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The 144,000 -- Future Or Fulfilled? 59

same principle was involved in the statement made by the apostles Paul and Barnabas to the Jews
at Perga: “It was necessary that God’s word be spoken FIRST to you. But since you are rejecting
it...we’re turning to the Goyim [Gentiles]!” (Acts 13:46).

Nevertheless, there were many thousands of Jews which did accept the Messiah -- so
many in fact that we read the following statement in Acts 21:20: “You see, brother, how many
TENS OF THOUSANDS of believers there are among the Judeans, and they are all zealots for
the Torah.”

It should also be noted here that the people of the twelve tribes of Israel were not in un-
known parts of the world, inaccessible or lost to the outreach of the early Church of YEHOVAH.
Had this been the case, Paul could not have spoken of the “twelve tribes, instantly serving God
day and night” (Acts 26:7).

We should realize that converts to the Messiah came from ALL the twelve tribes, though
scattered throughout the then known world. It was to such converts that the apostle James ad-
dressed the New Testament book which bears his name: “To: The Twelve Tribes in the Diaspora:
Shalom!” (James 1:1). Also significant is the fact that James refers to these converts as “a kind of
FIRSTFRUITS of all that He created” (verse 18) -- a perfect cross-reference to the passage
about the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel!

In view of the fact that there were “many tens of thousands of believers...among the
Judeans” alone -- FIRSTFRUITS to the Messiah -- it is not at all inconceivable that the total
number from all the tribes could have been 144,000!

In Revelation 14:1 we read: “Then I looked, and there was the Lamb standing on Mount
Tziyon [Zion]; and with him were 144,000...” Realize that it is not the literal Mount Zion that is
here referred to. Rather, the term is applied to the spiritual experience of believers. Notice what
is said concerning Mount Zion in the epistle addressed “to the Hebrews”: “For you have not
come to a tangible mountain” -- as in the Old Testament under Moses, to a literal mountain -- “on
the contrary, you have come to Mount Tziyon [Zion], that is, the city of the living God, heavenly
Yerushalayim [Jerusalem]...to a community of the FIRSTBORN...[and] to the mediator of a
new covenant, Yeshua” (Hebrews 12:18-24). So here, the firstfruits of Israel had come -- spiritu-
ally -- to Zion and were thus described in this vision.

Next we notice that the 144,000 were pictured as having the name of YEHOVAH God
“written in their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1). References to a name in the forehead are found
several times in the Book of Revelation. Those who serve the “beast” are said to have his name
or mark “in their foreheads” (Revelation 13:16, 17). The “harlot” is seen with a name written
upon her forehead (Revelation 17:5). In Revelation 22:3-4 we read that those who are servants of
YEHOVAH God “shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their
foreheads.”

What is meant by these strange verses about a name in the forehead? Writes Thomas
Newton: “It was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their mas-

The Berean Voice March-April 2003