Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

7:1-3
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THE TRUE ISRAEL
The two visions of this chapter (v. 1-8 and v. 9-17) are
still part of the Sixth Seal, providing a resolution of the
problem of Israel’s fall. Yet they also form an interlude
or intermission, a period of delay between the sixth and
seventh seals that serves to heighten the sense of
waiting complained of by the saints in 6:10, since this
section is in part the divine answer to their prayer (cf.
the delay between the sixth and seventh trumpets,
10:1-11:14). Before the Fall of Jerusalem, Christianity
was still largely identified with Israel, and the futures of
the two were interconnected.
The Christians were not separatists; they regarded
themselves as the true heirs of Abraham and Moses,
their religion as the fulfillment of all the promises to
the fathers. For the Church to exist completely separate
from the Israelite nationality and from the Holy Land
was virtually unimaginable. Thus, if God’s wrath were
to be unleashed upon Israel with all the undiluted fury
portrayed in the Sixth Seal, bringing the recreation of
heaven and earth and the annihilation of mankind,
what would become of the Church? What about the
faithful who find themselves in the midst of a collapsing
civilization? Would the believing remnant be destroyed
in the coming conflagration along with the enemies of
the faith?
The answer given in these visions is that “God has not
destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9): The
Church will be preserved. In terms of the coming
judgment on Israel, in fact, the Lord had given explicit
instructions about how to escape from the Tribulation
(see Matt. 24:15-25; Mark 13:14-23; Luke 21:20-24).
The Christians living in Jerusalem obeyed the
prophetic warning, and were preserved, as Marcellus
Kik pointed out in his study of Matthew 24: “One of
the most remarkable things about the siege of Jerusalem
was the miraculous escape of the Christians. It has been
estimated that over a million Jews lost their lives in
that terrible siege, but not one of them was a Christian.
This our Lord indicated in verse 13: ‘But he that shall
endure to the end, the same shall be saved.’ That the
‘end’ spoken of was not the termination of a Christian’s
life but rather the end of Jerusalem is evident from the
context. Immediately after this verse Christ goes on to
relate the exact time of the end. Christians who would
live to the end would be saved from the terrible
tribulation. Christ indicates also the time for the
Christian to flee from the city so that he could be saved
during its destruction. This is verified in a parallel
passage (Luke 21:18): ‘But there shall not an hair of
your head perish.’ In other words, during the desolation
of Jerusalem, Christians would be unharmed, although
in the period previous to this some would lose their
lives through persecution.” 1
The 144,000 Sealed (7:1-8)
1 And after this I saw four angels standing at the four
corners of the Land, holding back the Four Winds of the
earth, so that no wind should blow on the Land or on the
sea or on any tree.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the
sun, having the Seal of the living God; and he cried out
with a loud Voice to the four angels to whom it was
granted to harm the Land and the sea,
3 saying: Do not harm the Land or the sea or the trees, until
we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their
foreheads.
4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one
hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe
of the sons of Israel:
5 From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe
of Gad twelve thousand,
6 from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe
of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh
twelve thousand,
7 from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe
of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve
thousand,
8 from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe
of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin,
twelve thousand were sealed.
1-3 St. John sees four angels standing at the four
corners of the Land, divine messengers to whom it was
granted to harm the Land and the sea; yet here they
are holding back the Four Winds of the earth, so that
no wind should blow on the Land or on the sea or on
any tree. While Land and sea are in the genitive case,
tree is in the accusative, indicating that St. John wishes
to draw special attention to it. Throughout the Bible,
trees are images of men (Jud. 9:8-15). In particular, they
are symbols for the righteous (Ex. 15:17; Ps. 1:3; 92:12-
14; Isa. 61:3; Jer. 17:5 -8). 2
The wind in Scripture is used in connection with the
coming of God and the action of His angels in either
blessing or curse (cf. Gen. 8:1; 41:27; Ex. 10:13, 19;
14:21; 15:10; Num. 11:31; Ps. 18:10; 104:3-4; 107:25;
135:7; 147:18; 148:8; John 3:8; Acts 2:2). In this case,
the angel is speaking of the sirocco, the hot desert blast
that scorches vegetation as a figure of God’s burning
judgment of the ungodly (cf. 16:9, and contrast 7:16):
1. J. Marcellus Kik, An Eschatology of Victory (Nutley, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1971), pp. 96f.
2. See James B. Jordan’s forthcoming studies, Food and Faith and Trees and Thorns.
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