The Great Multitude

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

Rev. 7:9 NKJV (emphasis added)

Who makes up the great multitude? Most of our celebrity “prophecy experts” assert that this is the result of a global post-rapture revival, the fruit of the efforts of the “144,000 Jewish evangelists” and so forth. Having previously (I hope) eviscerated this assertion in recent posts, we still have to at least try to discern who makes up this cosmopolitan throng. Any ideas?

Before stating the obvious, I’d like to direct your attention to the beginning of this verse: “After these things I looked… ” The phrase “after these things” appears eight times in Revelation and is consistently used to indicate a break between what is written previously and a new item being revealed. I point this out because it takes away the assumed cause/effect relationship between the sealing of the 144,000 Jews and what follows. It may be that the presence of the great multitude follows the sealing of the Jews chronologically (though I think other evidence points in the opposite direction), but it cannot be asserted logically that the first event, the sealing, caused the second.

For similar reasons, it cannot be logically deduced from the structure of the text that this multitude necessarily appears in heaven after the sixth seal is opened. Peter Goodgame once came to that conclusion but has since rejected it (and also removed the book he wrote asserting it). At one time, I thought the sixth seal earthquake and associated activities preceded the trumpet and bowl judgments, and loosely held to the idea of a sixth-seal rapture. But no longer. There is nothing in the structure of Revelation that forces us to the conclusion that any of the seal, trumpet or bowl judgments must be executed before our departure.

Having said that, can you think of ANY group of people in history who might be “innumerable” and from every tribe, tongue, people and nation? I think only ONE group qualifies: the church. This is OUR arrival in heaven.

There is an apocryphal reference to this same event in the book of Second Esdras:

I, Ezra, saw on Mount Zion a great multitude that I could not number, and they all were praising the Lord with songs. In their midst was a young man of great stature, taller than any of the others, and on the head of each of them He placed a crown, but He was more exalted than they. And I was held spellbound. Then I asked an angel, “Who are these, my lord?”

He answered and said to me, “These are they who have put off mortal clothing and have put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God. Now they are being crowned, and receive palms.”

Then I said to the angel, “Who is that young man who is placing crowns on them and putting palms in their hands?”

He answered and said to me, “He is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world.” So I began to praise those who had stood valiantly for the name of the Lord.

2 Esdras 2:42-47 NRSA

It’s going to be the most joyful party one could ever imagine. “Here’s your crown and your palm branch. Welcome home!!“

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