by Claire Chock

Created on: March 05, 2009

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Revelation 14 Explained! (As best I can)

The Book of Revelation is notorious for being the most difficult book to understand due to the extensive use of symbolism in the events and things it describes. This makes it one fo teh most contested books of the Bible, some believing it to be a coded letter written and relevant only to the Christians John of Patmos is writing to. Others believe it to explain and describe in detail, what will happen during the end times. Despite this, it was the first book I read once I became a Christian and is one of my favorites. Revelation 14 describes John of Patmos' vision of the 144,000 sealed and what's called the "soul harvest" of the earth before Christ's Second Coming. I'll do a run through of my interpretation this chapter based on what I read from my NIV (New International Version) of the Bible. For the benefit of simplicity, I'm going to look at it as describing the end times.

John has a vision where he sees Jesus "the Lamb" and 144,000 people. There's different interpretations of just who the 144,000 people are. Jehovah's Witnesses believe they are the 144,000 whereas others might believe that the 144,000 is the number of Jews who become Christians during the end times. Looking at the other verses in this section, I think the 144,000 are Christians ( purchased from among men- v4, redeemed from the earth v4), who have not had premarital or extramarital sex (did not defile themselves with women for they kept themselves pure-v4), obey God's guidance in their lives (follow the Lamb wherever he goes), and don't lie (No lie was found in their mouths- v5). Looking at the next part in verse 1, " who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads" is symbolic imagery I think. When God talks about writing his law upon our hearts, I think he means that he wants us to agree with and know why his laws are in place, why he commands what he does. This verse seems little different to me. I think it's symbolism for a particular wisdom or uprightness before God (hence, God and Jesus' names written on their forehead. Verse 2 talks about sounds like harps, coming from heaven and only the 144,000 can learn it. The relationship with God is described in many ways, one of which is a pipe line. If a connector piece is loose or the pipe's disconnected, whatever runs through the pipe can't get through. In the same sense, if we don't have an undamaged connection to God, we can't hear Him speak. Now just translate this to song,

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