The Identity of the Tribulation Saints -- By: Richard Shalom Yates

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 163:649 (Jan 2006)
Article: The Identity of the Tribulation Saints
Author: Richard Shalom Yates


The Identity of the Tribulation Saints

Richard Shalom Yates

Richard Shalom Yates is Assistant Professor of English Bible, Capital Bible Seminary, Lanham, Maryland.

This is the first article in a four-part series “Studies on the Tribulation Saints.”

In Revelation 7 John saw “one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” (v. 4), and then he saw “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues. .. clothed in white robes [with] palm branches in their hands” (v. 9). An elder told John that the people in this innumerable multitude “are the ones who come out of the great tribulation” (v. 14). Who are the people in this “great multitude”? Are they the same as the 144,000, or are they a different group? Are they a present-day group or people from a yet-future period? Scholars give various answers to these questions.1

The additional three articles in this series will discuss the function of these Tribulation saints, their rewards, and the timing of their resurrection. The present article seeks to establish that while Tribulation saints have much in common with church-age saints, important distinctions exist. Such distinctions add credence to the pretribulational rapture of the church.

Distinct from the 144,000

If the 144, 00 and the multitude are distinct, then certain redeemed Jews are in a category separate from many redeemed Gentiles. Since this is not the case during the church age (Eph. 2:11–16), the distinction could then support a futuristic and possibly pretribulation

rapture viewpoint.2 The following discussion examines John’s terminology to determine if the two groups are different.

The Grammar of Revelation 7:9a

John began his discussion of the great multitude with two clauses that indicate he described an entirely new scene and thus a different group of people. The first of these two wordings is μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον (“After this I saw”). This clause is used elsewhere in the New Testament in Revelation 4:1; 15:5; and 18:1

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