What do the 144,000 in the Apocalypse represent?
A viewer asks whether the 144,000 elect in the Apocalypse are limited to that number because everyone else will deny God.
Answer
No. The 144,000 is twelve times twelve thousand, a symbolic number, because twelve is used all over the Apocalypse as a symbol for the fullness or completeness of an entity, as with the twelve foundations of the temple in Apocalypse 21. Here the twelve tribes of Israel are enumerated, and though there is a small problem with Dan not being there and Joseph replacing him, the fact is there are twelve. I think the 144,000 represents the Jews, because it is hard to get away from the fact that the twelve tribes are mentioned, and that number is small, just as in Romans 11, where God told Elijah he had seven thousand left out of a nation of five to ten million. Then the next verses say John saw a great multitude that no man could number, and that is contrasted against the 144,000. That multitude is the Gentiles, who have the major population of the world, one Jew for every five hundred Gentiles. So the 144,000 symbolizes the small remnant of Israel, and the multitude no man can number symbolizes the great number of Gentiles who came into the Church after the Jews by and large rejected the gospel.