Revelation 7:9-17 – Song of the Saved
The second half of Chapter 7 continues to describe the interlude between the sixth and seventh seals being opened on the scroll of God’s plan, which Christ (the Lamb) received in Chapter 5. And it describes, from a different perspective, what’s going on for the people of God in the midst of the calamities that are, and will, strike the earth. In the first half of the chapter, John described them (us) from an earthly perspective: God brought his plans to a halt to “seal” us, so that we’d be protected. Think of a construction crew that has to quit its work because they’ve stumbled upon an important archaeological site. Now, we see these same people, but from a heavenly perspective. To so do, we revisit the scene that we first saw in Chapters 4 and 5.
The first thing to notice about these people is how many of them there are, and how diverse they are. In the first half, John gave them a number (144,000) to indicate that it is a vast assembly of God’s people. Now, he doesn’t even pretend to know how many they are. It’s huge crowd that can’t even be counted. And it comes from every nationality and language group of the world. This crowd is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the night sky (Genesis 15). By the way, astronomers are still counting the stars today and haven’t come close to knowing how many there are. God also promised Abraham that people from every nation on earth would be blessed through him (Genesis 12). There are plenty of citations in the New Testament to help us understand that being a child of Abraham isn’t about genetics, but about faith (Romans 4, Matthew 3:7-10, Galatians 3:6-9, 26-29). As the children’s song explains, Father Abraham really does have many sons (and daughters). This vast multitude from all ethnic and language groups is possible because of the promise of Mark 13:10 that the gospel will be proclaimed to every nation.
In the past century, the Church has started to look more and more like this throng that John saw in front of God’s throne. For more than a thousand years, Christianity was a predominantly white religion, practiced almost exclusively in Europe. But for a number of reasons, it has exploded across the globe and can now be found in virtually every country (although there are still many ethnic groups that have yet to be reached. At some point in the 1980’s, whites were no longer the majority of Christians. God’s family is the ultimate rainbow coalition. When Malcolm X when on his Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, he was struck by the unity across national and ethnic lines that he found among his fellow pilgrims. It affected the “black power” philosophy that had driven him up to that point. And if he hadn’t been assassinated soon after his pilgrimage (perhaps because some of his followers didn’t like the change they saw in him), his legacy may have been very different. Imagine how different our perspective on people from other ethnic groups and nations would be if we had a similar realization: the citizenship of the kingdom of God includes people from every conceivable background. How dare we presume to limit it to people “like us”!
Verses 13-14 explain exactly who this crowd is. One of the twenty-four elders quizzed John about them, asking him who they were. (Is this the same elder who comforted him in Revelation 5:5?) When John said he didn’t know who they were, the elder told him that they are the people who have been saved: saved from the world, and saved from themselves. First, they are saved from the world because they have come out of the great tribulation that rages across the earth. It’s unfortunate that many interpreters of Revelation read this and similar passages and conclude that there is a single tribulation, or time of distress, which will come at the end times. Doing so blinds us to the tribulation/distress/calamity that is going on all around us, which has and which continues to burden the world. It’s the distress of Adam and Eve’s curse of Genesis 3. It’s the bondage and frustration of creation that Paul describes in Romans 8:18-21. It’s the human condition which the four horsemen of Chapter 6 reveal. These are the people who received the seal to protect them and deliver them out of such great suffering. But second, these are the people who have been saved from themselves. Their robes were washed white in the blood of Christ, the Lamb. This is an allusion to Isaiah 1:18 and Zechariah 3: filthy and dirty clothing represents our sinful and shameful condition before God. But through the grace made possible to us through Christ’s atoning death, we become pure and honored before God. We are released from our sin and our brokenness.
Now that we know who these people are, we can look at what they’re doing. Their white robes and palm branches of verse 9 indicate that worship of God is what they’re all about (the palm branches are a reminder of Palm Sunday, and also of Psalm 118:27). They are able to take their place in the great circle of praise that surrounds God, which we saw in Chapters 4 and 5. Our salvation isn’t about us: it’s about God receiving the worship and praise that he deserves. It’s not a self-focused song, about what God did for them. It’s praise for God, based on an awareness of God that comes from personal experience. They shout with joy to the Lamb who saved them. Whatever we’re facing, whether trouble from the world and people around us, or turmoil, brokenness, and confusion within, we find our salvation in God. and when we do, we life up our praise to him.
The song of the saved sparks renewed praise among the heavenly beings: the angels, elders, and four living creatures. Remember Jesus’ comment about the rejoicing in heaven over the repentance of one lost sinner (Luke 15:3-10)? That’s what John experiences and describes here. The rejoicing focuses upon God, who did the saving. And praise lifts up seven attributes of God. In Revelation 5:12, we heard a similar seven-fold praise of God. This time, it’s very similar but with a couple of differences. First, “riches” has been replaced with “thanks.” Second, the order of attributes has been re-arranged. Perhaps we could gain some interesting insights from a comparison of these two lists, but we can save that for another time.
We can skip over verses 13-14, since we’ve already looked at them when considering who the multitude is. So we can move on to verses 15-17: the poetic description of God’s people by the elder who spoke to John. He describes them as the people who have received God’s blessings. First, they are in God’s presence, to serve him and to receive his protection. Second, they are spared from any of the distress or difficulty that is common to ordinary human life. Third, they will be guided by Christ, as a shepherd guides his flock. In these three short verses, and whole host of Biblical promises come together: Psalm 23, Psalm 91, Isaiah 25, John 10, and so on. And it anticipates the description of the New Jerusalem we find in Revelation 21.
To sum it all up: God gathers people of every description, and saves them from their own sin and from the troubled world we live in. In response to God’s activity in their lives, they lift up their praise to him and acknowledge him as the provider of their salvation: the source of everything good that they experience. Their praise in turn ignites praise by the heavenly beings, renewing and intensifying the worship they had already been giving. Those who have been saved are granted the privilege of serving God (how often do we think of service as a privilege?), they are rescued from the troubles of the world, and God leads them to blessing. It’s a cycle of blessing and praise that feeds on itself: salvation leads to praise, which leads to blessing, and so on. But it all begins with and is focused on God.
The first thing to notice about these people is how many of them there are, and how diverse they are. In the first half, John gave them a number (144,000) to indicate that it is a vast assembly of God’s people. Now, he doesn’t even pretend to know how many they are. It’s huge crowd that can’t even be counted. And it comes from every nationality and language group of the world. This crowd is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the night sky (Genesis 15). By the way, astronomers are still counting the stars today and haven’t come close to knowing how many there are. God also promised Abraham that people from every nation on earth would be blessed through him (Genesis 12). There are plenty of citations in the New Testament to help us understand that being a child of Abraham isn’t about genetics, but about faith (Romans 4, Matthew 3:7-10, Galatians 3:6-9, 26-29). As the children’s song explains, Father Abraham really does have many sons (and daughters). This vast multitude from all ethnic and language groups is possible because of the promise of Mark 13:10 that the gospel will be proclaimed to every nation.
In the past century, the Church has started to look more and more like this throng that John saw in front of God’s throne. For more than a thousand years, Christianity was a predominantly white religion, practiced almost exclusively in Europe. But for a number of reasons, it has exploded across the globe and can now be found in virtually every country (although there are still many ethnic groups that have yet to be reached. At some point in the 1980’s, whites were no longer the majority of Christians. God’s family is the ultimate rainbow coalition. When Malcolm X when on his Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, he was struck by the unity across national and ethnic lines that he found among his fellow pilgrims. It affected the “black power” philosophy that had driven him up to that point. And if he hadn’t been assassinated soon after his pilgrimage (perhaps because some of his followers didn’t like the change they saw in him), his legacy may have been very different. Imagine how different our perspective on people from other ethnic groups and nations would be if we had a similar realization: the citizenship of the kingdom of God includes people from every conceivable background. How dare we presume to limit it to people “like us”!
Verses 13-14 explain exactly who this crowd is. One of the twenty-four elders quizzed John about them, asking him who they were. (Is this the same elder who comforted him in Revelation 5:5?) When John said he didn’t know who they were, the elder told him that they are the people who have been saved: saved from the world, and saved from themselves. First, they are saved from the world because they have come out of the great tribulation that rages across the earth. It’s unfortunate that many interpreters of Revelation read this and similar passages and conclude that there is a single tribulation, or time of distress, which will come at the end times. Doing so blinds us to the tribulation/distress/calamity that is going on all around us, which has and which continues to burden the world. It’s the distress of Adam and Eve’s curse of Genesis 3. It’s the bondage and frustration of creation that Paul describes in Romans 8:18-21. It’s the human condition which the four horsemen of Chapter 6 reveal. These are the people who received the seal to protect them and deliver them out of such great suffering. But second, these are the people who have been saved from themselves. Their robes were washed white in the blood of Christ, the Lamb. This is an allusion to Isaiah 1:18 and Zechariah 3: filthy and dirty clothing represents our sinful and shameful condition before God. But through the grace made possible to us through Christ’s atoning death, we become pure and honored before God. We are released from our sin and our brokenness.
Now that we know who these people are, we can look at what they’re doing. Their white robes and palm branches of verse 9 indicate that worship of God is what they’re all about (the palm branches are a reminder of Palm Sunday, and also of Psalm 118:27). They are able to take their place in the great circle of praise that surrounds God, which we saw in Chapters 4 and 5. Our salvation isn’t about us: it’s about God receiving the worship and praise that he deserves. It’s not a self-focused song, about what God did for them. It’s praise for God, based on an awareness of God that comes from personal experience. They shout with joy to the Lamb who saved them. Whatever we’re facing, whether trouble from the world and people around us, or turmoil, brokenness, and confusion within, we find our salvation in God. and when we do, we life up our praise to him.
The song of the saved sparks renewed praise among the heavenly beings: the angels, elders, and four living creatures. Remember Jesus’ comment about the rejoicing in heaven over the repentance of one lost sinner (Luke 15:3-10)? That’s what John experiences and describes here. The rejoicing focuses upon God, who did the saving. And praise lifts up seven attributes of God. In Revelation 5:12, we heard a similar seven-fold praise of God. This time, it’s very similar but with a couple of differences. First, “riches” has been replaced with “thanks.” Second, the order of attributes has been re-arranged. Perhaps we could gain some interesting insights from a comparison of these two lists, but we can save that for another time.
We can skip over verses 13-14, since we’ve already looked at them when considering who the multitude is. So we can move on to verses 15-17: the poetic description of God’s people by the elder who spoke to John. He describes them as the people who have received God’s blessings. First, they are in God’s presence, to serve him and to receive his protection. Second, they are spared from any of the distress or difficulty that is common to ordinary human life. Third, they will be guided by Christ, as a shepherd guides his flock. In these three short verses, and whole host of Biblical promises come together: Psalm 23, Psalm 91, Isaiah 25, John 10, and so on. And it anticipates the description of the New Jerusalem we find in Revelation 21.
To sum it all up: God gathers people of every description, and saves them from their own sin and from the troubled world we live in. In response to God’s activity in their lives, they lift up their praise to him and acknowledge him as the provider of their salvation: the source of everything good that they experience. Their praise in turn ignites praise by the heavenly beings, renewing and intensifying the worship they had already been giving. Those who have been saved are granted the privilege of serving God (how often do we think of service as a privilege?), they are rescued from the troubles of the world, and God leads them to blessing. It’s a cycle of blessing and praise that feeds on itself: salvation leads to praise, which leads to blessing, and so on. But it all begins with and is focused on God.
posted by Rev. Peter de Vries, Old Union Presbyterian Church @ 11:18 AM
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