The Business of Heaven
Revelation 7
The Feast of All Saints
Naturalism is a theory that denies the supernatural. A naturalist, for example, spurns the Virgin Birth of Jesus, the resurrection and ascension. Miracles, the existence of the soul are also opposed. A Christian super-naturalist, in contrast, accepts these realities and has no problem believing that God uses angels to control nature. In the Bible we learn that angels move the waters; they throw around clouds, bring light and cause rainfall. So it should be no surprise that in Revelation 4:1 John sees four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the wind. The wind in Scripture is used in connection with the coming of God in blessing or curse. On Pentecost the wind came in blessing; in Revelation it will bring curse and judgment as soon as the angels release it. Reading Revelation 7:2-3. [Read them.]
John sees another angel. This other angel comes up out of the east. It may be Jesus Himself. He tells the four angels, “Do not harm the earth until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” What is this seal on the forehead? The lowbrow prophecy in fashion today connects the forehead mark with 666, the beast, and the great tribulation. This thinking, however, would have puzzled the Christians of John’s time. They were familiar with Old Testament symbolism, and would have drawn conclusions about the seal on the forehead from the Old Testament. The forehead figures would have brought to their mind several images. First, in Exodus 28:32 the Torah required that the High Priest, during worship, have a gold-plated signet dangling from his headdress over his forehead. The words “Holiness to the Lord” were inscribed on this forehead diadem. It notified the people that they were to approach God in holiness.
Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 6:6-8 all God’s people should be sealed in the forehead and the hand with the law of God. The mark on the hand meant that their every action should be distinguished by obedience. The mark on the forehead indicated the reflection of the mind; every thought must be consecrated to Christ.
The High Priest has a diadem on the forehead; the people have the Torah on their forehead. Is there another Old Testament passage that provides background for John’s imagery? Yes. Ezekiel 9. In that passage God commissioned executioners to destroy the inhabitants of the city except the ones sealed on the forehead. Why capital punishment? The priests had committed prostitution and idolatry in the Temple; the people were habituated to violence and lawlessness to a shocking degree. Reading Ezekiel 9:3-7. [Read them.]
God’s fury was poured out on Jerusalem. This episode is a microcosm of the Final Judgment. The godly are marked for protection; they are marked on the forehead. The apostates who do not have the mark are slain. Notice the form of this imprint. It is the Hebrew letter tav, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. A literal translation of Ezekiel 9:4 would be, “put a ‘tav’ on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations done…” The ancient Hebrew letter is a cross.
The Early Church picked up on this. In A.D. 200 the Christian apologist Tertullian believed that God had given Ezekiel “the very form of the cross, which He predicted would be the sign on our foreheads in the true Catholic Jerusalem.” The Church Fathers saw the cross of Ezekiel as foreshadowing Christ’s crucifixion, and Christian baptism. In the Holy Baptism liturgy the priest uses water to trace a cross on the forehead of the person being baptized.
In our text the seal on the forehead symbolizes covenant ownership. The cross marked off these believers as the covenant-keeping servants of the living God. They will be preserved from God’s wrath as the ungodly are destroyed.
The specific application that John was trying to communicate to his immediate readers probably refers to the Christians prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. John most likely wrote Revelation in about A.D. 66 on the eve of the catastrophe wrought by the Roman armies under the general Titus. Many Jewish Christians lived in Jerusalem. The Church was strong there. How should the Church of Jerusalem react to the ominous approach of the Roman armies? John comforts his readers: “judgment will assuredly be poured out upon the Old Covenant apostates that surround you, but you will not be in danger. You shall survive this great tribulation.” And they did survive. At an opportune moment they left Jerusalem, crossed the Jordan River and escaped to the region of Perea.
The general application for us is of great comfort: even though we are surrounded by tribulation, God will deliver and protect His people. In Baptism, we have been marked as God’s children. The baptismal cross is a seal of protection and a mark of covenantal ownership. We belong to God. This does not mean that salvation is a magic formula for trouble-avoidance. There will be tribulation and persecution, and the saints will die. But we will be protected from eternal condemnation and destruction. Moving on to Revelation 7:4-8. [Read them.]
There is a lot of speculation about the identity of the 144,000. The number is symbolic and probably refers to the Church. To arrive at the number 144,000 the twelve tribes is squared, 12 x 12 = 144, and then multiplied by a thousand. 144,000 is a way of emphasizing completeness. Sectarian groups have supposed that 144,000 is the precise number of those who God finally redeems. But such a tiny percentage of the population of the planet contradicts the grace of God. It refers to all the elect. How can a list of the twelve tribes of Israel refer to the Church. The idea of the Church as the New Israel is found throughout the New Testament. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 2:29 that the believer in Christ is the “true Jew,” and in Galatians 6:16 he names the Church “the Israel of God.” St. James addresses his letter to “the twelve tribes in the diaspora” (James 1:1). Who was he writing to? To Jews only? No He was writing to the Christians scattered throughout the Roman world. Many more examples could be given to demonstrate that since the ascension, the Church is now the true Israel.
Historical evidence is also clear. From the outset the Church has seen herself as a continuation of, and a replacement for Israel. Therefore, believers in Christ are true Jews and the Church is the true Israel of God. The Promised Land is the entire globe. The future salvation of Israel will occur when the Jewish people, an olive branch, are engrafted into the one olive tree, the Church. Now we come to Rev. 7:9. [Read it.]
Here is a portrait fitting for this Feast of All Saints: a vast white-vested choir waving palms. The palm branches represent a foretaste of the New Heavens and New Earth, the world redeemed, verdant, free of the curse.
Notice the garments of the worshippers. “They are clothed with white robes.” The white symbolizes the victory of faith, the righteousness of Christ. The robes are white by virtue of being washed in the blood of the Lamb. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash a robe that clean. Such robes are the appropriate wedding attire for Heaven. Nobody can enter the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb and the Bride, and come into the presence of a holy God except he be clothed in the robes of Christ’s perfect righteousness and obedience. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, these robes belong to you by grace. Let’s read Revelation 7:10-15. [Read them.]
This passage inspired Handel to compose certain movements of his oratorio, The Messiah: “Worthy is the Lamb,” and the amazing “Amen” finale. Those musical passages cause tingles to go up and down one’s spine because Handel captured the sublimity of heaven’s adoration. A great chorus is pictured as standing before the throne and the Lamb. The 24 elders, and the four living creatures that John mentions in earlier chapters join the hosts. In every direction the crowd stretches out as far as the eye can see. The hymns resound. The singers have never experienced such joy. The promise to Abraham is fulfilled: his sons and daughters are in number as the stars of heaven; as numerous as the sand of the sea (Genesis 15:50; 32:12). They have come home.
On All Saints it is appropriate to remember those who have died in the faith and joined this heavenly liturgy. The saints we commemorate comprise every believer from Adam on. Christ released from Hades the Old Testament redeemed and brought them to glory. Stephen was the first New Testament martyr. He was followed by a mass of souls slain in the centuries leading up to Constantine. They were thrown to wild beasts, sawn asunder, burned, stabbed, crucified and flayed. The Medieval ages saw a steady stream of Christians put to death by the Muslim warriors and heathen hordes. The Reformation provoked opposition that led to the death of thousands, such as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. The French Revolution made famous the guillotine. The Bolshevik Revolution launched the Marxist totalitarianisms that slaughtered millions.
An outfit called the World Evangelism Database has recently calculated that since the time of Christ, at least 40,000,000 Christians have been martyred. Of these 26,000,000 were killed in the last century. In other words, more believers died for Christ in the 20th century than in all the other nineteen centuries combined. Who did it? The Turks, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, and other Muslims and Marxists. It is scandalous the continuing silence of academia concerning Christian persecution.
Dwelling on these murdered and martyred souls could bring us to hopelessness. But the vision of St. John prevents despair. The dead in Christ gather in Heaven to worship the Lamb of God on His throne. They do the business of heaven and that activity turns their anguish to joy. We too have the promise of God’s infallible Word that, if we are in Christ, we will join that throng. We will be vested in the robes of Christ’s perfect righteousness. We will wave our palm branches. We will look upon the Lamb who was slain, lift our voices in adoration, and sing a new song.
This multitude that John gazed upon has grown exponentially since John’s time and continues to expand even now. Our loved ones who have met death in Christ will be there, and one day they will be reunited with us – mother and father, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, friends and colleagues. All have come home for this reunion. The family of God includes as well the Patriarchs, the prophets, priests, kings, missionaries, deacons, presbyters, bishops, saints and martyrs of all ages. We will learn much from our conversations with Noah, Joseph, Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel; the apostles John, Paul, Peter; ten thousand more. Reading verses 16-17. [Read them.]
The notion of never hungering or thirsting goes beyond physical privation. It points to that ultimate satisfaction of the soul’s deepest longing. Rest and refreshment come to God’s people when at last they join that heavenly liturgy of the saints redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb. This rest will be made complete after the Final Judgment when the souls are reunited with their glorified bodies. If that isn’t enough, the earth will be transformed into the New Heavens and New Earth. We will move into the mansions of the holy city that Jesus has prepared, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
There is something else about the Feast of All Saints that makes it important. This festival carries an evangelistic and missionary message. It reminds us that the prime and ultimate business of Heaven is worship. Therefore, we must do all we can to increase the size of the choir of Heaven. The task of claiming worshipers for God and His lamb is unfinished business. There are too many lost souls, who, either, don’t know about the worship of the Lamb, or who resist it. Thus, worship leads us to mission and evangelism. We want to pack Heaven with worshipers.
In order to see heaven packed with the final ingathering of worshipers from all the nations, we need an international army of long-term, cross-cultural workers. We must deploy a generation of missionaries who will go overseas and commit to stay long enough to learn the language well, to understand the culture, and to love the people, and thus incarnate the gospel and see the church established. Those workers and missionaries are the ones who will experience inexpressible joy when they go to glory. They will see the tribes and peoples that they served on earth join the vast multitudes in Heaven that already surround the throne of God and worship the Lamb.
Let us pray.
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