Martyr Army

Bauckham notes that the census of the sealed in Revelation 7 hearkens back to the censuses of Israel in the Old Testament, which were typically of a military character. He concludes that the numbered and sealed are an arm, sealed like the soldiers of a Roman legion with the mark of their commander. Bauckham is wrong, I think, to identify the 144,000 with the “innumerable multitude,” but he is right to suggest that the sealed constitute an “army of martyrs.”

And this fits the pattern of the seals. The sealing of the 144,000 comes between the sixth and seventh seal. When the Lamb breaks the seventh seal, there is a fire thrown to earth in a Pentecostal event, and the trumpets begin to blare. We can understand this against the background of Old Testament events: Israel is numbered in the wilderness, fire falls to earth at Sinai on Pentecost, and then the trumpets of Jericho are blown, the trumpets that will bring down the city.

At some crucial points, the scene is twisted inside out: In Revelation, the numbered and sealed saints will be the ones slaughtered, whose blood brings the city to the ground.