About Those 144,000 ....

The First Reading for All Saints Day – Revelation 7 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110125.cfm ] – presents John’s vision of a crowd. They are to be sealed ahead of punishments about to befall the earth. “I heard the number of those marked with the seal, one hundred forty-four thousand …” (v. 4).

It's on that verse that fundamentalists like the Jehovah’s Witnesses hang their claims for an extremely limited pool of the elect. The problem is: not understanding the Biblical world and mindset, their literalism causes them to claim the exact opposite of what the Biblical writer intended! In the ancient world, numbers possessed symbolism and had values.

In Rev. 13:8, the Beast who opposes God has a number: “666.” How should we understand that? One way is historical: if you add up the value of the letters in the name “Nero Caesar,” the Church’s first great imperial persecutor, they come to 666. Another way is symbolic: in Hebrew, seven is the number of perfection. Six, therefore, being so close to perfection yet falling short, is imperfect. Three sixes, then, is consummate imperfection, total rebellion.

In Hebrew, numbers had values. Seven and 12 were symbols of perfection. 1,000 was a symbol of infinity because, back then (and even now) a thousand of anything is pretty huge. So, let’s do some math: 12 (perfection) x 12 (perfection), i.e., perfection squared = 144. 144 (perfection squared) x 1,000 (infinity) = 144,000. So, rather Rev. 7:4’s “144,000,” far from being a rather miserly heavenly turnstile that wouldn’t accommodate modern Peoria, is actually a symbol of divine beneficence: perfection times perfection times infinity. The reaction of the Christian who heard Revelations in the first century might have been, “God wants to save everybody!”

John’s follow-on vision confirms this: there is assembled a crowd “a great multitude which no one could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue” (v. 9). The first vision is the Chosen People brought to perfection. 12 is also the number of the tribes of Israel, thus, the fulness of the Chosen People perfected and carried into infinity. The second vision makes clear the new Israel is all of humanity, that God chose a People not to keep them to Himself but through them to bring all people to Him. It’s the message of the Prophet Jonah.

Yes, God’s beneficence is limitless, but we should make two observations about this reading before we all sing “Kumbaya.”

First, “God wills that all men be saved and come to knowledge of the truth” (I Tm 2:4). God wants it. But as St. Augustine (Sermon 169, 13) reminds us, “the God who created you without you will not save you without you.” God wants your salvation. Do you? On whose terms? His? Or yours? How often we pray “Thy will be done” when we really mean “My will be done.” It’s why St. Paul reminds us that we need to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12), not because God is unfaithful but because we can be.

Second, salvation is inseparable from suffering. The 144,000 sealed are sealed against pending disasters about to befall humanity; the countless multitude carry palm branches and are in white because “they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb” and “survived the time of great distress” (v. 14). Do you expect an easier pathway than that of your Master who went to Calvary?

Salvation is serious business. It is not a participation trophy. The Book of Revelation is a book of hope. It’s not one that offers nice bromides but the assurance God and the good will prevail. Which is not to deny that the devil and evil won’t put up a fight. Because the one thing that matters to all parties – God, the devil, and hopefully you -- is your soul.