Yesterday
I was drawn to the fact that the “great
multitude” introduced to us in Revelation 7:9 was identified as, “These
are the ones coming out of the great tribulation” (vs 14). The church of John’s day was going through a
season of great tribulation, and our present generation is seeing the
persecution and martyrdom of Christians at an ever-increasing rate.
Both
the history, and the present experience of tribulation for the church, call us
to meditate on the wonderful revelation of this room in the Revelation Museum. The
picture of a great multitude before the heavenly throne is a gift to the
suffering church. As Peter said, we are to resist the devil and stand firm in
our faith, “knowing that the same
kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the
world.”[1]
No matter what side of the world we are on, the brotherhood of believers in Jesus
Christ suffers as one.
This
leads to the consideration of how God’s suffering children are helped and
blessed by the beautiful picture of this great multitude in heaven. Their cry
of “Salvation belongs to our God who sits
on the throne, and to the Lamb!”[2] is
intended to bless us through every age of history, no matter how much we
presently suffer from a world that will always hate our Savior and King.
It is amazing that God moves John from such a beautiful,
precise, mathematically descriptive number as the 144,000, to such a definite
picture of a numberless multitude. God wants both these pictures in our minds.
On one side, we must be convinced that he will not fail to bring in all those he
has chosen. On the other side, we are not to think that this is a small number,
even though persecution often makes it look like the Christians are outnumbered.
John’s description of, “a
great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes
and people and languages,”[3] stands out to me because God made a promise to Abraham that he would
have innumerable descendants. As the writer of Hebrews described, “Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born
descendants as many as the stars
of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”[4]
My consideration of the connection between God’s promise to
Abraham that he would have innumerable descendants, and the picture in
Revelation 7 of a numberless multitude, led me to Paul’s explanation of these
things in Galatians 3.
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand
to Abraham, saying, “In you shall
all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with
Abraham, the man of faith.[5]
Here is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that,
in him, all the nations would be blessed. In Paul’s time, he was explaining the
reality that the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham was displayed in all
the Gentiles who were coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Paul was assuring the
Church, and preaching to the world, that it is “those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” He reasons that the
gospel was preached to Abraham “beforehand,”
at the time God presented the covenant. The gospel was, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
The question is, how is this the gospel? We understand the
gospel as the good news in Jesus Christ, the good news of salvation. So, how
did the Scripture preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham?
The gospel is expressed by Paul in this way:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that
Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am
the foremost. But I
received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might
display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him
for eternal life.[6]
How is it that God’s declaration to Abraham that in him all
the nations would be blessed is the same gospel that Paul preached, that Jesus came
into the world to save sinners?
The two come together like this: God preached the gospel to
Abraham beforehand, telling Abraham that, in him, all the nations of the world
would be blessed. This was because Scripture was given to us with this
foresight that “God would justify the
Gentiles by faith.”
However, there was only one way that the Gentiles would be
justified by faith, and that was through the death of Jesus Christ. Jesus had
to come into the world to save sinners in order for God to justify those
sinners by faith.
The only way that God could promise Abraham that he would justify
the Gentiles by faith was with the proviso that he would send his Son into the
world to save sinners. And, because God had ordained before the beginning of
time that he would save sinners, and that he would adopt them as sons of God,
conforming them to the image of his own Son, he promised Abraham that the
nations would be blessed through him. He then sent his Son as Abraham’s
offspring to bless the nations with the gift of the gospel. Now those who
believe in Jesus Christ are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith,
because we are the people of faith, the true offspring of Abraham since we are
the living offspring of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a
curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.[7]
The “blessing of
Abraham” is that “in you shall all
the nations be blessed.”[8] Paul explains that it is “in Christ Jesus” that “the
blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” The only way that God
could fulfill his promise to Abraham that all the nations would be blessed
through him was by sending his Son to take away “the curse of the law.”
The point is that, “in
Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” When God
told Abraham that in him all the nations would be blessed, he was preaching the
gospel about Jesus, the Son of God, coming into the world to save sinners. Jesus
was hanged on a tree in order to become the curse of sin, to bear the
condemnation of sin, and to set us free from both the curse and condemnation
our sins deserved.
Paul concludes, “There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in
Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”[9]
The reason that we do not look at the church as Jew or
Greek, slave or free, male or female, is that we are all one in Christ Jesus.[10] The promise to Abraham was that he would bless all
the nations through the gospel. Jesus came into the world to save sinners from out
of all the nations. This was not to create a whole bunch of distinctive, ethnic
churches, but to show that all that come to God come through the same faith as
Abraham, a faith made effective through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, when we come to Revelation 7, and John now sees “a great multitude that no one could number,”
and we realize that these people who stand “before
the throne and before the Lamb,” are from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” we have
this wonderful encouragement that God is keeping his promise to Abraham. Through
him, all the nations would be blessed, and so they are.
The Church, in every location, and every season of history,
must consider that the heavenly throne room is filling up with people from
every nation, every tribal group, every people group, and every language group.
The terrorist organizations that threaten the church may seem to be growing in
number and force, but that is not the way God sees it.
God’s view is that the church goes out conquering and to
conquer throughout the whole church age,[11] that there is a beautiful number for the elect who
are sealed for the day of redemption,[12] and that the promise to Abraham that he would have
innumerable offspring is portrayed in the countless multitude that fills the
heavenly throne room.
The conclusion is that, just as God kept his promise to
Abraham in the big picture of the divine plans and purposes, he is keeping his
promises to his people wherever we are, and whatever we are going through. The
Lord knows who are his,[13] and will not fail to bring us into the home Jesus is
preparing for us.[14]
We should not let anything we see with our eyes dissuade us
from what faith knows to be true from the hearing of God’s word. God’s word
says that, “faith comes from hearing, and
hearing through the word of Christ.”[15]Christ has spoken about the numberless multitude
before the throne of God so that we will endure by faith in him, no matter how
small our numbers wherever we are, and whatever we are going through.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1] I Peter 5:9
[2] Revelation 7:10
[3] Revelation 7:9
[4] Hebrews 11:12
[5] Galatians 3:7-9
[6] I Timothy 1:15-16
[7] Galatians 3:13-14
[8] Galatians 3:8
[9] Galatians 3:28-29
[10] Note: this description
of the church does not nullify all the teachings about differences between male
and female in the church and family, or instructions about how both slaves and
masters were to relate to one another in both their social settings, and their
fellowship as brothers in Jesus Christ.
[11] Revelation 6:1-2
[12] Revelation 7:1-8;
Ephesians 1:13; 4:30
[13] II Timothy 2:19
[14] John 10:28-29; 14:1-3
[15] Romans 10:17
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