The elect will be safe and sound forever

Sermon for Midweek of Easter

Revelation 7:1-17

We’re still basking in the glow of Easter Sunday and Christ’s resurrection from the dead. We heard this evening about His appearance to the Emmaus disciples, how He hid His identity from them until they recognized the Christ from the Scriptures first, how He would be rejected, how He would suffer, die, and then rise again. Only then did He make Himself known to them.

It’s still what He does. He guides us to the Scriptures and then guides us through the Scriptures to know and believe certain things before we get to see those things. In the case of tonight’s reading from Revelation 7, it’s the safety of the saints, on earth and in heaven, that we don’t see with our eyes. We have to believe it. We have to take God’s word for it.

If you recall from a couple weeks ago, we reviewed Revelation 6, where we saw six of the seven seals on the scroll opened. And we witnessed all kinds of destruction that would be leveled against the earth during this New Testament period, but also the going forth of the Gospel with the rider on the white horse, making his way through the world. We ended chapter 6 on the last day, the day of the Lord’s wrath against mankind, and the despair that unbelievers will face on that day.

Chapter 7, on the other hand, gives us a picture of believers in Christ leading up to the last day, first as we live in the world, and then as the souls of believers are brought out of this world.

John saw four angels, at the “four corners” of the earth, holding back the final destruction that is to be unleashed on the earth, symbolized by a destructive wind that will destroy the earth, the sea, and every last tree. But the angels have to hold back that final destruction for a little while longer, until the 144,000 “of all the tribes of the children of Israel” are sealed.

Now, we talked about this back in November when we heard these same verses on All Saints’ Day. Who are the 144,000? Is it a literal number or a spiritual one? Are they physical descendants of Jacob of spiritual ones?

There are all sorts of unscriptural interpretations of this group. Let’s focus on the Scriptural one. 144,000 is 12,000 times 12,000, or 12 x 12 x 10 x 10 x 10. There are those symbolic numbers again. We’ve identified 12 as the number of the Church. 10 signifies wholeness or completeness, and 10 cubed means it’s a relatively large number, although not nearly as large as the number of angels John saw earlier in his vision, “ten thousand times ten thousand.”

There are 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. But you notice something strange about the listing of the tribes? It wasn’t the normal listing. There are two notable differences, or even three. First, the tribe of Dan is entirely missing. Second, the tribe of Manasseh is listed along with the tribe of Joseph. But Joseph had no tribe named after him. His two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, became the fathers of two tribes in Israel. And third, Judah, although he wasn’t the firstborn, was listed first.

What do we learn from those anomalies? The simplest understanding is that this list is meant to be understood figuratively or spiritually. It isn’t referring to a literal number of people who are literally descended from each of those tribes of Israel. It’s referring to the full number of the elect children of God, believers in Christ Jesus, who are the spiritual Israel that John the Baptist and Jesus talk about in the Gospels and that St. Paul talks about in Romans and in Galatians. That understanding is further confirmed in how the 144,000 are referred to a few verses later: as the servants of our God. That’s another way of saying all faithful Christians, that is, the elect, those whom God foreknew in eternity as those who would hear and believe the Gospel and who would persevere in faith until the end. Them He elected to glory.

And the world can’t be destroyed until the full number of the elect are brought into the Holy Church. As soon as they are sealed, the end can come.

Now, what does it mean to be sealed? Here it seems to refer back to the book of Ezekiel. In his vision, he saw the people of Jerusalem about to be slaughtered at God’s command. But not until certain people were marked. Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it. They were to be spared from the coming destruction.

So the elect and believing children of God, the believers in Christ, are to be spared from the final destruction coming on the world. We are also the ones who “sigh and cry” over all the abominations that are done in the world. We do not give our consent to all the evil we see, nor do we participate in it. Instead, we sigh and cry over it. And God sees. And God seals. He marks us as His own. He will see to it that every last believer is kept safe and sound from the coming destruction. And that destruction won’t come until every last one of the elect is sealed.

Meanwhile, on the other side of death, those who have already fallen asleep in the faith are doing just fine. Here John gives us that familiar and beautiful vision of the believers in heaven. I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

On the one hand, God has every one of the elect numbered, hence the 144,000. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s a vast number that we can’t count, a vast number made up of people from all places and from all races. And as each one falls asleep in Christ, he joins that multitude that no one can count standing before God’s throne and singing the praises of the Lamb.

They are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation. This world, especially as we approach its end, is the great tribulation. We see it more and more clearly each day. This world with its depravity and violence and injustice is not the home of Christians. We are in the world but not of the world. Christians have lost sight of that fact from time to time. They tried to mold the cultures of the world into the Christian image and they deceived themselves, blending society with Christianity so that one was practically indecipherable from the other. But when that happens, Christianity loses its true character, its character as living under the cross. In reality, Christians are living through the great tribulation here.

But afterward, there are the palm branches that are the sign of victory. And there are white robes that are the sign of purity and holiness and perfection, the sinless status these souls received already in this life, when they washed their robes in the “rosy-red waters of Baptism,” as Luther calls them, made red by the blood of the Lamb, making white the robes of the one who believes and is baptized.

Finally, see what God does for them as they live in his presence and serve him day and night in His Temple: He shelters them with His presence, providing for their every need, protecting them from all harm and danger. No more hunger or thirst, no more scorching heat or any threat of catastrophe. The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. After all the struggles with sin and its consequences here on earth, after making it through this great tribulation with their faith still intact, the saints in heaven are finally safe and sound forever.

Once again, we see that the book of Revelation is not such a scary book. What’s scary is what’s actually going on all around us. Revelation simply informs us that, yes, what you see going on around you was always going to come, and God has always included it in His plan. But what you don’t see, what’s hidden from view, is that the elect will be safe and sound when the world is destroyed. That you have to believe from Scripture. You have to take God’s word for it. Isn’t it comforting, then, that, with almost no one left on earth whose word you can trust, you can trust God’s word completely, without any possibility that He may just be lying to you? Take comfort in that fact, and trust in His promise of safety and rest for those who are found in Christ Jesus. Believe it now, and you will see it eventually. Amen.