![]() The context of Revelation 7:4 and related statements found elsewhere in the Bible bear out that the number 144,000 is to be taken literally. John describes this second group as ‘a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues.’ This great crowd refers to those who will survive the coming ‘great tribulation,’ which will destroy the present wicked world. Now the Watchtower Society says the number of the 144,000 will be sealed just before the Great Tribulation starts.Īccording to one publication of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “After the apostle John was told in vision about this group of 144,000 individuals, he was shown another group. By 2020 the number had increased to 21,182. The number who believed they were heaven bound decreased dramatically over the following decades. In 1935 the number of Witnesses who believed they were part of the 144,000 numbered 52,465. In the 1930s the organization claimed that the number of the 144,000 had been sealed, and new Witnesses would have an eternity on earth, rather than in heaven. The great crowd, they say, are on the earth. They believe that the “anointed remnant” of the 144,000 has replaced Israel and that they are “spiritual Jews.” Further, Revelation speaks of a great crowd in heaven that no man could number (Revelation 7:9), but Jehovah’s Witnesses say only the 144,000 can be in heaven. The reference to the tribes of Israel is also taken as symbolic, not literal. Revelation 7:5–8 presents the 144,000 as being from the twelve tribes of Israel-12,000 from each tribe. The 144,000 are first mentioned in Revelation 7:4: “Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.” Whereas the Witnesses take the number 144,000 to be literal, they say the description of their being male Jewish virgins (Revelation 14:4) is symbolic. Those who are part of the 144,000 will be given spiritual bodies, but everyone else will be given a fleshly body. They also believe that the soul dies when the body dies and must wait until the resurrection before Jehovah “remembers” the personality of the deceased and matches it to a new, physical body. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that only 144,000 persons since the time of Jesus can ever go to heaven, there to be co-rulers with Christ Jesus over the inhabitants of a paradise earth. ![]() Our physical bodies will be resurrected and glorified, made perfectly fit for eternity on the new earth. The ultimate destiny awaiting believers is the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21-22). ![]() The Bible makes it clear that deceased believers are with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6–8 Philippians 1:23) in a spiritual realm called heaven. The Bible teaches that at death the souls of believers will go to be with the Lord, and, after the resurrection, they will spend eternity in the New Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven onto the new earth. ![]()
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