The Mind of Christ
We have considered the mind of the beast, and can now move to the happier task of considering the mind of Christ. In Rev 14:1-5, immediately after the 666 verse at the end of chapter 13, John describes a vision of the 144,000 servants of God. We are first introduced to them in chapter 7 where they are described as 12,000 out of each of the tribes of Israel who are sealed on their foreheads.
The great characteristic of this company is that they are like Jesus. They were born in the likeness of Adam, but now they are wholly changed. Their transformation is complete. 666 has become 888. They have become like Jesus. God has acknowledged them as totally his by sealing them with his seal. These are people who have the mind of Christ.
Let us read these verses slowly and prayerfully, that we may catch a vision of God's plan. I believe he is fulfilling it in the days in which we are now living. His 144,000 servants are now in training and preparation.
v1. Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.
What a remarkable contrast between this and the preceding verse! The mind of the beast is represented by the number (666) of a name. The mind of Christ is represented by a name that has a number (888). Numbers are impersonal things, well-suited to computers, but unnatural to humans! If you have the mind of the beast, you are only a number. No doubt you will be part of someone's statistics. If you have the mind of Christ, you have a name. You have become a person and an individual in the sight of God. Your name is in the Lamb's book of life.
These 144,000 stand on Mount Zion. The significance of this is clear from Isaiah 2:2-3: In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many people's will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths. The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.' Those who stand on Mount Zion are those who will reign with Christ. They are fit to reign with him because they are of one mind with him. They have his mind. Their minds have been changed from 666 to 888.
I believe the number 144,000 should not be taken literally (as the Jehovah's Witnesses do). We should not expect that there will be exactly 144,000 people standing on a literal Mount Zion, or belonging to some human organisation. Rather we should again consider the meaning of the number. These 144,000 are 12,000 out of each of the 12 tribes of Israel. As well as there being 12 tribes, Jesus chose 12 disciples. Also the new Jerusalem in chapter 20 has 12 foundations and 12 gates. Israel, the disciples, and the city of Jerusalem were all especially chosen by God. Bullinger says that 12 is the number of governmental perfection. I believe that the number 144,000 means a large company of those whom God has chosen to reign with Christ. v2 And I heard a sound from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists harping on their harps.
In this verse we find three suggestive descriptions of the sound (or voice) of the 144,000. Firstly it is like the sound of many waters. The same description is used of the voice of God in Ezekiel 43:2, and of the Son of Man in Revelation 1:15. Water means life. Many waters means abundant life. Neither man, nor animal, nor plant can live without water.
The 144,000 will possess abundant spiritual life in themselves. They will impart this spiritual life to others. Jesus said, I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. The words that he spoke were spirit and life. The 144,000 will be like him. The words that they speak will bring life to those that hear. This is true already to some extent of those who are following Jesus, but the time is coming when it will be true in fullness. It will be true in a far greater measure than we have yet seen it.
Secondly their sound is like loud thunder. Thunder suggests authority and power. The voice of God at Sinai was accompanied by thunder when he announced the most authoritative revelation that man has ever been privileged to receive. Moses delivered the ten commandments, and the law that followed with the full authority of God. The 144,000 will, like Moses, be backed by the authority of God. They will not be new recruits to God's army. They will be those whom God has trained and prepared and purified and made ready to receive his authority. They will be wholly qualified by their character to receive it.
Thirdly their sound is like harpists harping on their harps. The voice of the 144,000 is like music. Not everyone has the ability to make music. Only those who have a natural gift. Also no one can make good music without training. Babies do not make opera singers! A musician must first learn to listen before he can play. He must learn to recognise major and minor scales and sound combinations and rhythms. He must then discipline his hands or his voice to reproduce those sounds. It all takes a lot of time and training as well as natural ability.
The result is twofold. Music can give great pleasure. It can be very beautiful. It also is a form of communication. It can impart a message.
The voice of the 144,000 will be like music. Like musicians they will have a God-given gift. They will have listened long and intensively to the voice of God. They will be trained by long discipline to reproduce that voice. The result will be that they will impart the true word of God and they will do so with great beauty. The crowds were drawn to Jesus for these very reasons. Their verdict: 'No one ever spoke like this man.'
Like true musicians they will harmonise perfectly with each other. Poor musicians all try to sing the same tune, but can be out of tune and out of time with each other. They may enjoy themselves, but other people won't want to listen! Good musicians can all sing a different tune, but perfectly harmonise and blend together. Those who are only taught by man all speak the same message, but are out of time and out of tune with each other. They have no real unity.
Those who, like the 144,000, are taught by God have a wonderful diversity and yet perfectly blend together. They are one in the spirit.
v3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.
People sing songs to express or describe an experience. People who know little or nothing of the experience will not be able to relate to the song. The distinctive experience of the 144,000 is that they have been redeemed from the earth. The earth is the realm of the natural man. It contrasts with heaven, which is the realm of God and of the spirit. The book of Revelation refers frequently to three spheres: the heavens, the earth and the sea. The sea is barren and profitless. You cannot cultivate it or build on it or control it in any way.
The only useful thing you can do with it at least in the ancient world is to catch its fish. The fish must then be brought to land. Jesus used this picture to describe the initial conversion experience. He said to Peter, I will make you fishers of men. The disciples were to bring people from the sea realm to the earth realm.
The book of Revelation clearly distinguishes between those who dwell on earth and those who dwell in heaven: Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short. The first part of this verse does not refer to those who have died and gone to heaven, but to those who are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
Heaven in the New Testament is a present reality rather than a future home. It is the realm of the spirit. Different terminology is used for what happens after we die. Paul, for example, speaks of departing and being with Christ, but not of going to heaven. Jesus speaks of going to the Father.
Like every other member of Adam's race, the 144,000 were originally of the earth. They have become dwellers in heaven. Their citizenship has changed. They no longer belong to the world and its systems, but to the heavenly realm. The fullness of redemption has been outworked in them, and now they belong wholly to God.
v4 These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb.
What does it mean to defile themselves with women? Obviously we live in an age of sexual promiscuity and immorality of every kind. The servants of God must be pure and above reproach in all such matters. However this should go without being said. Also if this is the only meaning of this verse it appears to be a message for the male sex only, presumably with women excluded from the ranks of the 144,000!
What I believe is in mind here is the deeper question of spiritual purity. The book of Revelation speaks of two women, both of whom probably represent the same thing. In Rev 2:20 we read: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
Later in Revelation 17:5 we read of Mystery Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.
These are the women with whom the 144,000 will not be defiled. They will be utterly free from the contamination of Jezebel and of Babylon. They will have understood by the revelation of God the nature and meaning of Mystery Babylon and from the heart they will have obeyed the injunction, Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.
The meaning of this is clarified by the second and deeply significant statement of verse 4: They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Jesus himself was totally outside the Babylon of his day. He had no part in its corrupt manmade religious systems. Like him instead, they will be wholly led by the Spirit.
What does it mean to follow the Lamb wherever he goes? Where did Jesus go? On this earth he went from conception (by the word of God) to birth. He went on through childhood and adolescence to manhood. He trod the path of obedience, rejection, suffering and death. He rose in victory from the grave and was exalted to the right hand of God. That in summary was the pathway of the Lamb of God. That also is the pathway of those who follow him wherever he goes. Nothing can be omitted.
Those who follow him must also be conceived and born by the word of God. They also must pass through childhood and adolescence to maturity. They also must experience rejection, suffering and death in their walk of obedience. For most this will not be a physical death, but a death experience. They also, if they suffer with him, will reign with him. They will be offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb, just as he was offered as the first of the firstfruits.
Many thousands of people were touched and blessed by Jesus in the brief three years of his ministry on earth. Only twelve were with him all the time and followed him wherever he went. The 144,000 are also a small minority made up of those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Beyond them, as described in chapter 7 of Revelation, there will be a great multitude wearing white robes and standing before the throne of God.
Rev 7:5 No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless. The final characteristics of the 144,000 are their truthfulness and purity. Lying is a way of life that surrounds us. Direct lies, indirect lies, white lies and black lies are part of politics, business and social life. Worse still they are part of family life and church life. Yet worse we can find their source in our own hearts.
Jesus was and is completely different. Everything he said and did was totally true. He himself was and is the truth. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. Satan on the other hand is described as the father of lies.
What is the greatest lie? I believe the greatest lie is false witness about God. Jesus is described as the faithful and true witness. He was and is the perfect representation and description of God. Not only did he speak the truth, but he was the truth. The Pharisees, by contrast, were the ultimate false witnesses. They spoke of God and taught people about God, but their lives totally denied him. Man's religion today modern Babylon is the same. Its claim to represent God is the ultimate lie and the ultimate defamation of God's character. It is sinful and wrong to tell lies about natural things, and even there we must cultivate an attitude of truthfulness. It is much worse to tell spiritual lies, by being false witnesses to God.
Much of what has called itself the church down the centuries has been one great lie. It has claimed to be God's representation on earth, and the man in the street has believed it. When he thinks of God, he thinks of what he has seen and heard of and knows from the church.
The 144,000 will be wholly different from what we have known as the church. Like Jesus they will be faithful and true witnesses, in whose mouths and in whose lives there will be no lie. The world now is hungry to meet them.