Why does God
Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Should God’s
existence be proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven
Fideism vs WCG.htm
How
many people will enter the kingdom of heaven?
The
Bible never states a specific number concerning how many people will enter the
kingdom of God. That’s in part because
God hasn’t determined precisely how many will enter His kingdom since he’s
given us free will to accept or reject salvation after He calls us. (Of course, strict Calvinists who believe in
predestination will disagree with that viewpoint, but that opens up a totally
separate can of worms). Such a text as
Revelation 20:6 doesn’t give a specific number: “Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection!
Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and
of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.” Although the fundamental perspective of the
Book of Revelation is that the vast majority don’t have salvation (as per Rev.
12:9, since Satan has deceived the whole world), that doesn’t mean they can’t
get salvation later, after their death and resurrection. The key giving evidence that people can be
saved after they die unsaved is Ezekiel 37:1-14. Here Ezekiel in a vision saw the whole house of Israel as dry
bones, as unsaved, but when they were resurrected, they weren’t put into the
lake of fire, but into the land of Israel (verse 12-13), where they would come
to know the Lord. So there’s good
reason to believe that the great majority of people will ultimately be saved,
not lost, despite being deceived during their first lifetimes on earth, after
the second resurrection occurs (Rev. 20:5).
Now,
here I could be speculating, so please correct me in any follow-up email you
would send if this is incorrect: Are
you asking this question because you’ve heard about the Jehovah’s Witness
teaching that 144,000 go to heaven and have spirit bodies while the rest of
humanity lives on earth in the flesh forever?
Clearly,
the Bible teaches that Christians will live on earth as the place of the
saved. After all, what do the meek inherit? (Matt. 5:5) They
inherit the earth, not heaven. The “meek” also include the 144,000.
Why should we read into any text the interpretation that it supposedly only
affects the 144,000 when it doesn’t mention them? Now doesn’t God the Father come down to a new earth in
the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-3)?
Isn’t earth the place (verse 4) without crying, pain, and death? Jesus
likewise comes to the earth (Zechariah 14:3-4) from where He prepared a place
(i.e., positions in the kingdom of God, cf. Luke 19:11-27; Matt. 25:14-30) for
us so "that [when on earth] where I am you may be also" (John
14:3). But, will all Christians (besides the 144,000 in heaven) live in
the flesh forever? Where does the Bible say that having a transformed
body made of spirit is limited only to the 144,000, such as in I Cor. 15, the
famous resurrection chapter? The 144,000 aren’t even mentioned outside of
the Book of Revelation, and it’s a
major interpretative error to keep reading into various texts elsewhere the
assumption that those texts are only about the 144,000 when they say nothing
about them. So when Paul writes about the resurrection of saved
Christians (I Cor. 15:44-45, 48-49), “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual
body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam
became a life-giving spirit. . . . Just as we have borne the image of the
man of dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the
image of the man of heaven.” Why should we limit Paul’s “we” to the
144,000 when he never writes anything about them specifically here or elsewhere?
What justifies making that assumption when interpreting the Bible?
The sixth seal of the book of Revelation (which is described starting in 6:12),
Christ speaks about in Matthew 24:29 also, which concern the heavenly signs
like the sun’s becoming black. God seals and then protects the 144,000 Israelites (who mostly aren’t Jews, by the
way, but are also members of the “Ten Lost
Tribes”) who are also true Christians in Revelation 7. Jesus
describes this in Matthew 24:31. Revelation later returns to describe the
144,000 some more in Rev. 14:1-5). Then a huge multitude, gentiles and
Israelites, who receive spiritual salvation, but often weren’t saved physically
during the this coming terrible time. (See Rev. 7:9-10, 14). Notice that these people are “a great
multitude, which no one could count,” in quantity, which shows we can’t know
exactly how many are saved. They are
just as saved spiritually as the 144,000. These people heard the warning
message to repent, obey God’s law, and have faith in Jesus as Savior, but
didn’t take action until the Great Tribulation began.
I
believe the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14 are true Christians who happen also
to be physical descendants of the various tribes in question. They
will be sealed by God shortly before the 7th
seal of God is opened, so they are those actually alive at the end
time. It isn't a subsection of all those who have lived down through
human history who are true people of God,
but a group of those true Christians living shortly before Jesus
returns. Notice that they are distinguished from the great multitude described
in Rev. 7:9? Why do we know they are different? Notice this
formula, "from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and
tongues." Compare it to what Nebuchadnezzar
meant in Daniel 3:29, and what John wrote in Rev. 5:9-10; 14:6. These
aren't Jews or Israelites, but
gentiles. They can't be physically of the same national
background as those listed earlier, from the 12 tribes of Israel, mentioned in the prior verses.
Or, at the barest mininum, Israel and Judah are also included with
this great (saved) multitude as a minor subset, but the 144,000 aren't
identical to them.
The 144,000 are only part of
all the saved Christians down through the centuries who will be in the first
resurrection (or translation, if still alive) when Jesus returns. The
gentiles who are truly saved before Jesus' return, and also during the
millennium, need not wait until the second resurrection (Rev. 20:5, first
part) to be saved. In this case, I believe the number 144,000 is
literally accurate, in part because of the specific enumeration of tribes
that follow afterwards. These Israelites and Jews will be also truly
saved Christians, who accept Jesus as their personal Savior in this life before
He returns. Hence, spiritual Israel and physical Israel overlap in this
regard. Likewise, historically, they did in the early days of the
true Church in the first century, when the only believers in Jesus as
the Messiah and Savior were Jewish.
I
believe that all saved people will have spirit bodies and live on a purified,
transformed, totally new earth forever after the New Jerusalem comes to earth
with God the Father. The Jehovah’s
Witness teaching about the 144,000 is simply incorrect.
Eric Snow
Click here to access essays that defend Christianity: /apologetics.html
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teachings: /doctrinal.html
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Why does God
Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why
Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
May Christians
work on Saturdays? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Protestant
Rhetoric vs Sabbath Refuted.htm
Should
Christians obey the Old Testament law? /doctrinalhtml/Does the
New Covenant Abolish the OT Law.htm
Do you have an
immortal soul? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Here and
Hereafter.htm
Does the
ministry have authority? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is There
an Ordained Ministry vs Edwards.html
Is the United
States the Beast? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Are We
the Beast vs Collins.htm
Should you give
10% of your income to your church? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Does the
Argument from Silence Abolish the Old Testament Law of Tithing 0205 Mokarow
rebuttal.htm
Is Jesus God?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is Jesus
God.htm
Will there be a
third resurrection? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Will
There Be a Third Resurrection.htm
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