A Verse Study for All Saints Day

Rev. Rob Jones
October 27, 2023

A Prayer for Illumination.
Heavenly Father, today, our lesson is packed with information and knowledge. It is steeped in history, imagery, and thematic theology that should bring us joy, but it scares many of us to think about. This morning, Lord, open our hearts and minds to discern your will for us. Help us understand your words and the message that you want us to hear. All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus. AMEN.

A Multitude

Revelation 7:9-17 NRSVue 
After this, I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” 

11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing, 

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” 

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

15 For this reason they are before the throne of God
    and worship him day and night within his temple,
    and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more and thirst no more;
    the sun will not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat,
17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The lectionary passage for All Saints Sunday got me excited. I love The Revelation of John, or The Book of Revelation, or the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Depending on the translation you are reading, the title may differ. We get the term Revelation from the Greek word apokalypsis; yes, it’s also where we get the word apocalypse. The Greek word apokalypsis is defined as “what is revealed, disclosure, to make information known with an implication that the information can be understood.”

This is also why I have trouble understanding why people always say that this book is so hard to understand. “It’s mysterious, and it's coded.” There is nothing coded in Revelation. In fact, there is really no new information in this book of the bible. All the imagery and themes are taken from other books of the Bible. 

What this book does do differently is not tell the story in a linear way. Northrop Frye, in his book The Great Code, explained that in Western culture, we experience the bible as a unified literary work; the curtain opens in Genesis and falls on Revelation. We see it as a linear story where God is the main character, the conflict is sin, and the theme is redemption. But the linear pattern in Revelation is so condensed that we get confused. 

First, we must understand that Revelation is not a unique genre of writing in the bible. There are about 150 apocalyptic chapters in the Bible; Revelation comprises only 22 of them. John of Patmos uses imagery from Ezekiel, Hosea, and Daniel; he uses themes from Paul and doesn’t mind mixing the ingredients as he does so. 

Second, we must understand that this Revelation, or unveiling, was written to a specific people at a specific time (The seven churches). It was meant to be read all at once and designed so that the people to whom it was written would understand it. Therefore, as we are postmodern, western, twenty-first-century Christians, we read through the lens of American privilege as we tend to do, and we find it difficult to take such a book and make it apply to our lives. Like Paul’s epistles, the lessons in the gospels, or even the moral trappings of the Old Testament, do. (That’s why there are hundreds of books with titles like “The Secret of Revelations”) NOTE: If the book is titled "Revelations," not "Revelation," when you come across one, run. This is one instance where you have my permission to judge a book by its cover. 

With that preamble in place, let us delve into our passage today. 

Here, we find ourselves in the midst of the opening of the seven seals. The sixth seal has been opened, and the sun and moon have become black. We are told that the sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up. Then everyone (EVERYONE) hid from “the one on the throne.” (There is a lot of imagery from Hosea in this section.) There are 4 angels standing at the 4 corners of the world, holding back the 4 winds; they hold back the forces of destruction until God has sealed his 144,000. (Not an actual number but a symbolic number that represents a complete counting of all the faithful.) 

Then we come to today’s lesson. John sees the throne room of God.  A multitude of people, so many that they couldn’t be counted. Not just the chosen Jewish people but people of every nation, every tribe, every language, all robed in white. 

They are all singing, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the lamb.” 

(Again, there is imagery borrowed from Isaiah, and toward the end, John will even quote Isaiah.) And all the angels (ALL THE ANGELS) (Now there are like 274 mentions of angels in 34 books of the bible. If we only use the references in Revelation, chapter 5:11 says, “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.) If we add that number to the multitude of people (so many they can’t be counted), all singing, and I would suspect that it would be loud. (That’s just an observation.)

Then an Elder comes up to John and asks, “Do you know who these men are robed in white?” and John replies, “Surely you know,” because he just got there, and he says it like, “Why don’t you tell me?” The Elder says, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal. (Imagery from Daniel; the great ordeal would be referencing the judgment of God and the exile to Babylon.) (Do you see what I mean about using stuff from the rest of the bible?) (But wait, I’m not done! There’s more.)

Verses 16 and 17 quote Isaiah 49:10 and 25:8, respectively, and all of chapter 7 of Revelation uses themes of Paul’s epistle to the church in Rome. This scene and the 144,000 are an interpretation of Romans, chapter 9-11, where Paul talks about Israel as the elect of God, but because of Jesus, salvation is for all.

So, why use this passage for All Saints Sunday? Is it just to get a pastor excited to write a sermon and to also frustrate him because he has to whittle it down to a manageable diatribe? No, it’s because of the people robed in white, the multitude too many to count. I believe those are our loved ones—the saints who have gone before us. 

Just as we do with the book of Revelation, we sometimes do not speak about their ordeal, the reason they are clad in white robes, but we should. They have died, they are in heaven, they have been given new spiritual bodies. I often say when someone is naive enough to approach me about Revelation, “Revelation is the easiest book to understand; if you have read the other 65 books that come before it.” Death is a subject we should not shy away from. We are all going to die, and we don’t like to think about it. Many of us put off planning our estates, and it falls upon our kids to do it. As a culture, we hide away death in hospitals and nursing homes. We give them cute titles like assisted living and skilled care. Some people will not even drive by a cemetery at night. 

As ecclesiastical institutions, churches tell their people not to celebrate Halloween, talk about the dead, or even entertain the thought of death. We change the name of funerals to celebration of life. Some pastors get so preoccupied with soul-saving at funerals that they try to preach the rest of us into heaven instead of acknowledging the life that was lost or the family experiencing loss right in front of them. 

God gives John this revelation of the throne room to remind us that our time on this plain is finite. We should not fear death because the faithful will be found in the throne room singing with the multitude of humankind and all of the angels. That should be enough of a reminder. God has everything in control. To paraphrase the old insurance commercial slogan, “We are in good hands.” When we close our eyes for the last time here, we will open them there. That is something I like to think about—something to talk about and something to praise God for. 

It also reminds me that funerals are not for the dead; they are for those of us who are left behind. All Saints Sunday is not for the dead; it is for us—to remind us that we have a promise from God, and because of Jesus, we are all included. We should be happy when our loved ones pass away, no longer suffering the ravages of aging or disease. Some of the fortunate ones read the entire Bible and understand the significance of the first 65 books. Some of the fortunate ones grasp their faith journey and do not fear death because, just as with our baptism, in death comes the promise of the resurrection. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN

Bibliography

• Beale, G. (2024). ( New International Greek Testament Commentary) G. K. Beale The Book Of Revelation A Commentary On The Greek Text William B Eerdmans ( 1998). Retrieved August 10, 2025, from Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/new-international-greek-testament-commentary-g.-k.-beale-the-book-of-revelation-
• Frye, N. (1990). The Great Code: The Buble and Literature. (Penguin Books) Retrieved August 2023, from Archive.org: archive.org/details/greatcodebibl00frye_0
• Kittle, G. (Ed.). (1967). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1983 reprint ed., Vol. IV). (G. W. Bromiley, D. Litt., D.D., Trans.) Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
• NRSV Updated Edition Holy Bible. (2021). Holy Bible With Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament., Updated Edition. Washington, D.C., USA: Zondervan.
• Strong, S.T.D., LL.D., J. (n.d.). The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible:. Hendrickson Publishers.