mystic number is not some fragment of earthly Israel, much less some tiny and privileged fragment of the Church itself, but the whole elect company of the redeemed of all ages, from the Garden of Eden to the end of time.
The parallel passage of Revelation 19:6 is clearly the entire church of Old and New Testaments, and the voice which John records there, is ‘the voice of a great multitude’ - that great multitude which no man can number, which is also the mystic Israel of God, the Church, comprehended under the mystic number of divine completeness –
ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY AND FOUR THOUSAND.
We are reminded again of our exposition of chapter 7 where it is pointed out that the tribe of Dan is missing from the twelve tribes there enumerated. The order of the tribes is also deliberately disturbed, and the name of Ephraim is carefully avoided - proving that the enumeration is to be understood spiritually and not literally - a mystic numbering in accordance with the genius of the entire Book.
VIRGIN CHARACTER OF BELIEVERS
If further proof is needed for this spiritual interpretation, we have it in verse 4, where the 144,000 are identified as those who were “not defiled with women - being virgins” - and who “follow the Lamb withersoever he goeth”.
Here, if anywhere, we are in spiritual territory.
The exposition simplifies itself the moment it is recognised that as usual; John dwells deep in the imagery of Old Testament prophecy. The term VIRGIN or VIRGINS is employed in the Old Testament to denote cities or nations.
Mystically it is applied to the Church as in Psalm 45:14. The inspired David there describes the Bride of Christ, the Church, with her retinue of virgins.
“She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow thee shall be brought unto thee.”
Raiment of needlework denotes a virgin state -as in the case of the unhappy Tamar, shamefully betrayed by her half-brother Amnon: '”She had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king’s daughters that were virgins, appareled”. (2 Samuel 13:18)
How often is the nation of Israel, or Judah, described thusly: “The virgin, the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee” (2 Kings 19:21).
By contrast heathen Tyre is described as a rejected harlot (Isaiah 23:15-18).
15 Now it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot:
16 "Take a harp, go about the city,
You forgotten harlot;
Make sweet melody, sing many songs,
That you may be remembered."
17 And it shall be, at the end of seventy years, that the LORD will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire, and commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.
18 Her gain and her pay will be set apart for the LORD; it will not be treasured nor laid up, for her gain will be for those who dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for fine clothing.
The Song of Solomon which is the bridal song of Christ and the Church describes the pure love of the Church toward Christ because of the wonder of His name and the savour of His presence. “Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee” (Song 1:3).
The too much neglected Alexander Cruden writes in his Concordance under the heading '”VIRGIN” -
Virgin is often used in Scripture for a people, a city, a nation, as the virgin the daughter of Babylon, the virgin the daughter of Zion - of Israel - etc. The professors of religion in general are called virgins, such as are not defiled with scandalous sin nor erroneous opinion. Matthew 25:1: The kingdom of heaven shall be likened unto ten virgins - yet only five deserved the name, they having not only a profession but a true faith and love. The character of virgins is principally given to those who adhere steadfastly to Christ and abhor anything that has any show of violating their fidelity to Him. Revelation 14:4: These are they which are not defiled with women - that is, that are not corrupted with the erroneous doctrine and idolatrous worship of the antichristian church, for they are virgins: they keep close to Christ in all His ordinances and are led by His Word and Spirit. The apostle says, “I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”
(2 Corinthians 11:2).
It should be clear therefore that John is speaking in the spiritual, prophetic sense when he describes as ‘virgins’ the 144,000 of verse 3. These so described are the citizens of the heavenly Zion, the New Jerusalem, and the Bride of Christ, those who comprise the marriage train of the Lamb.
If some should complain that it is not possible to be of the Bride, and at the same time one of the bridesmaids at the heavenly marriage, they do not understand how rich is the Bible in its variety of figures. Hence the Church is a city and also the citizens of the city; a tree and a forest of trees; a garden, an army, a country, a temple, a collection of many individual temples, branches in a vine, a vine in itself, living stones, a wife, a daughter, a son, a child, a dew, God’s heritage, God’s husbandry, God’s flock, the light of the world, stars, singular, sevenfold, watchmen, way¬farers, a woman, a man, etc., etc.
Every believer therefore is a virgin, dedicated to Christ, separated unto Him from a wicked world, having renounced this world and its ways, yielded to God, a pilgrim on the way to Zion.
In the bad sense, a woman in the Bible represents false religion, spiritual adultery. The believer in this sense is ‘not defiled with women’ for he is espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ. There are exactly 144,000 of us - but that is a mystic number to show divine completeness, and the assurance that not one sheep will ever be left behind when the flock is finally made up. CDA
DEDICATION TO CHRIST
Another mark of the believer is (verse 4) that he “follows the Lamb whither¬soever He goeth”. A stranger will he not follow for he knows not the voice of a stranger (John 10:5). This following of Christ is undoubtedly taken from the parable of the Shepherd and the sheep, which only John records.
“Whithersoever he goeth” marks the complete dedication of the soul to the will and to the leading of the Redeemer. There is perhaps a call here to those who have accepted the Doctrines of Grace, not to overlook in their enthusiasm the sweet doctrine of utter consecration to Christ in loving obedience and self-dedication.
The idea that one could become a Christian without such a consecration is an error of the first order.
Romans 8:5
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
THEOLOGY AND PERSONAL DEVOTION
Theology which is unmixed with the devotion of a dedicated life is surely a betrayal of Christ. “I live - yet not I but Christ liveth in me” declared the great apostle who counted not his life dear unto himself (Galatians 2:20; Acts 20:24). It is thus, in lowly obedience and in utter devotion, the satisfied soul pours out its love and worship to the Redeemer, as did she who being forgiven much, broke her box of ointment most precious over His feet so soon to tread the journey to Calvary for her.
Solomon saw it all in advance when he wrote, “While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof” (Song of Songs 1:12). He had a prevision of the scene in the house at Bethany.
WITH CHARLES WESLEY
And why should we not to sing with Charles Wesley of “Love divine” in these terms -
Then let us sit beneath His cross,
And gladly catch the healing stream,
All things for him account but loss,
And give up all our hearts to Him;
Of nothing think or speak beside,
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Nothing less than this, surely, is found in the words of the Beloved Apostle: “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”.
FIRSTFRUITS
“These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”
That this description applies to all the redeemed and not to a special class is clear from the absolute nature of the first phrase. These are in fact the redeemed - not a portion of them but the whole. The use of the term ‘firstfruits’ does not imply a second harvest after the first, but rather the quality of their redemption.
“Separated from the entire mass as the best absolutely” (Speaker’s Bible, which rejects the opinion that these are the firstfruits from among the redeemed them¬selves, or with respect to those who come after them).
WHO ARE THE “LIARS”?
5 “And in their mouth was found no guile (lit. no lie)”.
John is his own interpreter. “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” The meaning is far-reaching. What John is saying is that the Godhead is One. The supreme lie which has troubled creation from the beginning is this denial of God. To deny the Son is to deny the Father, and by consequence to deny the Incarnation of God, to deny the Holy Trinity and dismantle the Godhead. In these last of days we are seeing this spirit of antichrist coming to its full and final blasphemy….
The beloved apostle probably wrote his Gospel, the three epistles, and the Apocalypse, long after all the other apostles had been removed from the earth. It is significant that all his writings appear to have as the motive for their production the challenge which was even then growing in the Church, concerning the true deity of Christ, the mystery of the Incarnation of God, the Word made flesh.
It is these writings more than any others which are Satan’s target today, and it is in these writings that the features of the antichristian apostasy are fully exposed. Antichrist has been with us for the last two millenniums, and in our day is coming to his last and boldest maturity. It will increasingly appear in our generation, as a distinguishing feature of the true Church, that in our mouths is not to be found the last and greatest lie.
Hengstenberg is very clear and helpful on this verse. He writes, “Freedom from lying appears not rarely as the mark of the elect in the writings of the Old Testament. ‘The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth’ (Zephaniah 3:15). But there is a peculiar depth in John’s idea of the truth, and so its sweep is with him very wide, and to be destitute of it is something very terrible.
A liar, in his account, according to 1 John 2:4, is one who does not confess Christ nor exhibit his faith by his works. He notes it as the crowning point of lying, in 1 John 2:22, to deny Christ, with which idolatry and the deification of man, described as a work of lies in Romans 1:25, goes hand in hand ... All men are by nature liars, and freedom from lying, especially from that worst form of it, which withholds divine honour from Him to whom alone it is due, and ascribes it to one to whom it does not belong, can be derived only from above; the rather so as man’s natural inclination to lying has so powerful a coadjutor in Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44).” Allusion is made to 1 Peter 2:22: “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,” Isaiah 53:9 – “Neither was any deceit in his mouth”.
“WITHOUT FAULT BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD”
To be found “without fault” at the Last Assize is an assured destiny of very great consolation to the troubled soul. The throne of God is mentioned here in the sense of the Last Judgment about which the whole of the remainder of this chapter is concerned. The Book of Revelation is the Book of the Throne. The Throne is mentioned 32 times in this Book, roughly one third of the number of occurrences of the word in the entire Bible. The Apocalypse is the Book of the Throne, and it is a high proof of the true deity of Christ that in so many instances we find the blessed Redeemer sitting thereupon or otherwise sharing the Throne with the Father, as in the last chapter in this Book where we read, “The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it”. (Chapter 22:3)
It is the prerogative of Christ to share that throne with His people and so to realize the secret object of all creation - that man should reign over all as the vice-regent of God. This promise is wonderfully described in the Eighth Psalm -
What is man that thou art mindful of him? ... thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour … thou has put all things under his feet.
This is why God made man, but we now know that that destiny is only realized in God becoming Man, that fallen man might be raised to the highest dignity in creation through the atonement wrought in the Eternal Son. Redeemed man reigns in Christ over all, and through the mediation of the God-man, Christ Jesus, is elevated to the highest dignity in creation.
It is of this high destiny that Christ speaks in the message to the last of the Mystic Seven Churches, that of Laodicea, wherein He declares, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne”. (Rev. 3:21)
They who will attend to these remarkable verses will see that there is in them a complete proof of the true deity of the Son Incarnate. Who is this who claims the right to order the eternal destiny of His people, saying, “I will grant to sit with me in my throne ...”? If He be not God in the most absolute sense such words would express the highest blasphemy.
To be “without fault before the throne” is an evangelical state, for no man in his own right can attain to it. Unless we can claim the divine occupant of the throne as our own and only righteousness, we cannot hope for acceptance there. Yet it is His throne before which we are attested to be accepted as being without fault.
This can only be as He is revealed to us and received by us as our JEHOVAH TZIDKENU – “The Lord our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6). If He who is on the throne is our only righteousness, then there can be none to blame, none to condemn. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Again, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God”. (John 3:18)
It is significant that the same John who tells us in Revelation that the redeemed are without fault before the throne, is also he who records in his Gospel the wonderful secret of our acceptance in Him, through whom, by faith, we possess that everlasting righteousness which causes us to be accepted, without blame, at the Last Judgment.
To summarise these five verses of Revelation 14 in their description of the
Church, we see the final scene when the Lamb stands upon Mount Zion with His
144,000 whose number can neither be increased nor diminished for it is perfect; they have a song which only they can sing; they have a separation from the defilement of this world; they follow the Lamb wherever He leads; they have a guiltlessness which none else can claim; stamped upon them is the name of the Father who in Christ claims them for His own.
I will ask you the same question that I opened with:
Do you want to go to heaven?
The message is the invitation.
Repent and believe in the Gospel.
Amen
