The 144,000 and the Multitude In Revelation 7
Bernard Pyron

On a Christian forum dominated by dispensationalists a guy posted this:

“In Revelation 7 John seen more than 144,000 sealed.
John seen 12,000 of each tribe, then a number no man could number, of all nation
John number the Jews first, then people from all nation, that no man could number
But most people can’t see that, he didn’t stop seeing those sealed, with just the 144,000.”

Yes, in Chapter Seven verses 1-8 are about those sealed, and verses 9-17 are about a different group of people,
called the multitude in verse 9. Verse 9 opens by saying, “After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude….” The 144,000, whether
that number is to be literal or not, is a remnant. The remnant is not the multitude.

Revelation 14: 1- 5 returns to the 144,000 – the remnant – and again uses metaphoric language, saying the 144,000 are seen standing on Mount Sion. This is not literal, that they are, in the flesh still, standing on what was called Mount Sion in Palestine with Christ. It means they are raised up to a higher level in the Spirit, and are with Christ and he in them. They follow Christ wherever he leads them (14: 4). They are not defiled with women, a metaphor used in Revelation 17: 1-7, which is the woman representing false religion, or false doctrines. It does not mean literally that they never had sex with women but that now, when they stand on Mount Zion with Christ and have his testimony as is said of the remnant in Revelation 12: 17, they have come out of false doctrines and are not in bondage to the false doctrines. Verse 5 says in their mouth was found no guile, an old English word meaning deception. The remnant, the 144,00, are not deceptive, though sometime in the past many or most of them were deceptive, and had a dialectic mind set, but have been born again in Christ out of deception and out of the dialectic mind set. The New Testament warns in several places about deception. We now live in the age of deception, and only those transformed in Christ come fully out of that deceptive collective.

Insisting that everything in Revelation 7: 1-8 and Revelation 14: 1-5 is literal, as dispensationalists do, results in false doctrine, and the fables of I Timothy1: 4, I Timothy 4: 7 and II Timothy 4: 4.

The remnant in Revelation 12: 17 exists at a time when the dragon in verses 15 to 16 casts a flood out of his mouth. The flood out of the mouth of the Dragon, of course, is not literal, but is metaphoric. The dragon inspires the many false prophets of Matthew 24: 11 to speak lies – the flood is a flood of lies. Whether this remnant is the exact same remnant called the 144,000 depends upon the time when each exist, and we are not given that exact knowledge of timing in the end times at this point. But that remnant of Revelation 12: 17 exists in 2015. There is nothing in Revelation 7 or 14 which says the sealing of the 144,000 could not go on for years, until a time when the group is complete.