Revelation 14: 1And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on the mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand, having his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads. 2And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping with their harps: 3and they sing as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders: and no man could learn the song save the hundred and forty and four thousand, even they that had been purchased out of the earth. 4These are they that were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were purchased from among men, to be the first fruits unto God and unto the Lamb. 5And in their mouth was found no lie: they are without blemish.

 The number 144,000 connotes the completeness of God’s true people, in antithesis to the 666 on the foreheads of the beast’s followers, which connotes their incompleteness in achieving the divine design for humanity.

What the 144,000 are like, what characterizes them.

 

What characterizes them should do the same for us now in this life, if we truly belong to Jesus and are living for him.

1. Those who have never defiled themselves with women, for they have kept themselves pure.

What does that mean? Does it mean that all women automatically corrupt you? Some, in more ascetic times, have tried to argue that. That is so profoundly unbiblical it’s painful to think any Christian has ever thought it.

Already in the created order before there was a fall, Scripture insists, “It is not good for a man to live alone.” After the fall, as late as Hebrews 13, we’re carefully taught, “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled

Jesus says in Matthew 19:12 that there are some people who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God. That is, they make themselves celibate for the kingdom of God. Paul himself in 1 Corinthians 7 can point out that there are some advantages to being single.

At the same time, it’s very important not to make single people second-class citizens.

In the New Testament, marriage is called a charisma in 1 Corinthians 7, a grace gift, and celibacy is called a charisma, a grace gift.

That means we’re all charismatics because we’re all either single or married. If you’re single, it’s a charisma from God. If you’re married, it’s a charisma from God. In this case, there’s no way you can have both charismatic gifts at the same time, but both are considered by God to be gracious gifts from his hand.

I doubt this has anything to do with any of that. It’s  more likely is that this is taking up symbol-laden language from the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, Israel is regularly spoken of as “the virgin daughter of Zion.” The people of God as a whole are spoken of as “the virgin daughter of Zion” (2 Kings 19), or “the virgin of Israel” (Jeremiah 18; Amos 5). It’s very common.

When she sins, then she is said to “play the harlot,” as in Jeremiah 3 or Amos 5. “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again.” Or read Hosea; the whole point of Hosea is that almighty God is supposed to be the husband and Israel is supposed to be the bride.

The same imagery then is transferred in the New Testament to Christ and the church. Christ now becomes the groom, and the church, taken collectively, is the bride.

In that sense, then, every instance of sin, every instance of idolatry, can be cast as a kind of spiritual adultery. That’s what’s going on in the book of Hosea. So covenant breaking in the realm of faithfulness to God is now seen as covenant breaking in the realm of marriage. That’s the language that is used.

So these people who have kept themselves pure are covenantally faithful. It doesn’t mean they’re sinlessly perfect, but they are covenantally faithful people. They have kept themselves pure. They have not taken on the mark of the Beast. They confess Christ as Lord, and they’re waiting for what Revelation 21 and 22 say. They’re waiting for the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb.

2. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

This does not mean they sort of follow him around heaven or something like a 3-year-old who is hungry follows Mom around the kitchen.

It’s another way of talking about discipleship. Did not Jesus himself say, “If anyone would come after me, he must disown himself, deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”? If the first figure speaks of fidelity, then the second figure speaks of discipleship. These are faithful disciples.

Instead of identifying with the idolatrous world, they identify with Christ: “they are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.”Like the sacrificial Lamb, they offer their lives up in sacrifice to God ( Rom. 12:1).

Not only do they follow Jesus’ teaching and identify with his redemptive work, but they also imitate his faithfulness in the midst of suffering and persecution. As in the Gospels and Paul, the idea of “following Christ” is not limited to martyrdom but entails a wider scope of suffering in general for the sake of commitment to him 12:11.

3.Those who were purchased and offered as first fruits to God and the Lamb.

They were purchased by the blood of Christ.  Now they’re offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb.

When the word firstfruits was first used, it really did mean the firstfruits of the harvest. That is, the first part of the harvest to come in. You have an orchard, and there are certain apples that ripen first. You pick them first and bring them to market; they’re the firstfruits.

Within that framework, then, there was a Feast of Firstfruits, where you took the first fruits and offered it up to God in thanksgiving for the rest of the harvest.

Already by the second century before Christ, the word in Greek for firstfruits, aparchē, no longer meant firstfruits, or at least only rarely. It rather meant “that which was offered up to God,” because it was the first fruit of the harvest that was offered up to God. So eventually, that which was offered up to God was just called the firstfruits, whether it was the first fruit or not. It just meant that which was offered up to God.

Transparently that is already the use in the Septuagint, the LXX (the Greek Old Testament). That’s the way aparchē was used. It seems that is what is meant here then. These are the people who are offered up to God.

In Romans 12, for example, Christians are those who offer themselves up to God: “I beseech you, brothers, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God.” That is, firstfruits. That is, the people who are offered up to God. That’s your sacrifice.

You disown yourself, you deny yourself, and you offer yourselves up to God. You’ve been purchased! So because you’ve been purchased, you’re no longer yours; therefore, you offer yourself up to God. That’s all that is meant by it.

4.They are those who speak the truth.

This is over against chapter 21:8, where all liars are cast into the lake of fire. It doesn’t just mean they tell the truth, It’s more than that. It’s over against the deep lie of a passage like Romans 1:25, where we exchanged the truth about God for a lie.

This sums up where we are with our fallen nature. We want a domesticated God, we want a God we can control. We want a religion we can control, we want to follow our own way. We want the created order rather than the Creator himself. That’s the big lie, and over against that are people who come to grips with the truth of who God is, with the truth of God’s self-disclosure in his Son, the Son who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

What is in mind here is not merely general truthfulness, but the saints’ integrity in witnessing to Jesus when they are under pressure from the beast and the “false prophet” to compromise their faith and go along with the idolatrous lie (13:10, 18; 14:9–12). If Christians do not give some expression of idolatrous allegiance to the beast, they will suffer.

In a similar vein 1 John 2:22 says that “the liar … denies that Jesus is the Christ.… This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. In Jer. 13:25 and 23:14, the word for liar, ψεῦδος is used of false prophets, who deceive through idolatry, or the word refers to idolatry itself. In the Apocalypse, the one who goes along with the “false prophet” 16:13; 19:20; 20:10) is called a “liar” and is said to be facing punishment.

The reference here to the saints’ integrity is an allusion to the character of the messianic Servant prophesied in Isa. 53:9: “nor was there any deceit in his mouth.” This is striking because it comes immediately after mention of the Servant as “a lamb that is led to slaughter” (Isa. 53:7). The saints reflect both of these messianic traits. Isa. 53:9 is alluded to in the same way in 1 Pet. 2:22, which confirms our interpretation of its use here.

There the allusion is part of an exhortation to Christians not to be intimidated by pagan “kings” and “masters,” but to persevere in their profession of faith (1 Pet. 2:13, 18), and to follow in his path, even though it brings suffering: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth” (cf. 1 Pet. 2:19–23; 3:14–17).

Out of this we speak the truth about God, and because we care about God, we learn to speak the truth with one another. Thus, in the vision of Zephaniah, chapter 3, “The remnant of Israel will do no wrong; they will speak no lies.” There’s a transformation of men and women so we hunger for the truth: the truth about ourselves, the truth about God, the truth about redemption, the truth about his Son. We cherish the truth. That’s what the text says. “No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.”

It’s not that they earn heaven; it’s that the mark of the redeemed is they cherish this true God. The mark of the blood-bought, the mark of those who have been purchased by Christ, is that they love the truth.

We can’t ever forget that in a postmodern world that wants to say different people have different truths. No, There is a truth. We will never know the truth exhaustively. We’re finite, we’re broken, and we’re corrupt, but there is a truth to know. We can, in some measure, know it, and we must defend it.

Let me give you an example of this, because it is very important to grasp in our postmodern world. Do you

 Remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 when he’s talking about the resurrection of Christ.

Apparently some in Corinth had a hard job with resurrection. Partly they belonged to a culture where matter was intrinsically bad and spirit was intrinsically good.

They could easily believe in immortality, but resurrection, coming back in a real body? Give me a break! That’s intrinsically bad. Why would you do that? So they were having a hard job saying there was a final resurrection for us. They believed something about the resurrection of Christ, but they couldn’t believe there was a resurrection at the end of the age. Paul begins to work it out.

First he says, “Wait a minute. If there’s no resurrection, why believe that Christ has risen? If Christ has not risen, then let me spell out the implications for you. First of all, the apostles are a bunch of liars, because they say that they saw him, that they touched him, they recognized him, Thomas put his hand in the scars. This resurrected Christ ate real food. If Christ has not risen, then the apostles are liars.” That’s the first entailment.

Second, he says,  “You’re still lost in your trespasses and sins. How do you know that Christ’s sacrifice was really accepted before God unless he rose from the dead, approved by God, vindicated by God? If he just died on the cross and that was it, how do you know his sacrifice was acceptable before God? You’re still lost in your trespasses and sins.”

Third, he says, “You’ve believed something that isn’t true.”

 Fourth he says, You are of all people most to be pitied, because you’ve believed something that isn’t true.

  Now notice carefully what the apostle says. He does not say, “But so long as you believe it in your heart, if it helps you, then it’s true for you.” He doesn’t say that.

“If Christ has not risen,” he says, “then, for goodness’ sake, follow the implications of that. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. I don’t want you to believe this because it’s got certain heuristic values in your life, makes you afraid of hell, or something, or because it helps you in your life, it encourages you to think there’s a hope at the end. So if it helps you, then God bless you, believe it because it’s true for you.” He doesn’t say that!

He says either it is true or it isn’t. If it is true, then there are some entailments. If it’s not true, you shouldn’t believe it because it’s a load of rubbish, the apostles are liars, the witnesses are not true, you’re still lost in your sins, and frankly, hedonism makes more sense. Go and get drunk; it makes more sense. In other words, the only reason why Paul wants you to believe Christ rose from the dead is because it’s true. Now stick that in your postmodern pipe and smoke it.

You’ve just got to see that the issue here is something that is either true or it’s not.

The ultimate reason for becoming a Christian is because Christianity is true, not because it helps you, not because it makes nice people, not because you like to belong to this community, but because Christ Jesus rose from the dead. There is a truth claim at Christianity’s heart that you simply cannot escape even in our postmodern world. You cannot escape it. Those around the Lamb on Mount Zion on the last day are those who speak the truth.