The 144,000 Servants of God
These were the Christians (Jewish or otherwise) marked with a seal by Christ so that their sufferings and martyrdom would not go in vain. Not everyone who claimed to be a Christian would be recognised as such by Christ the Lamb. Constantine's sponsorship of Christianity created a new breed of career Christian. The true faith of "the vicarious and propitiatory atonement of the Son of God" was replaced by ritualism, by Platonist allegory and by superstitious practices "as if the sacraments when duly accepted from the priest's hand were potent drugs, or chemical antidotes, infallibly dispersing the poison inherited from Adam!"
When Edward Elliott revisited the topic, in connection with Revelation 14:3, it was to emphasise that, even under the Protestant dispensation, only an elect remnant understood free grace and could "learn the new song". He traced their history through Philipp Jakob Spener, Richard Hooker, Richard Baxter, George Whitefield and John Wesley.
Read more about this topic: Horae Apocalypticae
Famous quotes containing the words servants of god, servants and/or god:
“The great end of all religion ... is to purify our hearts—and conquer our passions—and in a word, to make us wiser and better men—better neighbours—better citizens—and better servants of GOD.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
So those who enter death must go as little children sent.
Nothing is known. But I believe that God is overhead;
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.”
—Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905)