Unsealed and Sealed

The Lamb receives a scroll that is sealed with seven seals (Revelation 5). One by one, He breaks the seals, and but that un-sealing climaxes with a sealing: During the sixth seal, an angel seals 144,000, 12,000 from twelve tribes (Revelation 7).

The literary pattern reinforces this movement. The word sphragis is used four times in chapter 5, each time in the plural, describing the seven seals on the scroll. As the Lamb opens the seals, they are counted off, one to seven (6:1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12; 8:1). Between the sixth and seventh seal, the noun sphragis is used again, this time to refer to the sealing instrument that the angel will use to seal the 144,000 (7:2). The fact that this use is inserted between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals links the two notions of seal – scroll-seal and person-seal are parallel. Numerological symbolism reinforces the point: Between chapters 5 and 8, the noun is used 12 times, pointing to the sealed Israel. The noun sphagis is used one more time in Revelation, in 9:4, where it refers to those who have not received the seal of God.

All this suggests that the sealed book gives way to a sealed people. The unread, unknown contents of the scroll has to do with the saints who are sealed for martyrdom. The broken seals of the book open onto a sealed, chosen people. The seals of the epistle get transferred, as it were, to a living epistle, who are the open book of God.