"The one hundred and forty-four thousand is not a head-count, but a number representing who they are. I am confident that out of the ages God has many more than 144,000! Can you imagine an age governed by a people filled with the mind of Christ, conformed to His image, led by His Spirit, endued with the fullness of His authority and power? Can you even comprehend what it would be like for 144,000 manifest sons of God (if it were a literal number), 144,000 reproductions of Jesus Christ in all the glory, wisdom, authority, and power of His resurrection, turned loose on this world to speak the words of God and to do the works of God with no limitation at all? That would be almost a thousand manifest sons of God for each nation on earth!"
"In interpreting scripture, one of the worst things that can be done is to take numbers and interpret them literally rather than discovering the meaning of the number. In other words, the key to the understanding of a scripture with numbers is the value of the number. So, then, we need to ask the Lord, “What does this number 144,000 mean?” The explanation is that 144,000 = 12 X 12 X 1000. Twelve in scripture is the number denoting divine government. We will not take time to explain that here, as we have gone into detail about it in previous studies. Now, twelve times twelve is twelve squared by itself, giving the number 144. One hundred forty-four is thus the divine government of God brought to its highest expression. It is divine government multiplied bydivine government — the absolute fullest and most ultimate manifestation of the kingdom rule of God!"
"Further breaking down the number 144,000, we come to the word “thousand.” This word in Greek is chilides. We meet this word various times throughout the Revelation, not least of which is the fact that the saints are to reign with Christ for a thousand years. One thousand is the number signifying THE DAY OF THE LORD. The apostle Peter makes this very plain in his second epistle. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (II Pet. 3:8). It is my conviction that this means more than the idea that every period of one thousand years is counted as one “day” with God. Beyond that it reveals the great truth that the term “thousand years” stands for THE DAY OF THE LORD. It is the LORD’S DAY! To reign with Christ for a thousand years means to rule with Christ in the power and glory of the day of the Lord. This is not a mathematical number, denoting an exact duration of earth-time, but a spiritual number revealing the reality it stands for — the unlimited, never-ending, infinite day of the Lord! The day of the Lord is the day of His illumination, of His arising and bright shining, of His revelation and unveiling, of His glory, majesty, and power! Oh, yes! And this is what manifest sonship is all about, a people formed into the full and ultimate expression of the divine government of God, bringing to pass in the earth the illumination, glory, and power of the eternal day of the Lord! It is 12 X 12 X 1000. That is what it means!"
This part of a larger study:
This^^. Yo, all you abortion "doctors" out there, check it out. Imagine all your handiwork, riding down from Heaven with Christ, each one with a golden pair of scissors in their hands, and nothing but time, for all eternity. You think they'll be looking for ya?
So if you are right - which I doubt as your explanation take far longer to read than the plain words. How do you interpret verse 4
These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. Revelation 14:4
1 - Not defiled by women 2 - Virgins 3 - Only men
It's symbolic language, and I haven't got that far in the study yet. The study is taking line by line verse by verse, it's a very exciting study, very extensive, and very long. I imagine chapter 4 is comming up in 4 or five essays......if you'd like to jump ahead, here's the index, we're on essay 160 now.
Index:
https://www.godfire.net/eby/
In Revelation a lamb is not a lamb, a dragon is not a dragon, being a vergin has nothing to do with sex, a male is not a male, jezabel is not the actual historic person. Now if I was to guess at what being defiled by woman means, I'd guess it means not being deceived as the woman was................
I've been a Christian for 40+ years and have mostly ignored Revelation because I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Spiritually I understand Christianity, but Revelation was always a mystery to me. I started reading this study from it's beginning, and I'm getting it, Preston Eby's study is a remarkable Idealist(spiritual) interpretation of Revelation. I have a revival whenever I read it because he Spiritually gets the Christian gospel.
Have you watched the video CroagLifestyle posted above?
I got six minutes in and he started literalizing the book. I liked him fine, but the book of Revelation is all symbol and not at all physical, jews are not flesh and blood jews. The biggest mistake in reading Revelation is literalizing it. I say that from 40 years of expecting it to make literal sense. Andy I've been in this study for several months now, it far exceeds any literalization. The carnal mind does not understand the things of God. Thanks for taking the time.
The Bible is to be taken literally, in every way. I just use your example from above, the Lamb, which came first, Jesus Christ or the sheep? They are literally the same thing, a substitute blood sacrifice for our sins, acceptable to God.
To help with the understanding of the 144,000; the entire purpose of the 7 year tribulation is to restore the nation of Israel to the literal promises made by God to them. They were literally dispersed, by God, as literally told in the Old Testament prophecies, for them, as a nation, for literally killing the prophets and rejecting the Messiah. He even literally sent Stephen to preach the Gospel to them in Acts 7 and they literally stoned Stephen to death for it. He literally dispersed them in 70AD.
How can God prove Himself to us without the foretold prophecies being literal and literally coming true? If there is no meaning to them, what can we believe in at all?
The spiritual is much more deep and fulfilling than the literal. There are 5 popular interpretive methods of Revelation only one of them is Spiritual..........it is called the idealist meathod. God is Spirit, Jesus teaches Spirit and truth right now in our reconciled world. You are seated in the heavens with Jesus right now, you also war with the carnal(flesh).
These are deep things of heaven, of Spirit, the carnal interpretation always leads to missing the mark on what God is talking about in Revelation. The Nation of Israel is not a physical nation, the 12 tribes symbolize 12 spiritual things.
It take patience to read about the spiritual, our carnal self wants things now, there is a growing in Spirit. Well worth it. BTW, this is essay 160, each essay takes time, and is a spiritual writing, reading straight through from essay 1 will be more than a year of spiritual growth, because it can't be rushed through to a carnal end, it is spiritually discerned. Well worth the time.
You are seated in the heavens with Jesus right now, you also war with the carnal(flesh).
Agreed, the Holy Spirit has cut our heart/soul away from the flesh and it is made pure for the Lord to dwell in.
The Nation of Israel is not a physical nation, the 12 tribes symbolize 12 spiritual things.
Israel is a literal nation of people that God will use, in His final Revelation of Jesus Christ, to the whole world. Every knee shall bow, especially after they see Christ restoring Israel to the promise land, the most hated and prosecuted people in all of history. And He kept His word to them. If He doesn't then He is a liar. That is why it will happen, no matter what anyone thinks. God cannot lie.
this is essay 160
Yes, and he is completely wrong about the 144,000. The Bible literally tells us that they are the children that Herod killed while he was hunting the infant Messiah. This is why prophecy is so important and a Bible with hidden meanings isn't worth spit. There are many people that are not saved, when they see that God has restored these children, as He said He would, people will throw off their unbelief and bow their knee before Christ. God has to make it perfectly clear what will happen so that He can save unbelievers.
The very book that you study now is called the Revelation of Jesus Christ, He is being revealed to us, not hidden amongst secret meanings.
Spiritual is not secret, it is spiritual. Revelation is 100% hidden to the natural mind, it compreheds not the spirit.
The natural mind interprets Revelation to it's natural understanding, that is all it can do. The natural mind wrongly puts natural understanding on a book that is wholly spiritual, and sees spiritual things from a natural perspective, resulting in error.
I call it following doctrine rather than following Jesus Christ, only those who are made ready can receive that, if your not made ready, the natural man will reject it.
Not yet, what's it about?
It compares scripture to scripture from Revelation about the 144,000. It's worth a watch.
Thanks :)
w0w Remember the "Mayan Calander"...the Great Year divided into 13 Baktun, each being 144,000 days? The Great Pyramid finished in 144,000 casing stones? The Harmonic of Light in Free Space being 144,000 cps in Arc Seconds? The dimensions of Noah's ark as given in the Old Testament convert to 144,000 meters cubed?...and the dimensions given for the Ark of the Covenant convert to 144,000 centimeters cubed? It's almost like a clue or something.
Very cool.
tip of the iceberg
Thank you for sharing! The first line began to answer my question from yesterday! Have a wonderful day!
Can you imagine an age governed by a people filled with the mind of Christ, conformed to His image, led by His Spirit, endued with the fullness of His authority and power?
Whoever wrote this is confused
4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
These are not the bride of Christ. These are the "firstfruits," most likely resurrected with Christ at Calvary. The Bible is quite clear that believers in the Church Age, the age of Grace, are made a part of the Body of Christ, with the mind of Christ, led by the Spirit and shall rule with Him forever.
"As far as our Lord Himself is concerned, He is not limited at all, but as far as our experience of Him is concerned, there is such a limitation. From the time we experience Christ as the Lamb, we follow Him and begin to progress and advance and make progress in our experience of Christ and receive of His inworking more and more. As we grow in our appreciation of Him He becomes greater and greater to us and in us. Day by day in our experience Christ is becoming greater and greater! At the stage of our experience in which the total triumph of the Lamb is achieved within, Christ is unlimited to us, He becomes all-in-all. It is His almighty strength in the heavens revealed through the weakness of our humanity on earth — the TRIUMPHANT LAMBKIN! Hallelujah!"
"Thus we see Him in chapter fourteen: “A Lambkin stood on the mount Zion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand.” It does not say, “And with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand MEN.” Oh, no! There stands a Lambkin on mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand — what? LAMBS! The Little Lamb has become many lambs!"
"They are with the Lamb. This does not mean merely that they are in the same geographical place. It has a far richer meaning than that! The nearness of His followers to the Lamb is the nearness of will, of desire, of hope, of purpose, of nature, of stature, of ministry. They are with the Lamb. I can tell a person two thousand miles away, “I am standing with you,” and no one would suppose that I was there physically beside them. These have reached the place where they occupy the same road, the same quality of being, the same reality as the Lamb Himself. They are the knights around His person, and they are all stamped with the likeness of the King. They stand for all that the Lamb stands for — humility, sacrifice, victory, sovereignty; just as the followers of the beast bear the mark of the beast, and stand for all that he represents — ferocity, cruelty, brute force. The Lamb Company, whosoever they are, will not have sought out another manner of life. These are followers of Jesus. They stand with Him! They will not deny nor digress from their station and standing in Him. Having His name, nature, and character as a very part of themselves their mind, being His mind, will only seek to express the virtues of Himself. Almighty Father! Just following Him around, just being where He is, being what He is, speaking what He speaks, doing what He does…what a privilege!"