In addition to the chosen remnant of Israel, God has another people—the redeemed saints of the church (7:9-17). In this insertion we see a vision revealing how God preserves His redeemed saints throughout all the tribulations. The way God preserves the chosen remnant of the children of Israel is to seal them and to leave them on earth. While the Israelites are God’s earthly people, the Christians are God’s heavenly people. God promised to give Abraham people like the stars of the heavens and like the sand of the seashore (Gen. 22:17). The heavenly people, the Christians, are the stars, and the earthly people, the Israelites, are the sand of the seashore. In order to preserve His earthly people, God seals them and keeps them on earth. He will not take them from the earth to the heavens. However, God’s way of preserving His redeemed saints is not to keep them on earth but to take them away by means of rapture. The rapture will not only occur once or be just of one kind. There will be at least two or three kinds of raptures. Eventually, all the redeemed saints in the church will be raptured from earth to heaven. The insertion in this vision concerning the church gives us an overall view from the time of rapture until eternity. In other words, Revelation 7 ends with eternity. For eternity, the whole church will be under God’s care and under the Lamb’s shepherding.
God’s rapture of His redeemed saints will begin with the first overcomers, comprising the man-child in 12:5 and the firstfruits in 14:1-6. This should be before the sixth seal, because the sixth seal will be the beginning of supernatural calamities executed by God as the “trial which is about to come on the whole inhabited earth, to try them who dwell on the earth” (3:10). God’s rapture of His redeemed saints will continue with the two witnesses in 11:12, the late overcomers in 15:2, and the harvest in 14:14-16 (the majority of the believers who will pass through most of the great tribulation), until all the saints will be raptured to participate in God’s care and the Lamb’s shepherding for eternity.
Verse 9 says, “After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number.” The great multitude consists of the redeemed ones throughout all generations from the nations, who are innumerable and who constitute the church (5:9; Rom. 11:25; Acts 15:14, 19).
This great multitude consists of those who have been purchased with the blood of the Lamb from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue (7:9; 5:9) to be the constituents of the church.
Speaking of the great multitude mentioned in verse 9, one of the elders said, “These are those who come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (v. 14). The great tribulation here is different from the great tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24:21. The great tribulation here is tribulation in a general sense. All of God’s redeemed people have passed through certain tribulations, sufferings, persecutions, and afflictions. No Christian can avoid these things. In our spirit, we Christians are a people of enjoyment. But, on the physical side, we are a suffering people. But one day we shall come triumphantly out of the great tribulation and stand before the throne and before the Lamb. All those in the great multitude in this chapter have palm branches in their hands, signifying their victory over tribulation (cf. John 12:13), which they have undergone for the Lord’s sake (v. 14). Palm trees are also the sign of satisfaction through watering (Exo. 15:27). Palm branches were used for the feast of tabernacles, in which the people of God rejoiced for the satisfaction of their enjoyment (Lev. 23:40; Neh. 8:15). The feast of tabernacles was a type which will be fulfilled by this great multitude of God’s redeemed ones enjoying the eternal feast of tabernacles. This multitude “shall flourish like the palm tree” in the temple of God (Psa. 92:12-13).