Revelation 7:12, commentary and pictures

The verse pictures all the angels around the throne, with the elders and the four living creatures, falling on their faces in worship before God. Their worship ascribes blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might to God forever and ever, opened and closed with Amen in affirmation of His worth and supremacy. It is heaven's answering chorus to the great innumerable multitude's loud cry of salvation to God and to the Lamb. That multitude is the redeemed from every nation standing in white robes with palms, who came out of great tribulation and washed their robes of character white in the blood of the Lamb through faith in Christ's righteousness. To share in that song requires making sure now that robes are washed white by overcoming as Christ overcame, living in readiness with spotless character and learning the note of thanksgiving on earth.

Vision Setting in Revelation

The chapter to which the verse belongs is to be carefully read and studied, for it tells of most important things that will transpire before long. Wonderful things are about to transpire that are of intense interest to every soul who shall live upon the earth. It carries words given by God for the people to heed.

In sequence the verse comes after the holding of the four winds and the sealing of the servants of God and the numbering of the 144,000. It comes after the appearance of the great multitude which no man can number, from all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb in white robes with palms in their hands. That multitude cries with a loud voice salvation to God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, and the verse is heaven's response to that cry.

The setting shows four angels commissioned to do a work upon the earth. The One who purchased the world by giving Himself for its ransom has a chosen few who keep all of the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. The Angel of the covenant ascending from the east, the Dayspring from on high and Light of the world, commands the four angels to hold the four winds in check until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. It is a chapter of judgment mixed with mercy, in which God's angels hold back the destructive winds until His servants are sealed and the Lord preserves His people, showing that nature's forces remain under God's rule and are restrained at His command.

The vision was shown to John as an exile on Patmos. Jesus met him there to reveal events to transpire in the last days as a bright light stretching over the ages to the coming of Christ. It was given to make known the attractive glories of the heavenly home and God's plans for the future. John was permitted to look upon the throne of God and to behold the white-robed redeemed, and to hear joyful anthems in the heavenly courts.

Heavenly Choir's Sevenfold Praise

The verse shows all the angels standing round about the throne, together with the elders and the four living creatures, falling on their faces before the throne and worshiping God. In sequence this worship comes after the holding of the four winds and the sealing of the servants of God and the numbering of the 144,000, and after the appearance of the great innumerable multitude from all nations before the throne and the Lamb in white robes with palms crying salvation to God and to the Lamb. It accompanies that redeemed multitude gathered before God and the Lamb at the restoration of Israel in the earth made new, after they have received salvation and deliverance through enduring great tribulation in faithfulness to God.

Their worship ascribes to God forever and ever blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might, opened with Amen and closed with Amen. The Amen affirms the praise, recognizing His worth and supremacy and declaring that these seven belong to Him forever. It is set in the scene of the great multitude from every nation standing before God and the Lamb, redeemed through great tribulation with robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb, now serving before the throne without hunger or thirst or heat while the Lamb feeds them and leads them to living fountains and God wipes away tears. This worship belongs to the joy of the morning of the resurrection, when broken family links are reunited and the redeemed together meet Jesus as the center and foundation of all hope, the Author and Finisher of faith, with a joy never before known.

The song is heaven's answer affirming the multitude's loud cry of salvation to God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. All the inhabitants of heaven respond to the redeemed with rich music and an eternal song, including angels and archangels and cherubim and seraphim declaring His blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might. Their worship follows the redeemed's song celebrating salvation through God and the Lamb and belongs to the victory of overcomers who overcome the world by faith and are clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

Thanksgiving is the keynote of that heavenly song resounding around the throne. There angels' voices unite with human voices of the large company who have received the grace of Christ, offering sweet praise and thanksgiving with countenances aglow with the light of divine love. That praise and thanksgiving can be echoed now in earthly homes and draws hearts closer to the heavenly singers, and Christians on earth should learn that song by praising God for Christ's sacrifice and the joy of serving Him. Lips should be opened now in praise and thanksgiving in acknowledgment of daily obligation to Jesus, who makes a happy life possible even in this world of sin and gives hope of being continually in His presence in the kingdom He is preparing.

Redeemed Multitude Identified

The sevenfold praise sounds amid an innumerable redeemed company gathered from every nation and kindred and people and tongue, standing before God and before the Lamb in white robes with palms in their hands and crying salvation to God and to the Lamb. They appear in white shining garments richer than any kingly robe, with jeweled crowns upon their heads and palm branches of victory in their hands, singing hosannas and Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. The 144,000 belong to that victory as they reach the sea of glass, receive crowns and palms, and enter the holy city singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. The young who are saved stand there too, clothed in the spotless robes of Christ's righteousness and wearing crowns of life as they join the song of victory giving honor and majesty to God and the Lamb.

They bear two marks that explain how they came to stand there. They came out of great tribulation through hunger and destitution and torture and self-denial and bitter disappointment. They washed their robes of character and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, which is the spotless white robe of Christ's righteousness received through faith and not by any mixture of trust in Christ and one's own righteousness.

Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits on the throne dwells among them. They hunger no more nor thirst any more, nor does sun or heat fall upon them. The Lamb in the midst of the throne feeds them and leads them to living fountains of waters and to the tree of life, and God wipes away all tears from their eyes.

Their triumph places them in eternal splendor, enjoying the sunless splendors of eternal day in peace and happiness with no more sorrow or separation. They are no longer a scattered feeble company vulnerable to the cruelty and deception and force and fraud of the rebellious world. They live forever and forever through the ceaseless ages of eternity, appearing just as grace has made them, while wealth and fame and renown and selfish exaltation are extinguished to lie forever in the dust. When the once despised and scattered and feeble and hated faithful are thus seen as crowned conquerors connected with the heavenly family, with the beams of righteousness reflected upon them, the whole universe affirms God's glory, proving the righteous were the wise and the disobedient were fools.

Sealing Judgment and Deliverance

The verse belongs to the vision of God's people preserved through judgment and gathered before Him, and it expresses their everlasting praise acknowledging His blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might. Revelation 7 is a chapter of judgment mixed with mercy, in which God's angels hold back the destructive winds until His servants are sealed, showing that the forces of nature remain under God's rule and are restrained at His command to preserve His people. It is full of meaning and reveals terrible judgments in which the Lord goes forth to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, so that the earth discloses her blood and no more covers her slain.

Together with the signs of cosmic distress in Revelation 6:12-17, Revelation 7:9-17 brings to view two parties in what is coming upon the earth when God pronounces judgment upon the children of men and everyone receives according to works. One party permitted themselves to be deceived and took sides with those with whom the Lord has a controversy, permitting their minds to become beclouded about what constitutes sin. They transgressed the law and broke the everlasting covenant, misinterpreted the messages sent them, clothed themselves in robes of self-righteousness, did not see sin as sinful, taught falsehood as truth and led many souls astray, and unless they make a decided change they will be found wanting.

The verse involves solemn predictions speedily to be fulfilled at the end of all things about the marking and sealing of overcomers in their foreheads. These are those who sigh and cry for the abominations done among God's professed people and are registered in the books of heaven, who will be spared when the ministers of destruction smite the unmarked beginning at the sanctuary. It belongs to the deliverance of the loyal who will not worship the beast or his image and will not accept and revere an idol sabbath.

After great distress with weeping and praying, while mocked and threatened and ridiculed for small numbers and feebleness, cut off so they cannot buy or sell and left in abject poverty, they look up when the heavens part as a scroll and see the throne of God revealed. Around the throne are ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands upon thousands, with the martyrs close about the throne, and among them are the very ones lately in misery whom the world knew not, hated and despised. Jesus seated on the throne loved man and gave His life to redeem him from the power of Satan and exalt him to His throne, being meek and lowly and obedient to all His Father's commandments. Though wickedness has filled the earth and the high places of earth are polluted, righteousness now receives the palm of victory, and those accounted weak and unworthy and defenseless against cruelty are crowned conquerors and more than conquerors. They stand before the throne enjoying the sunless splendors of eternal day, no longer a scattered feeble company suffering force or fraud, and join the Amen of worship to God forever and ever.

The passage including the Amen ascribing blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might to God forever and ever reveals the judgment and the unprepared state of the people for it. It exposes the common spurious sanctification and calls for genuine sanctification. The worship answers the cry of salvation to God and the Lamb from the great multitude from all nations in white robes with palms, when all the angels round about the throne with the elders and the four living creatures fall on their faces and worship God with Amen. It belongs to the victory of overcomers who overcome the world by faith and are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Their praise before His throne giving Him honor and glory forever belongs to the heavenly joy made possible through the Lamb's sacrifice, and it follows their deliverance from great tribulation.

Eternal Hope and Comfort

The sevenfold praise will be truly fulfilled, and to give blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might to God forever is the main business of life, which means life, eternal life in the kingdom of glory for every soul warring the good warfare for the crown of glory that fadeth not away. That worship accompanies the gathering of the redeemed from every nation before God and the Lamb at the restoration of Israel in the earth made new. There Christ will teach them the pure principles of heavenly love, and heaven's happiness consists in the pure fellowship of holy beings, angels and redeemed whose robes are washed white in the Lamb's blood.

The same scene is held out as comfort to afflicted and bereaved families, bidding them look to Jesus with hope of being among that company before the throne where God dwells with them and wipes away all tears. It pictures the soon-coming morning of the resurrection, when the broken links of the family chain are reunited and those fallen in death are met again. Then the redeemed together meet Jesus, the center and foundation of all hope, the Author and Finisher of faith, with a joy such as redeemed saints have never before known.

That inheritance among the sanctified in the heavenly Canaan, a part of Abraham's farm, is dearer than pleasant homes and beautiful scenery here, and is enjoyed all the more for being pilgrims and strangers here. Sharing it fits for the society of heavenly angels and for the mansions prepared for those who love Him, the rest that remaineth for the people of God, where they shall see Jesus, Him whom their souls love.

The passage shows the honors and glory awaiting the ransomed who live in the presence of Him who died to elevate and ennoble and give the overcomer a royal diadem and a share of the Redeemer's throne. The white-robed ones are gathered within the fold of the great Shepherd, greeted by the Lamb seated in the midst of the throne, and led to the tree of life and to the fountain of living waters. They gratefully remember those instrumental in their salvation, never forgetting self-denying labors and persevering efforts and patience and earnest heart yearning that kept souls from being lost. Hence heaven is more precious to faithful workers who sow beside all waters in disinterested missionary labor without seeing results in this life, when they then see and know how much their instrumentality did in the salvation of souls standing before the throne, and their worship reveals the worth of a soul weighed against the value of immortality and the pains of the second death.

The vision connects that company before God's throne with people rescued from degradation, who become God's precious elect and stand next to His throne. Beholding the redeemed in God's presence awakens a longing to stand among them, and to stand at last before the throne of God means everything.

Present Preparation Required

The scenes belong to a message to be given to every nation and kindred and tongue and people upon the earth. It will not profit to bury talents in worldly business or commercialism, nor to become so engrossed in the things of this world as to have neither time nor thought for preparing for Christ's coming to be among the sealed. The important work is to make sure robes are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.

Mingling with that blood-washed, glorified company before the throne requires overcoming as Christ overcame. That means becoming acquainted with the life of the Redeemer, studying His life, denying self as He denied self, meeting temptations and overcoming obstacles, and enduring toil and suffering in His name. Those who indulge in gaiety and feasting have no sense of His sufferings, take little interest in self-denial and sacrifice and in the marked points in His life on which the plan of salvation rests, and cannot be partakers with Him in His sufferings, copying ancient Israel who ate and drank and rose up to play.

Being among the white-robed ones around the throne requires readiness with a spotless character. It requires waiting and watching and longing for Christ's coming, keeping Jesus ever before the mind, and having a living faith shown by works. It requires searching the Scriptures until faith grows and rejoicing in the truth, serving God every day as though it were the last, separating sin and iniquity, purifying the self, doing the work given as for eternity, and bearing the message of His coming with fidelity.

That fitness of spotless robes of character and the palm branch of everlasting victory and eternal triumph is won only by Christian perfection. It comes by anxious earnest growth in grace, a distinct and intelligent understanding of the will of God, and striving earnestly for the mark of the prize. It is driven by a praiseworthy discontent with self that presses to greater improvement of mind and a broader field of usefulness, balanced by firm religious principle, a sensitive conscience, and the fear of God, aspiring not for honor or glory here but for usefulness and duty to bless others in self-sacrificing endurance of rebuffs, trials, and disappointments.

The white robes are a beauty that never perishes, the beauty angels wear, made of inward adorning, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit in beauty of spirit and soul and heart and life. It is gained by cultivating the mind, being useful, laboring and bearing burdens of responsibility, and living virtuous and honest and true, with hands of charity and voice of sympathy, while robes of character are washed in the blood of the Lamb. This beauty sets with divine grace on the countenance of every well-doer, and though it may not be appreciated by the fashionable class on earth it is appreciated in high heaven, will not dim with age or sickness or affliction or trial, and those with useful hands will one day bear the palm branch of victory.

To be clothed with them means having overcome and been made like Christ the Pattern. It means comparing character with Christ Jesus and conforming life in harmony with Him, being refined and softened and humble in spirit, letting self die and warring against self in and through Jesus, and being correct in all ways with truthfulness and honesty and faithfulness, for He died to redeem and to make sinners like Himself. This earnest work between God and the soul must be done now, with no time to pet self or to complain or murmur, or the soul will not overcome and will not be numbered with the white-robed multitude.

Standing at last before the throne means everything, and standing there requires opening heart and mind to the impressions of the Holy Spirit and determining to stand for truth and righteousness, looking to Christ the perfect Pattern who was equal with God yet gave His precious life that sinners might live. Being counted among the overcomers gathered there requires decided reform in habits of economy and self-denial and appetite and family life. Those who continue in lavish spending and selfish gratification and uncontrolled appetite and unreformed training of children will not be among that company unless they make decided changes.

The worship with Amen and sevenfold praise of blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might to God forever, joined with the great multitude of all nations in white robes with palms crying salvation to God and to the Lamb who came out of great tribulation with robes washed white and now serve before the throne without hunger or thirst or heat while the Lamb feeds them and leads them to living fountains and God wipes away tears, calls for forming character after the divine similitude and beginning soul purification now by putting away nonsense and trifling words, because every word is a seed producing good or bad fruit in self and others. The same vision calls believers to cherish faith and hope and love as heaven-born graces planted in the garden of the soul and cultivated to make them bright, shining lights to the world, and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. That growth comes by facing the light and talking faith in order to have faith, and not talking darkness lest there be darkness in abundance, because by beholding one becomes changed into the same image.

The redeemed gathered around the throne are a pure and holy company of overcomers who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. God's people on earth are to represent that company through Christlike lives, and those who love and obey God are counted true and pure and loyal and worthy to dwell with Him in the heavenly courts. To be among that number means to prosper in right doing, to be blessed with physical and moral and spiritual health, and to be blessed and strengthened by the grace of God to overcome. Lips should be opened now in praise and thanksgiving to God in acknowledgment of daily obligation to Jesus, whose grace makes a happy life possible even in this world of sin and gives hope of being continually in His presence in the kingdom He is preparing, with angels' voices uniting with human voices of those who received grace and whose countenances glow with divine love.

The countless multitude from every nation standing before God and the Lamb and praising them for salvation share two marks: they have washed their robes in the Lamb's blood and endured great tribulation for His sake. Cleansing comes through Christ's blood, not by a mixture of trust in Christ and one's own righteousness, and His grace enables believers to endure tribulation, so the picture applies as a test of readiness to stand before God. Thanksgiving is the keynote of the heavenly song resounding with praise to God, and Christians on earth should learn that song now by praising God for Christ's sacrifice and the joy of serving Him. Believers are to hold to purity and holiness even through persecution when many are killed and others take their places.

The chapter tells of most important things that will transpire before long and carries words given for the people to heed, calling them not to draw apart but to be of one heart and of one mind with one object before them, the salvation of souls, because there is a heaven to win. Faithful workers who sow beside all waters in disinterested missionary labor without seeing results in this life will then, at the future gathering of the redeemed host around the great white throne where crowns of glory are given to those come up through great tribulation with robes washed white, see and know just how much their instrumentality did in the salvation of the souls standing before the throne.

The young who are saved will stand around God's throne, clothed in the spotless robes of Christ's righteousness, wearing crowns of life, and joining the song of victory that gives honor and glory and majesty to God and the Lamb. The persecuted faithful look by faith toward that victory, when they receive white robes and crowns and palm branches and stand among the blessed gathered around God's throne.