The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

Thus do we have depicted one of the characteristics of the sealing work of this angel
ascending from the sun-rising. This sealing is accomplished by imparting through the
Holy Spirit of Truth a clear understanding of the Divine Plan. This understanding will
cause the Divine attributes of wisdom, justice, love, and power to become fixed principles
of action in all our dealings with our fellowmen. We shall again meet this elect company in
our consideration of chapter 14:1-4, where they are represented as standing with the Lamb
on Mount Zion, and their peculiar relationship to the Lamb in this vision describes more
definitely the characteristics of the Divine sealing. In regard to this sealing let us not make
the mistake that some have made--that of making the seal of the living God, in possession
of the angel from the sun-rising, to be the same as the seals that were on the scroll. The
significance of the two uses of the word seal is not the same. This will be considered more
fully when in our examination of chapter 8, the breaking of the seventh seal comes before
our attention.
The reader's attention is now called to the significance of the expression: "An hundred and
forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel." We will be greatly assisted in
our understanding of this if we keep in mind God's purposes and methods in the
bestowment of His elective favors. In conferring His favors, He has chosen that it shall be
to the Jew first. (Rom. 3:1; 9:4,5.) But let it be carefully noted that . . .
". . . the great favor of becoming joint-inheritors with Messiah, which Israel, except the
faithful 'remnant' (Isa. 1:9; 10:22,23; Rom. 9:28,29; 11:5), thus missed by their blindness and
hardness of heart, was offered to believing Gentiles; not to Gentile nations, but to justified
believers of every nation--though the favor was at first, for three and a half years [after
Pentecost], confined exclusively to believers of the nation of Israel. Blinded as a people by
national prejudices, the great prize which they were offered first, but of which they were
unworthy, goes to a holy nation, a peculiar people, composed of a worthy 'remnant' of
their nation, with others called out from Gentile nations, whom in their arrogant pride
they once despised as 'dogs.'"
"Israel indeed desired and sought the best God had to give; but 'Israel hath not obtained
that which he seeketh for; but the election [the 'little flock' selected from both Jews and
Gentiles] hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.'"
Thus Gentile converts are compared to wild olive branches grafted in where the natural
branches had been broken off the original cultivated olive tree --natural Israel.
"'Blindness in part' was to continue only 'until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in' (Rom.
11:25), or, in other words, until the full number from among the Gentiles, who are to be
members [with the remnant of Israel] of the Body or Bride of Christ, would be fully
selected."
Briefly summing up the facts of Scripture that have a bearing on the interpretation of the
passage under consideration--Rev. 7:4, the inevitable conclusion is: