4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
5 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
A Great Multitude from Every Nation
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
It is much more practical and likely to suppose that what John gives us here is a twofold picture of the Church, first the Church militant, then the Church triumphant. The point of the two pictures, the 144,000 on the one hand, and the innumerable multitude on the other, is this: in the first picture, which represents the Church on earth, the idea of protection is up permost; God's people are sealed against the woes, and therefore all are individually num bered, every head marked and sealed with love and care. In the second picture, however, it is the wideness of God's mercy that is stressed, embracing a great multitude of people. The numbered are found to be numberless!
It is not certain whether we are to take the work of the angel in sealing God's people as referring to the calling out of men by the gospel, or to the protection of those that have been thus called out, but in any case we may legitimately infer that the true background of gospel work is the coming judgment of God, and that it is in this light that preaching must be done, for 'God hath appointed a Day' (Acts 17:31). The sealing itself may be said to have a threefold
meaning, (a) as a protection against interference, (b) as the mark of ownership, and (c) as the certification of genuine character. Every true believer is sealed in this threefold sense. As Hendriksen puts it, 'The Father hath sealed him, for the believer enjoys the Father's protection through life. The Son has sealed him, for He has bought and redeemed the believer with His own precious blood. The Spirit has sealed him (Ephesians 1:13) for He certifies that we are sons of God' (Romans 8:16).