THE 144,000 OF REVELATION CHAPTER 7
Much has been said and written of the 144,000 of Revelation Chapter 7. Some religious groups have declared that they themselves constitute the 144,000. Scripture is clear however, in that these are Jewish evangelists, 12,000 from each Tribe.
Dispensationalists still claim that these are Jewish evangelists Saved in "The Great 7 Year Tribulation" which they say immediately follows the "Darby Rapture"[1]. We will look at the passage and examine the Dispensationl position in some detail.
Here is the passage:
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand.
7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand.
8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand. Revelation 7:1-8
WHAT DISPENSATIONALISTS TEACH ABOUT THEIR "7 YEAR GREAT TRIBULATION"
Dispensationalism[2] teaches (following I Thessalonians 4:15-17) that at the point of the "Darby Rapture" every single Believer in Jesus Christ that is alive at that time will be removed from the earth, however the earth is not finally Judged.
THEY TEACH "NO REMNANT" LEFT ON THE EARTH
When their "Great 7 Year Tribulation" begins, there will be NO REMNANT OF BELIEVERS LEFT ANYWHERE ON EARTH as G-d always Promised and He always Provided!?! The "Seven Year Great Tribulation" starts off with NO REMNANT and the Antichrist ruling the earth, minus any Remnant. This idea has no analogy anywhere is Scripture.
G-d has always left a Remnant of Believers. What they teach has no parallel anywhere in Scripture.
THEY TEACH THERE ARE ACTUALLY TWO DIFFERENT GOSPELS
Dispensationalists teach there were and are "Two Different Gospels". Many times they do not reveal this at first to their "students".
One Gospel is for the Jewish people which they call "The Gospel of the Kingdom", and the other is for the Church, which they call "The Gospel of the Grace of God". They say that every time you see "Gospel of the Kingdom" in the New Testament, it is really a "code phrase" for their "Millennium" or "Kingdom Age" which is not now, but still future. On the other hand, whenever the "Gospel of the Grace of God" appears, that means their "Church Age".
THEY TEACH THERE WILL BE "NO HOLY SPIRIT ON THE EARTH"
They also teach that the Holy Spirit will be completely REMOVED from the earth during their "Great 7 Year Tribulation"?
We were always taught that the Holy Spirit is an Inseparable Member of the Tri-Une G-dhead, and OMNIPRESENT!
According to Matthew 28:18, "All Power" has been Given to Yeshua "in Heaven and in earth" and the Holy Spirit is ALWAYS With Him, so how could that ever happen? That is why Dispensationalism amazes its hearers: because that could not happen!
This is another huge problem for the Dispensationalists. They will deny Christs' Kingdom is completely Fulfilled now by Matthew 28:18, because that would conflict with their teaching that the "Kingdom passages" refer to their future "Millennium for Israel" which hasn't happened yet they say!
They teach that no Christians go into their "Great Tribulation". The Church has all been removed. The "Church Age" is completely over at the point of the "Darby Rapture", and since, according to their calculations, "God still owes the Jewish people seven years", the remainder of the "Jewish Age" (Daniels' 70th week) automatically begins at that time (the point of the "Darby Rapture").
Here is an explanation of some of the events of Revelation 7 that they predict will happen contained in the notes of a Dispensationalist teachers' Bible:
"(Revelation) 7:1-17: This chapter contains the parenthetical portion between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals. In this portion there are two distinct groups mentioned. (1) The 144,000 servants of God that are sealed are representative of the twelve tribes of Israel. This does not mean that only 12,000 Israelites will be saved, but that the 12,000 chosen in each tribe will be protected from the wrath of Satan and the Antichrist. (2) The great multitude that will be saved. These are described as "they which come out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 7:14). It is clear from 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, that those who hear the gospel before the tribulation and reject it, will be doomed to spend an eternity without Christ. The only ones who can be possibly saved during the Tribulation are those who do not hear the gospel previous to that time." (Zodhiates. The Hebrew-Greek Study Bible Note. page 1565, emphasis added)
Dr. Zodhiates makes clear the Dispensational position above: Jews that have heard the gospel and rejected it during the "Church Age" (and are therefore not Raptured along with the Church) cannot be saved. They will all go into the "Great Tribulation" and are all "doomed to spend an eternity without Christ".
AN EXAMPLE OF THIS MIXED-UP DOCTRINE
Here is an actual publication of a Dispensationalist group encouraging people to witness to the Jews so that they can be the "remnant" prepared for the "Great Tribulation"! Read it closely.
"WHO WILL PREACH THE GOSPEL WHEN THE CHURCH IS GONE?
"If you are a well taught child of God, you know the answer - the Jews of course. We call them sometimes the Tribulation Jews. To them we must hand down our torch of witness, that they may carry on, after we have heard the shout from heaven!
"And if this is true, then do you not see the categorical imperarive involved? It means that the true church must evangelize Israel with a fervor and intensity never known before, to prepare the Remnant to take up the testimony once the day of Grace is ended. This is the deeper meaning of the Jewish mission witness, and we are not asleep when it comes to an understanding of the inner workings and necessities of God's Dispensational program.
"If God leads you to fellowship with us in this divinely given task, we shall surely welcome your joining hands with us. The Chosen People is sent to contributors, and is proving a blessing to many of the Lord's people in opening their eyes to present day prophetic fulfillments and meanings.
"AMERICAN BOARD OF MISSIONS TO THE JEWS, INC.
"27 Throop Avenue
"Brooklyn 6, N.Y.
"39 King William Sreeet
"Hamilton, Ontario
"Canada"
What? Did you read the above closely? As Oswald T. Allis and others have correctly pointed out, any Jew that has heard the Gospel and believes cannot go INTO their "Great Tribulation" as they would (according to their doctrine) be Raptured with the rest of the Church! They would be Christians! On the other hand, if the Jews they witness to reject the Gospel, then they are "doomed to spend an eternity without Christ"! according to Dr. Zodhiates and other Dispensationalists!
In other words, the tract above is telling them to witness to the Jews so that the Jews can be the "remnant" when the Church gets Raptured. But every Jew who believes will become a part of the Church and all Christians are removed from earth and do not go into the Tribulation? So how could the believing Jews who become Christians be "Tribulation Jews"? They would all be Raptured! Then, Dispy doctrine says that the Jews who do not believe the gospel during the "Church Age" who do go into the "Tribulation" cannot be Saved but are "doomed to spend an eternity without Christ", so how could they make up the 144,000 evangelists who preach the gospel during the "Tribulation" either??
This just another example of how confusing, self-contradictory and "fly-by-night" their doctrine truly is!
This begs a question: if no Jews that have heard the gospel can be Saved during the "Great Tribulation", or ever, then where will the 144,000 Saved Jews come from? Should all Christians stop witnessing to Jews so that 144,000 can be Saved during the Tribulation? Yet another question is could there be 144,000 Jews anywhere that have never heard the gospel? We must ask the Dispensationalists, "Where are they?".
SEARCHING FOR 144,000 JEWS
Where do the 144,000 Jews that have "never heard the gospel" that appear in their "Great Tribulation" come from? That is the question. These Jews have to have never heard the gospel? By reading the Jewish Talmud and rabbinic literature or going to synagogue you can tell what the gospel is.[3] It's the one "forbidden subject" to preach!
Will they be Jews born in the Tribulation? This seems to answer the question, except that their "Great Tribulation" is only 7 years long, and what would be their "age of accountability" for someone to become a believer? Then again, would there be 144,000 6 or 7 year old Jews, 12,000 pint-sized evangelists from each of the 12 Tribes? We don't think so!
So could they be converted Gentiles?
Will these be Gentiles who convert to Judaism in the "Great Tribulation"? Where are 144,000 Gentiles that "have never heard the gospel"?
Will they be emergency airlifted from some unknown jungle tribes that have never had a radio or a missionary? Then will they go through a Jewish ritual conversion, be circumcised, be adopted into each of the 12 Tribes (the geneological scrolls are missing though so that would prove a sticky wicket) and "Voila!" become these 144,000 "Jews"?
The Dispensationalists would appear to have some more questions to answer. Perhaps they will, (as they have so many times before), "revise" their Darby/Scofield doctrines once again.
WHAT THE PROTESTANT CHURCH BELIEVED BASED ON EARLY CHURCH TEACHINGS
Some may ask, "Isn't Dispepsationalism always what the Church has believed? My teacher said it was." No, your "teacher" is wrong. Here is what the Protestnat Church has always believed, and what the Dispensationalists do not like!
From Matthew Henry
Christ Himself Prophesied of the destruction of Jerusalem; and, about the time in which that was accomplished, He entrusted the Apostle John with this Book of Revelation, to deliver it to the Church as a prediction of the most important events that should happen to it to the end of time, for the support of the Faith of His people and the direction of their hope. (Matthew Henry. Introduction, Volume VI, p. 1118)
The founders of the Protestant Reformation and those who followed them, in other words, as well as the early Church before them, always taught that the Book of Revelation was written before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. not after, and the Book of Revelation was prophesying that event. In other words, the events of the Book of Revelation that Dispys claim have never been fulfilled have already been fulfilled Spiritually and Allegorically in 70 A.D.! The prophecies were never considered wholly "Future" at all!
The founders of Dispensationalism railed against Matthew Henry and the teachings of Protestantism and rejected the Westminister Confession of Faith. Because of the open hostility of the founders of Dispensationalism against the foundational teachings of the Protestant Reformation, it is obvious that their doctrines were actually devised to remove the teachings of the Protestant Reformation itself from the Churches!
MORE FOLLOWING SOON!
PEOPLE OF G-D MINISTRIES
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FOOTNOTES
[1]We distinguish between the "Darby Rapture" of the Dispensationalists and the Rapture that is found in Scripture in I Thessalonians 4:15-17. Our opponents, in their frenzy, accuse us of rejecting I Thessalonians 4:15-17. For the record, we never have; only the odd "Darby" interpretation which they insist on applying to it and other passages of Scripture as well.
[2]It should be remembered that Dispensationalists are "Futurists" and "Literalists". They teach that great sections the Book of Revelation and also the Old Testament have not happened yet (The Old Testament is only for "Israel", that is, the Jewish people, and not the Church, and the Old Testament according to them, says nothing of the Church at all; the "Church" was a complete and total mystery to all the Old Testament Prophets), but, according to them, all will all be fulfilled "Literally" (as the rabbis of Yeshuas' day also taught and continue to teach to this day) on this present carnal earth sometime in the future. Hence they are termed: "Futurists" and "Literalists".
[3]Darby says that the "Jewish remnant" that is not Raptured because they are not Believers in Yeshua, is made up of "pious and godly Jews" who have not heard the gospel.
Darby creates his "remnant" from ones who do not believe in Yeshua. Why is that? Because remember, if any Jews DID Believe in Yeshua BEFORE the "Darby Rapture" they would have been "Raptured" with the Church as Believers!
Darby says "pious and godly Jews" (we presume he means by rabbinical standards) are his remnant. So then, where are any "pious and godly Jews" who do not know the gospel? The question is, how would anyone know to exclude anyone from their company in the second place if they had no prior knowledge of what the gospel was in the first place?
Also, their insistence that "the Holy Spirit is gone from the earth" during the "Great Tribulation" would seemingly make Salvation impossible, seeing that we are Sealed by the Holy Spirit when we are Saved? How can anyone be "Sealed by the Holy Spirit" during their "Great Tribulation" if "the Holy Spirit" is altogether missing?
Darby and the others are notably silent on both these questions. They simply expect all to believe absurdities?
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CREDITS
Allis, Oswald T. Prophecy and the Church. 1945.
Darby, John Nelson. The Christian Witness. "Heads of the Psalms". 1837.
Henry, Matthew. Commentary on the Whole Bible. 1707.
Scofield, C.I. The Scofield Reference Bible. 1907.
The Westminister Confession of Faith. 1644.
Zodhiates, Spiros Th. D. The Hebrew-Greek Study Bible. AMG Publishers. June 1991, Revised Edition.