The Little Book of the Revelation - Seventeenth in a series

Let’s ask whether the ‘remnant’ of Revelation 11:13— those who gave glory to God when the witnesses were raised to heaven, were the ‘marked’ Jews? Or, were they simply those from the ‘peoples, tribes and nations’ who were not among the seven thousand who perished in the earthquake?

As a matter of translation, the English word for ‘remnant’ in this instance is the same as occurs 92 times in 91 verses in the King James Version, 83 times in 82 verses in the English Standard Bible and 65 times in 64 verses in the New International version (etc).

But for each translation, only one verse in the entire Bible has a unique Greek word —hypoleimma— for the word that Paul uses for ‘remnant’ in Romans 9:27. All other ‘remnant’ occurrences simply mean “remainder, rest, residue.”

Romans 9:27 says—

• Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved

Even Isaiah’s verses (Isa 10:22) do not use a special word, but rather the same word as is used in other Bible passages (ref) to indicate a remainder or residue. So, Paul’s specially denoted word for ‘remnant’ in Romans 9:27 seems to be a refinement of Isaiah’s prophecy to make clear that only those Jews who are God’s own people will ultimately be saved, not ALL Jews.

This is in keeping with the Romans 9 theme of election—

• For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: (Rom 9:6) …It is the children of the promise and not those ‘of the seed’ who belong to the Lord. (Rom 9:8)

This theme continues on to Romas 11 where Paul makes clear that God will yet ensure the salvation of his special remnant. In this context he is referring to Jewish people, not saved Gentiles.

• Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. (Rom 11:5)

Also, in Romans 11 we find an association of the resurrection of the dead with the remnant’s day of salvation:

• For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (Rom 11:15)

As suggested in the previous post, perhaps as the two witnesses are taken up to heaven, those who were terrified and gave glory to God, were also taken up at the last trumpet, Thus, the ‘remnant’ Jews who are blind to who Jesus is until the last possible moment, could be the fulfillment of this prediction.

To consider this a possibility, somehow the final chapters of Zechariah would need to be compared with this passage to inquire whether these prophecies could dovetail. This will not be addressed at this time.

The mid-tribulation view

For now, I rest with my ‘mid-term’ view of the timing of the Resurrection, because I don’t detect that people are saved as the seven bowl judgments are poured out. And I do see in Scripture that Christians must be prepared for a time of Great Tribulation, though not the very worst time of that period.

I am a member of a reformed church that holds to the ‘amillennial’ standard in eschatology, that the thousand years symbolically comprise the Church Age which began with the ascension of the Lord and continues to the end of the world, after which believers are resurrected.

However, that view does not acknowledge verse 4 of Revelation 20:

• And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

This is a very specific prophecy that Christian martyrs will come to life to reign with Christ for a thousand years, even if the number is to be understood as symbolic. It fits with a ‘resurrection of the just’, a first resurrection. In contrast we saw the martyrs in Revelation 6:10 under the throne of the Lord, crying out for justice.

Many passages in the Bible inform our limited understanding of how the world ends, and then is renewed somehow in the ‘millennium kingdom’ that is described in Revelation 20. A beautiful one is in Isaiah 11:6—

• The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
  and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
  and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
  and a little child shall lead them.

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