Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. – Revelation 7:4

Today's Scripture Reading (June 3, 2021): Revelation 7

People inhabit the earth, but the number of inhabitants has vastly changed over the last few centuries. According to the United Nations, there were probably about 300 million people living on planet earth two thousand years ago. In the next thousand years, we only added about 10 million to that number. But then the population started to climb. Ninety million people were added to the people of the earth in the next 250 years. Then another 100 million people were added to the world's population over the next 250 years, a number severely lessened by the campaign of death due to the Black Plague in the 1400s.   

During the next 250 years, the world added another 291 million people, making the earth's population in 1750 somewhere around 791 million. By the beginning of the twentieth century, that population number more than doubled, reaching 1.65 billion people. I was born in 1960, and by that time, the world population had almost doubled again. I became one of more than 3 billion people that called this planet home. And the growth hasn't stopped. Today the World Population is closing in on 8 billion people, and we are currently adding a billion people about every ten years.

These are numbers that the writers of the Bible in the first century could not have imagined. The Roman historian Tacitus estimated that Jerusalem, at the time of the Jewish Wars in the middle of the first century C.E., was about 600,000 people. And that was the largest population center in the nation. The totality of the population of Israel in the first century was less than 2 million people, maybe significantly less. Today Israel's population is closing in on ten million, and most Jews live outside of Israel.

Over the centuries, the numbers have changed. And this is one of the reasons that dealing with numbers is tricky, especially when we are dealing with them in prophecy. John sees 144,000 saints from the tribes of Israel at the end of time. Considering that the church was in its infancy and the nation's population was significantly less than it is today, the 144,000 probably seemed like a lot to John, but it does not feel that way to us.

The interpretation of the meaning of Revelation's 144,000 has changed with the generation and tradition. The Jehovah's Witnesses believed that the number was literal and applied directly to them until their numbers reached higher than 144,000. Then the Jehovah's Witness's message changed, and the number became symbolic but was still applied directly to them. Some have argued that this is a description of the Christian Church, which currently has more than 2 billion members.

But neither of these options is likely. John seems to make it clear that these are descendants of Jacob, people who have a genetic link to Israel. This is not about 144,000 of the billions of Christians who have lived in the past 2000 years. Considering all of the Christian Jews who have lived over the past 2000 years, it is likely a symbolic number.

What the 144,000 do indicate is that Israel will hold a significant presence at the end of all things. Christianity is about all of the world and not just the Gentiles. When we think that it is just about us, we make a mistake, regardless of who it is that you feel makes up us. Israel's influence on the Christian Church has always been present, and it always will be present, to the very end of time.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Revelation 8