7: 9-17 Boring calls this section the church triumphant. some read this as a peaceful army. Do we need to bring in the first part? Here we are back to the lamb and its emphasis on blood. Boring asserts that it is the blood as life (Levitcus) that is emphasized more than the shedding of blood per se as a magical element.(Think both Passion of the Christ and “gospel” hymns). One could play with a variety of reasons the folks wear white robes, but it is incontestable that they are martyrs in God’s perspective now.Notice the lamb transmuted into shepherd work here.
144,00 invites discussion of the JW movement. Do you detect an anti-Judaism cast or supersessionism in the number or using 12 as an expansive number? Recently a book came out demonstrating that claims of Christian martyrs under constant persecution is a huge exaggeration. Greg Carey asks-”who will bear faithful lam-like practices in a society of Beast-ly practices?”
One could also do a martyr’s mirror sermon of contemporary struggles in the faith.
One could do a sophisticated sermon on secular culture and religious values.
One could go further and speak on how secular society preaches the gospel to the church inits forms of witness.
With so many legal shows and procedurals, the idea of witness could be explored in some interesting ways, or one could go to social psychology and the fragility fo the accuracy of our witness.
Who can stand asks the sixth seal? The people of God can comes the answer in this salvation interlude. No tribulation (thlipsis) will impede their victory. Note well that the church is undergoing suffering and trial, not being removed from it.
The Southern church called dispensational theology a heresy. I am mystified by our continued kindness toward it in our biblical interpretation. On JWs and the 144,00 it is somehow linked with this idea of a multitude. Perhaps this multiple of 12 deals with the tribes of Israel and maybe the church as a large unit, a large remnant if you will within the multitude.
Presence/tenting/tabernacling here may refer to feast of Tabernacles and then to transfiguration??) and/or Palm Sunday. this is the word used to refer to the Logos dwelling with us in John 1.
Are these sealed ones baptized? Are the robes baptismal robes?
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