We have heard about the threefold comfort of God's sealing of His servants. A seal signifies ownership, protection, and authenticity. What comfort this sealing brings to the struggling church! Next, we hear about the number of sealed people: there are 144,000. “And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” We understand that this is a symbolic number, as with all numbers in the book of Revelation. We may recognize in the number 144,000 figures that we encounter more often in the book of Revelation. First, 144 is twelve times twelve. Twelve is the number of God's people, representing fullness. In this context, twelve times twelve denotes the church- the Israel of the Old Testament and the New Testament. As we also read in Revelation 21:12 and 14, the heavenly Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, has twelve gates, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve foundations, symbolizing the twelve apostles of the New Testament. The bride of Christ embodies the fullness of twelve times twelve. Furthermore, we read in Revelation 21 that the heavenly city's walls are 144 cubits high. Secondly, the fullness of the church from the Old and New Testaments is 144 multiplied by 1,000. A thousand is ten times ten times ten- a perfect cube. Ten to the third power, signifies great fullness. Oh yes, in our eyes, it is a small flock, a remnant, but in total, it represents a great fullness. Yes, a very great fullness.
We read in verse 3: “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” The servants of God here refer to the Israel of Jew and Gentile, the Israel of believers, Abraham's true seed, grafted into the noble olive tree of Israel. What a comfort this picture is for the church militant. The earth, sea, and trees depict the entirety of the earth. The point made here in Revelation 7:3 is that the final judgment is being suspended. First, the whole number of God’s people must be gathered. As somebody wrote, “every moment on the earth is made to serve the redeeming purpose of God for mankind. The four winds from the four corners of the earth cannot blow and vent their rage as they like, but only as they are made to serve the Church of Jesus Christ.”