The Book of Revelation can be daunting to the casual Bible reader. It uses symbolic language that requires some research to understand. For example, we read in Chapter 14: “There was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand.” The Lamb is, of course, Jesus who became the Pascal Lamb at the sacrifice of the cross. Mount Zion refers to Jerusalem, but not the actual earthly city but the “heavenly Jerusalem,” the place where God dwells. The 144,000 is not an actual count but a symbolic number. The twelve tribes of Israel multiplied by the twelve apostles multiplied by 1,000 — the largest number available to them. The 144,000, therefore, stand for the a huge amount of people embracing the entire history of salvation.
