Revelation 14: Worship Of The Lamb

PHIL HARRIS

The 144,000 Firstfruits

This study, just like the others in this series, examines the passage using the grammatical-historical hermeneutic that assumes the words of the text mean what the words say, and context is everything. Although I know that some people understand Revelation to be more figurative and symbolic than literal, this study represents my understanding of the visions using normal rules of vocabulary, grammar, and context. 

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads (Rev. 14:1).

The 144,000 sealed Jewish evangelists introduced in Revelation 7 are at Mount Zion. Being sealed by God simply means they cannot be harmed by the antichrist and are safe in Christ. In fact, we know that all who believe in the Lord Jesus are sealed by the Holy Spirit who is a guarantee of our eternal security and inheritance (Eph. 1:13, 14). 

In Revelation 14:1 we have a taste of what eternity outside of time and place will be like. John is on the Island of Patmos, yet he has also been invited via vision into heaven. He now sees the Lamb, who is still in heaven, yet He is also standing on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. We see here as well as in Hebrews 12:22–24, that Mt. Zion not only refers to the earthly Jerusalem but also refers to the eternal dwelling place of God. 

Heaven is not some far off, distant physical place. Instead, it is reality that is just beyond what is normally visible. God and His angels who occupy heaven can appear with those on earth without leaving heaven. Here is an example:

Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:17).

In other words, God is spirit (Jn. 4:24), and angels are ministering spirits (Heb. 1:14). When God interacts with this earth, He does not cease to be omnipresent, nor are His angels limited by physical geography. They are not physical, and physical boundaries do not inhibit them. Certainly physical boundaries do not limit our omnipresent God. 

Psalm Two is a Messianic Psalm that foretells when the Lamb takes control from Mount Zion:

“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps. 2:6-9).

John witnesses and records the Lamb standing on Mt. Zion with 144,000 people who honor Him standing with Him. Now John describes those in heaven as they interact with the 144,000 at Mount Zion:

And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth (Rev. 14:2-3).

A heavenly choir “like a roar of many waters” is so beautiful that they have the sound of harps and are singing a “new song” which none except the 144,000 can learn. We are not directly told who the singers are, but verse three says no one but the 144,000 could learn the song. This heavenly anthem is sung with joy before the throne of God and before the heavenly elders and the four living creatures, and only the 144,000 redeemed from the earth can learn it.

It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless (Rev. 14:4-5).

Comparing this passage with Revelation 7:1–8, where the identity of the 144,000 is given, we can conclude that the 144,000 are virgin Jewish men set apart from sexual immorality and all else that is evil under the then-current rule of the antichrist. We can also conclude that the antichrist is in power because we learn in Revelation 7:9–17 that the great multitude represents those who trust in Christ during the Tribulation.

We can say, then, that the 144,000 are firstfruits for God and the Lamb. They are guileless and speak the truth, following the Lamb wherever He leads them. We may infer that they are “evangelists” who speak the truth about the Lord Jesus during the Tribulation and whose witness bears a great harvest—the “great multitude” who trust Jesus during the dreadful time of tribulation and come into the presence of the throne of God, worshiping and praising Him for salvation (Rev. 7:9-17).

What are firstfruits?

In order to understand the significance of “firstfruits” we can look back at Leviticus 23:9-14 and Numbers 28:26-31 where God established the Feast of Firstfruits for the nation of Israel. This feast was to be held every year at the beginning of the Jewish harvest season, and the first of the harvest was always holy to God. As a pattern, this offering of the firstfruits  points to the person and work of Jesus Christ:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power (1 Cor. 15:20-24).

Without question the 144,000 firstfruits of the tribulation also point to the person and work of Jesus Christ, just as the ancient harvest firstfruits  foreshadowed Him. They preach the source of their redemption to all the nations: the eternal gospel of Jesus Christ the Lamb who died at Calvary for the sins of the world:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (1 Cor. 15:1-5).

 Their being undefiled should remind us of our own sanctification within this present culture in which we now live:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you (1 Thess. 4:3-8).

Three-Part Angelic Message

The message of these first three angels introduced in this chapter form the core of what the 144,000 are to preach to all the nations. We can make this conclusion because these three angels proclaim the one thing necessary for all people to consider: the salvation of our God offered to us in the work of Christ.

Your eternity depends upon the choice you make. Do you repent, receive the indwelling Holy Spirit (seal) of God and worship the Lamb, or do you wear the mark of the beast and worship the antichrist?

Notice that in the message of these angels and of the 144,000 there is not even a hint of Sabbath keeping nor of the Adventist health message. Neither is anyone instructed that they must emulate the character of Christ.

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water” (Rev. 14:6-7).

This angel preaches “good news” that all have the opportunity to fear God, give him glory, and worship him who is the Creator. The “eternal gospel” is eternal because it is centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ who is the eternally existing Son of God. 

Those who respond to this angel’s message will humble themselves, repent of their sins, and receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.

The next angel brings a warning message of the coming judgment and wrath of God, because all the nations are drunk with the passion of sexual immorality.

Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality” (Rev. 14:8).

We will learn more about the “whore of Babylon” later in this book as she is the theme of chapters 17 and 18. In fact, in Revelation 17:7 we learn she is in full alliance with the antichrist.

In our own time we see that the sexual immorality of self-indulgent Babylon and her pagan worship and intoxication with wealth are already rampant over all the world—a precursor to the coming tribulation.

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name” (Rev. 14:9-11).

The third angel’s message is an eternal death sentence pronounced upon all those who ignore the message of the two prior angels. Only in recognizing one’s sin and in turning to the Lord Jesus in whose atonement for our sin we find reconciliation with God can we escape the horror of eternal death. 

Endurance Of the Saints

Verses 12 and 13 should be read together. The tribulation saints are called to endure their suffering because theirs is the kingdom of God. Verse 12 says this:

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus (Rev. 14:12).

Since this verse (along with Revelation 12:7 which uses the same Greek work for “commandments”) is a well-known proof text used to support the Seventh-day Adventist view concerning obedience to the supposed Old Covenant “eternal moral law”, we need to examine what this verse is really teaching.

The word “commandments” in Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 14:12 comes from the Greek feminine noun; entolé. In all five of John’s books, only Jesus’ commands are called entolé, thus distinguishing His words from the Greek nomos which is the word John uses when he refers to law in general. Thus in every one of John’s five books, nomos is used when referring to Old Covenant law, and entolé refers to the commands and teachings of Jesus.

Also notice that, if we understand the 144,000 to be Jewish evangelists preaching the gospel to the world rocked by the tribulation, Revelation 14:12 confirms that it is the entolé—the commands and teachings—of Jesus that these Jewish evangelists are proclaiming. In other words, the last call to a dying world is not the Ten Commandments: it is, rather, what Jesus said was the work of God: “That you believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn. 6:29). 

Blessed Are the Saints

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them” (Rev. 14:13)!

This verse is much more than just a message of assurance recorded in Scripture. In the tribulation the indwelling Holy Spirit will personally assure the suffering saints that they who die are blessed because they die in the Lord and have rest from their labors, that their deeds will follow them.

Contrary to the false teaching of Adventism, the indwelling Holy Spirit will never depart from the saints leaving them to face the antichrist, death, or any other trial alone. Paul also assured us of this same truth:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Rom. 8:35-36).

The Time of God’s Reaping Has Arrived

From Revelation 14:14 to the end of this chapter, we have the vision of two separate reapings of God following the assurance just given to the suffering saints. The fact that these visions follow the reassurance to the saints who persevere in their faith implies that these reapings occur in the second half of the tribulation, either just prior to or during the pouring of the bowls of God’s wrath which will be described in Revelation 15 and 16.

Son of Man And the Fourth Angel

We saw in Revelation 11:1 that when the seventh trumpet was blown, it was announced that the “kingdom of the world” is now the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Now, in Revelation 14:14, we see Him beginning His work of judgment which will lead to His eternal rule on earth and to the end of all that is evil:

Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped (Rev. 14:14-16).

Jesus the Son of Man wearing a golden crown signifying his kingship is seated on a cloud holding a sickle awaiting awaiting the “green light” from his Father to begin reaping.

Verse 15 describes the fourth “another angel” found in chapter 14 comes out from the temple, where the throne of God the Father is located, and calls out: “Put in your sickle and reap,” and the earth was reaped by the Son of Man, the Lamb Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The phrase “One like a son of man” is a direct quote from a parallel verse in the book of Daniel:

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him (Dan. 7:13).

 “Son of man” is a title used in the Old Testament—especially in the book of Ezekiel—to refer to humanity or to a specific man, often to the prophet himself. Daniel, however, uniquely uses this term in his vision to describe the incarnate Son of Man. In the New Testament Jesus confirms Daniel’s identification of Himself as that Son of Man. For example, this is what Jesus said of Himself in Mark 8:31:

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again (Mark 8:31).

While Revelation 14:14-16 reveals the Son of Man to be Jesus coming as a king and a judge, the passage doesn’t tell us the nature of this reaping done by the Son of Man. The normal use of a sickle is to reap a good harvest of wheat, but the next reaping of “grapes” suggests that the second reaping may be a general reaping of the wicked who are worshipers of the antichrist. 

Some commentators believe that the first description of reaping the earth is a symbolic way to announce the general fact of coming judgment, while others believe it may describe the gathering of the righteous at Christ’s return—or even the gathering in of Israel “the woman” who escaped from Satan and the antichrist as described in Revelation 12:14: 

But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time (Rev. 12:14).

The specifics of these two images of reaping do not give us enough details to be dogmatic about them, but they do describe the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man to whom the Father has given the right to judge humanity (Jn. 5:22, 23), approaching the earth in judgment.

The Fifth and Sixth Angels

Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe” (Rev. 14:17-18).

The fifth “another angel” listed in Revelation 14 comes out from the the heavenly temple holding a sickle, and then the sixth “another angel” comes out from the altar having authority over the fire (see Rev. 8:3-5) and called out to the angel holding holding the sickle saying; “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters…for the grapes are ripe.” The image of fire is often associated with judgment, and this particular angel with “authority over the fire” seems to be same angel described in Revelation 8:3–5. His special authority is explained in this passage:

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake (Rev. 8:3-5).

The one with authority over the fire is the angel who tends the fire on the altar of incense and has the golden censer. This angel’s authority encompasses mediating the prayers of the saints as they rise before God. His authority to mediate the saints’ prayers also includes the prayers of the souls under the altar who are crying out to God for vengeance.

Revelation 14:17-18 is God’s response to the martyrs’ prayers that have been conveyed to the throne of God by this angel. We recall the description in Revelation 6:9–10 of the cries of these saints who refused to honor the antichrist and remained faithful to the word of God and the Lord Jesus: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Considering who this angel is suggests that this reaping of grapes will be directed against those who have been killing the saints:

So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia (Rev. 14:19-20).

The winepress of God’s wrath will be just outside “the city” which, in context, can only be Jerusalem. Furthermore, the phrase “blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia” suggests that this reaping might be related to the Battle of Armageddon mentioned in Revelation 16:12-21. Also interesting is the fact that 1,600 stadia is said to equal about 180 miles—close to the approximate length of Israel from north to south. 

Summary

First, the Adventists’ Three Angels’ Messages with their agenda of teaching the seventh-day Sabbath, the identity of “apostate Protestantism” as all the Christian churches that worship on Sunday, and the identification of the mark of the beast as “Sunday worship”, cannot be supported from Revelation 14 as the organization claims.

Second, the 144,000 are identified as Jews and as men who are committed to following Jesus wherever He goes. They are purchased from the earth and are blameless, and they are juxtaposed with the angelic cry calling the earth to worship God, to recognize that Babylon and her narcissistic false worship and lust for power and money are doomed. 

Third, those who do not forsake Babylon for the true gospel of the Lord Jesus are sentenced to eternal torture in hell.

Fourth, those who are persecuted and killed for their loyalty to Jesus, not to a day, are blessed and secure.

Fifth, the Lord Jesus is revealed as both King and Judge. He is responsible for overseeing the reaping of the earth—both of the good wheat and of the corrupt grapes who are doomed to be trampled in the winepress of God’s wrath. 

Even without being able to specifically identify all details and timelines, this chapter reveals God’s faithfulness and His sovereign plan. He saves and preserves those who trust Him, and He destroys those who refuse to believe. 

Our only proper response is to recognize our need and to repent and trust Jesus and His finished atonement for our sin. 

—All biblical quotes taken from the ESV

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Phillip Harris

Phil Harris and his wife Janeane have been married 57 years and have three children, six grandchildren and 6 great grand children. Phil dropped out of Adventism at age 16 and didn't learned the biblical gospel until 10 years later. After 3 years in the Marine Corps he spent 25 years as a Shipfitter followed by another 23 years in a local food processing plant. He and Janeane now live quietly on two-and-a-half wooded acres on Puget Sound, Washington, where Phil gardens and writes for Proclamation! and for BibleStudiesforAdventists.com.

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