ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
CANADA
The word “Israel” appears only three times in the Book of Revelation (2:14; 7:4; 21:12), and the word “church” only appears seven times, once for each of the seven churches (chapters 2 and 3).
The reference to Israel in Revelation 2:14 is part of the letter to the Church of Ephesus, and refers to the historical story of Balaam and Balak in Numbers chapters 22 to 24. Revelation 7:4 speaks of the sealing of the 144,000 of Israel, and Revelation 21:12 refers to the gates of New Jerusalem. If Israel in John’s prophecy actually refers to the Christian Church, wouldn’t the gates of New Jerusalem be labeled with the names of the twelve apostles of the New :, instead of the twelve tribes of Old Testament Israel? These “Israel” passages deserve a closer look, of which we can only give a glimpse here.
Is the word “church” in Revelation speaking strictly of non-Israelites? All of the seven churches of Revelation were in Asia Minor, on one of the main migration routes of the House of Israel after its escape from Assyria. As an early British-Israel writer, Ernest C. Hutton, commented, “It was not difficult to connect the ‘letters’ of Revelation with places where Israelites were then located.” (BOI 33:123, 1909).
There were more than seven churches in Asia Minor, including Galatia, to which the Apostle Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians. Why are only seven churches given? The number seven in Biblical symbolism represents completion and symbolizes the whole. The seven selected exhibit seven different and distinctive kinds of traits found among the early Christians, as well as characterizing seven church periods since.
Of particular interest to us is Revelation 7:4 and the sealing of the 144,000, which has perhaps been the source of more controversy than any other verse in John’s prophetic book. Are these Israelites? Gentiles?
Augustine of Hippo, in his famous work, “The City of God,” stated “Even in regard of details, [John’s) description of this body of the elect agrees most exactly with that of the symbolic visions under consideration. He speaks of them not merely as elect Israelites, but specifically as God’s twelve tribes of Election out of Israel’s twelve professing tribes, and also of the constituency of the New Jerusalem. He asserts their inviolability as God’s sealed ones, from real injury by the Devil, or any of his instruments.” (Quoted from Elliott’s “Horae Apocalypticae.”)
What does this “sealing” entail? The late British Israel writer, Augusta Cook, stated, “It signifies especially two things. First, it means protection. Those devastating winds of God’s judgments were ready to burst on the Roman Church. But in the south of Europe, where these punishments would be poured out, were many thousands of the literal people of Israel. These were not to be destroyed with the old Empire of Rome, and therefore God placed a Seal on their foreheads for protection.”
Miss Cook continued, “Secondly, the reason was one of obscuration, or hiding. When you seal a letter, you have hidden its contents. So Israel had to be hidden for a certain time. There are  several passages in the Bible about the hiding of Israel. One of them is in Ezekiel 37, where Israel is stated to be buried out of sight-hidden in graves until the time comes for them to be found, when God says, ‘I will bring you out of your graves’-and they stand on their feet, ‘an exceeding great army.'” (“Light From Patmos: The Apocalypse,” pp. 42-43)
Rev. L.G.A. Roberts wrote, “Why then is Dan not sealed? Simply because the sealing has to do with those of Israel who were in the Roman earth at the time of the vision being fulfilled. Dan, wholly as a tribe, had passed on into the place appointed (2 Samuel 7:10; Isaiah 24:15). Dan never went into captivity (or shame). Search for him in 1 Chronicles chapters 2 to 9, but you will search in vain: he had left Palestine before Jeroboam II of Israel or Jotham of Judah, when the genealogy of the tribes was made (1 Chronicles 5:17).” (“Israel In The Book of Revelation,” p. 45)
Theologians have all sorts of other reasons for the exclusion of Dan from the listing of the tribes in Revelation 7. Dr. Henry Alford claimed that Dan was missing “from the fact that this tribe had been long ago as good as extinct.” Yet Dan is listed first in the tribal list in Ezekiel’s “latter Days” temple prophecy (Ezekiel 48:1), and Dan and Zebulon are both missing in the earlier genealogies found in 1 Chronicles chapters 4 to 7; both  were Mediterranean coastal tribes suggesting that a significant number of them had sailed off to colonize other lands. Instead, Dispensational Futurists imagine that Dan was simply too wicked a tribe to be listed! The Cambridge Bible Commentary disagrees saying, “The traditional view is, that Dan is omitted because Antichrist will come of that tribe: but the grounds for that opinion are very slight; it rests mainly on this omission itself, for no one would naturally understand Genesis 49:17 as implying that Dan would be an evil power.”
Far from being extinct, Rev. Roberts explains, “His migrations are apparent to all in the names of the places to which he came and left his name behind, Danube, Dan’s swelling or expansion; Daneister, Dan’s hiding place; Dan-apris, now Daneiper, Dan’s villages; also the Don River, and right across Europe into the British Isles we trace his trail. In Keating’s History of Ireland (p.40) he says “The Dannans were a people of great learning, they had overmuch gold and silver… they left Greece after a battle with the Assyrians, and for fear of falling into the hands of the Assyrians came to Norway and Denmark (Dannemark) and thence passed over to Ireland.” From Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters (note p. 121): “The colony called Tuatha de-Danaan conquered the Firbolgs and became Masters of Ireland … were highly skilled in architecture and other arts from their long residence in Greece and intercourse with the Phoenicians.” (ibid. p. 48)
There are still other explanations for the missing tribe of Dan. Charles Jennings, author of “The Book of Revelation From An Israelite and Historicist Interpretation,” says, “An acceptable explanation is that a translator, translating from original manuscripts, accidentally inserted the tribe of Manasseh instead of the tribe of Dan… ” (p.135) Indeed, one early biblical text has “Man,” which translators took to mean, “Manasseh;” yet it is possible that it was a transcription error for “Dan.” Even more interesting is that another early manuscript, the Memphitic Version, has “Dan” instead of “Man,” showing that in this text Dan was not eliminated at all. (801 26:393, 1902)
Dr. Harry Ironside commented, “The hundred and forty-four thousand are composed of twelve thousand from each tribe of the children of Israel. There is not a Gentile among them, nor is there confusion as to tribe. Whenever I meet people who tell me they belong to the hundred and forty-four thousand, I always ask them, “Which tribe, please?” They are invariably confused for lack of an answer.” The answer to his question is found in a well researched book by historian Steven Collins, “Israel’s Tribes Today,” (available from CBIA) which details the modern locations of each of the twelve tribes. The Guzik Bible Commentary asserts, “Their tribal affiliation is emphatic and known to God. Even if God only knows it, there is absolutely no reason to regard their tribal affiliation as symbolic, not literal.”
Lutheran theologian Dr. J. A. Seiss wrote:“Nor is there a vice or device of sacred hermeneutics, which so beclouds the Scriptures, and so unsettles the faith of men, as this constant attempt to read Church for Israel, and Christian people for Jewish [i.e. Israel] tribes. As I read the Bible, when God says “children of Israel,” I do  not understand Him to mean any but people of [Hebrew] blood, be they Christians or not; and when He speaks of the twelve· tribes of the sons of Jacob, and gives the names of the tribes, it is impossible for me to believe that He means the Gentiles, in any sense or degree, whether they be believers or not.” (J.A. Seiss, The Apocalypse, Zondervan, 1865, 1: 405-6).
Of course, this does not deny the fact that salvation is freely available to people of every race, tribe and nation. Yet Israel is not replaced by the Church under the New Covenant, nor are the Abrahamic promises and covenants negated under the New Covenant and transferred to the Church. Author Dr. John Walvoord in “Commentary on Revelation,” explains, “But the language, if language means anything, must be understood in its normal usage. If we do not take it in its literal sense then there is no check on one’s imagination nor guide for the real meaning of the passage. As an illustration, some say these are the 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, or they are Mormon elders, or they are symbolical for the church.” No, God’s Israel will always remain His people and the inheritors of His covenants!
