Then I looked, and on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him were 144,000 who had his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads.
I heard a sound from Heaven like the noise of running water and the deep roar of thunder; it was the sound of harpers playing on their harps. There before the throne, and the four living creatures and the elders, they were singing a new song.
That song no one could learn except the 144,000, who alone from the whole world had been ransomed.
These are men who did not defile themselves with women, for they are chaste; it is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been ransomed as the firstfruits of humanity for God and the Lamb. No lie was found on their lips; they are faultless.
1 comment:
When Jesus called on his people to be "perfect," this was not the criterion of perfection he gave: but rather to be like our Father, utterly all-inclusively benevolent.
Only 144,000 "ransomed" from the whole world? And if the word "defiled" means anything to me, it isn't what I used to do with women when the opportunity arose, or occasionally with my wife since then. I suppose you could make a case that John is here alluding to the old metaphor of "whoredom" meaning "fooling around with unauthorized dieties." In which case, you could paraphrase this as: 144,000 who have not in some sense "sold out." But all of them men? Not likely.
I think we have to say that our friend John here has let some personal hangups into his message...
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