The 144,000 - A Kingdom Number

The 144,000 - A Kingdom Number (Rev 7:1-8, 9-17; 14:1-5)

Understanding what the 144,000 represents has been the subject of much debate. For

lack of the necessary resources, I won’t rehash the arguments of this debates in this post, but will instead straightly state what my Theological View on this topic, ever more crystalizingly, is. 

            First and foremost, it is foundational to understand as the New Testament copiously and consistently teaches, that the Christian Church is now God’s Israel. Anyone who wants to be part of this inherently spiritual people, including Ethnic Jews, must come to fully believe in Jesus Christ, and then they too will be “grafted” into this Israel tree. (e.g. Rom 11:17-24). Now, in regards to the selected 144,000 from that NT Israel of God mentioned in Rev 7:4-8, with 12,000 sealed from each of 12 tribes of Israel, while I have previously (see e.g., here) and section {23} & {24} in here) straightly been seeing these tribes as being 12 sectors of the Christian Church today, with e.g., the first sealed tribe, Judah, being representative of the, factually demonstrable, doctrinally most Biblical visible/existing sector of Christianity today, namely the Seventh-day Adventist Church (indeed just the lone tribe (=kingdom) of Judah was the most faithful sector of OT Israel, I now see that there is an even deeper spiritual aspect that can be understood here where not just a physical entity is perceived, (i.e., a Church of denomination), but, just like each tribe in OT Israel had a particular characteristic attributes, and thus spiritual contributions to make to Israel as a whole (see Gen 49), I am also seeing here that these 12 NT Israel tribes involve the various contributions that various groups/people in the Global Christian Church today. E.g., some groups, people denominations have been good at producing Godly music. Others have been good at mass media broadcasting. Others have been good at Theological, Exegetical, Gospel, Doctrinal and/or Prophetic presentation. Others have excelled in Humanitarian care and work. Others have been have very positive social impact. And so on. Well God is planning to literally gather and pool all of those “dispersed” resources in forming this NT Israel Kingdom of 144,000.

           

144,000 = 144,000 Literal Positions

            As generally stated here, I basically have a view that the 144,000 was a composite number whose product resulted in a special significance. Mainly that view is: 12x12x1000. With the first 12 being representative of OT/National Israel’s Kingdom Aspect and the second 12 being representative of NT/Ecclesiastical Israel Church Aspect. And the complimenting 1000 was a general populace number representing the group of supporting people who would fall under that Kingdom and Church realization to produce God’s full final National and Gospel witness of His Truth (=Matt 24:14). And, as it seen throughout this blog, I have, since starting to work of the NJK Project, in order to tangibly accomplish the type and extent of Gospel work that God intends to do, repeatedly seen how the 144,000 perfectly fits within its plans. And a statement that was made on June 3, 2011 in a discussion forum that I was in helped me to further see that the 144,000 can indeed have a very definite application. The statement was along the lines that:

“It is not unlike Jesus to hand pick a specified number of people to serve a special purpose. He has been doing it since the beginning of time.”

And from that comment, I immediately got the complimentary/furthering/contextualizing idea, stemming from what I had been observing about the 144,000 and my NJK Project that:

I agree more than less that this Biblically is a way, perhaps even the way, to look at the 144,000. That indeed is that Jesus literally has 144,000 functional leadership and supporting staff position to fill in order to tangibly establish the Church Triumphant. (cf. the ‘Latter Rain' vision in 1SM 109-111). So, as I see it, He will be looking for, and “elect”, literally the first (= best) 144,000 people who will step up to fulfill these definite roles. That then does not necessarily mean that those who are not part of the 144,000 are not saved, but that they will only be part of the resulting "great multitude". (Rev 7:9ff) (Cf. EGW's first dream in 1842 in EW 78, 79 which may be depicting this) However those not part of the 144,000 risk being ‘the members of the church militant who have not proved faithful and thus not at all be a part of this Church Triumphant.’ (Ev 707.1)

            Indeed my view on the 144,000 has since then been honed to see that it will involve the (first-come-first-hired) filling of 144,000 tangible positions that will come to effectuate God’s Kingdom entity which I have also been seeing, with Biblical and experiential cause, is the/this NJK Project. However it is only recently, i.e., later November 2012, that I decided to further muse upon that prior understanding, and so I decided to so just how and what 144,000 leadership positions would be needed to effectuate the New Jerusalem Kingdom. And that musing impetus actually came upon a somewhat startling realization on my part, as I was tweakingly working on my already produced understanding of the 6 Biblically-supported NJK|HC Powers that will be making up the ruling leadership of the NJK|HC. 

NJK|HC 6+1 Powers

Well I then thought that there might be a problem if I only had here 6 ruling powers and tried, as I perceived to be applicable, deriving those 144,000 leadership positions from/under those 6 Ruling powers.[1] And that was all because I was momentarily seeing that the 144,000 was a composite number from a 12x12x1000 product. I was thinking that I then should really have had 12 ruling powers, or at the very least, something along the lines of the previously understood (see here) 12 Organizational Ministries of the NJK (which are actually rightly grouped in 3 under 4 Sections which involve the 4 (Faces of) Living Creatures, until, also knowing how those 6 NJK Powers division understanding had subsequently been validated by what I corroboratingly discovered in relation to this in the Bible (see here), I then almost immediately recalled that the number 144,000 can also be computed through a different product, namely here, based on what I see is most in harmony with my understanding of how this all applies here with the NJK (and its 6 ruling powers divisions): 6x2x12x1000, (with the 1000 part actually being generally significantly subdivided as a 10x10x10 product.

144,000 = 6x2x12X10x10x10 Explained

            So, succinctly explained as much can indeed be said, I had come to the concluding understanding that:

-Each of the 6 Divisions of the NJK’s Ruling Powers would in turn

-Each have 2 subdivisions known as Entities. In accordance to the Constitutional make up of the NJK, where unlike most world countries today there is only an organizing for Government, but the People are defaultly individualized unless the choose to “assemble”/organize/associate, the NJK will defaultly be working from an organizational template where its citizens are organized to best support and help each other. And so there will also be a Government Entity, which actually is, as with democratic countries today, the elected representatives of the people; but there will also be a default Entity for the facilitated organization of the People in order for them to best have their will effected and implemented. This will however not be a Government/“State” vs. People conflicting, but rather a Government/“State” and People syncretism, all so that the work of both the People Representative in Leadership positions and the People themselves can, respectively, most efficiently and most representatively, best work together. Indeed those two subdivision entities will not be in parallel of, nor competition with, each other, but will be cooperatively working to ascertain/know, and then coordinate/implement, the democratically expressed will of the people, with the overarching/ultimate Biblical objective of doing things as efficiently and effectively as possible, -and, of course, within the NJK’s “Themocratic” Constitutional/Government system, under the checking Monarchial oversight to make sure that all actions and decision are in full harmony with the Nation’s Supreme Law: God’s All-Wise Ten Commandments. (Exod 20:1-17). As a result of these Powers Entities, the Chief Task of each Powers Leader in making and executing Decisions will be to put forth directives which will have best harmonized the Will of the people with the Nation’s sustainability/stewardship need to, generally speaking, be Efficient and Truthful. This understanding is better seen in the following NJK Powers Chart illustration.

NJK Powers Entities Chart

-Now under this 6x2 (=12) product of 6 Powers and their 2 Entities each, each of those entities will then have their own 12 operational “Ministries”. And it is here, as seen in the chart below, that each of the NJK’s 12 Foundational Ministries recursively find their application within each of those 12 Entities as pertinently applicable (= “Ministry Type”).

NJK 12 Main Ministries

So, for example as seen in the sample chart below, the NJK Spiritual Power’s, which is basically its Church Organization, (which could be illustratively seen to be the entire Organizational composition of a Denomination, e.g., the SDA Church with its Leadership Conferences and Churches), the Government/“State” will be in the form of the Administrative aspect for that Power (e.g., Conference Leadership), and that specific Powers Entities will pertinently implement the NJK 12 Main Ministries so as to best effectuate its reason for existence mandate. Likewise the Entity for the People, which here goes up to the local Church/Congregation level will also pertinently implement those 12 Main Ministries of the NJK to best serve its own mandate in organizing the work of the people in those local Churches.

Sample Entity Ministries

And as stated above, those two Entities of this Spiritual Power of the NJK will

actually be working together to bring about one final result which really will fulfill the Biblical will of both the People and also a local Holy City/the NJK in general.

            The following table gives a sample/tentative example of the various Chief Ministries that will be implemented under each NJK Power and its two “State” & People Sub-Divisions. This is certainly not a final listing of these Chief Ministries, but gives a good idea of what kind of Ministries will be used.

Powers Entities Sample Ministries

-As it was included in the first chart above, under this Powers-Subdvisions-Ministries organizational flow, the also are involved sub-levels of Departments, Offices and Agencies. And this can be succinctly explained here by saying as a general example that, to best do its work, each of those chief ministries will themselves have to be subdivided into Departments (e.g., for the Spiritual Power - Lay Ministries Entity - Spiritual Chief Ministry: it would, as seen in e.g., local SDA Churches Organizations, have Collegiate, Youth, Children, etc Departments, each focusing on how best to provide for the spiritual needs of those who fall withing those groupings), and then each of those departments can in turn have specific Offices to best do their work, and then in a generally applicable way, that entire NJK Power, starting back from its Initial “Powers” level can make use of effectives to head the various “taskforces” which “effectuate” the leadership work to be done in of the levels withing that power. This (overall inclusive) numbering of Entities, Ministries, Departments, Offices, Agencies can be seen by the following General(-izing) chart:

NJK Powers Sum Numberings

            This is said to be a General/Generalizing chart because starting at the Departments level, interestingly enough where the 1000 number in the 6x2x12x1000 begins to be computed (and that as 10x10x10), there is not necessarily a strict number of Leadership Positions that each of these level should/will have. In other words, one Chief Ministry may need less Departments, Offices and/or Agencies to fully/properly do its work than another. So, from that level on, the number of leadership positions are really as the actual need is, whereas in the levels above this (i.e., the 6 NJK Powers, their 2 Entities each, and the 12 Chief Ministries of each of those Entities), the number of leadership positions for them is actually inherently organizationally/structurally necessary. And they total only 144 of the total 144,000 leadership positions. So each of the 6 Powers may not have a grand sum total of 24,000 leadership positions each as generally calculated in the above chart, but rather, when all the needed leadership positions are specifically worked out, it may be that e.g., the Spiritual Power may have 10,000 total leadership positions, while the Administrative Power may have 32,000.

Intrinsic Powers Checking

            Also, in more details about the earlier 12 Main Ministries Charting, with the way that each Power is to have its 12x2 Main Ministries focusing on that Powers ruling “theme”, this means that there will come to exist a default, formal “inter-powers” cooperation in the operation of their work. This also involves that there will also exist a defaultly existent “inter-checking” of each power. For example, with the Pastoral Power have to rely on the Intelligence Power for source/foundational, factual Biblical Research (=WBSC), the Intelligence Power can inherently do its checking part to help assure that Biblical Instructions are based on solid facts. Similarly the Judiciary Branch is dependent on upon the Legislature for Sentencing Guidelines and Penal Policy; and the Judiciary, not Law Enforcement, is responsible for the Penal Correction and Rehabilitations Operations, however with Law Enforcement supplying the guard personnel and so on. Such setup actually is somewhat seen in modern government societal systems, but not to the envisaged extent as here; (e.g., the Department of Corrections belongs to the domain of the Justice Department, but so do its guards; or, most Pastors are educated at/through Universities Programs, but in practice, they typically come to increasingly become “exaltedly” independent of responsible/factual scholarship [imaging a medical doctor doing that!!]; etc); and this is typically done through an ad hoc coalescence. The aim here in the NJK is to make this checking provision more deliberate and formal, as well as invest it with constitutional power. So in this way the “check and balances” between powers will not occur after the fact, but will be intrinsic in a power’s regular operations.

Order vs. Policy in Legislation Power

            A most interesting interplay between Power’s Entities occurs in the Legislative Power, with, as seen in the charting above, one of the main interplays being seen between Order vs. Policy legislating. Succinctly said, an Order here can be seen as a legislation to best apply the NJK Supreme Law (i.e., the Ten Commandments). This can be compared to the additional Civil Laws that God gave in addition to the 10 Commandments. In the NJK and such, effectively merely “specifying laws”, will have to be in full harmony with the Supreme Law. On the corresponding flip side, ‘Policy legislation’ will be “best practices” instructions in order to facilitate and best execute Legislative Orders. These can be seen as the Ceremonial Laws that God had also given to Israel. They can also be understood as what many Jews today call the Oral Law, which were traditions which reflected how various Written Laws were to be (best) executed. And the interesting and most prominent/effective inherent interplay here is not that only the “Government Entity” will be issuing Orders while the “People Entity” will be issuing policies, but actually each side, by effectively being representative, either directly or indirectly, of the people, and both ultimately at the control of the people through always optionable direct representation, being capable of having the people directly contribute to either Order or Policy Legislation.
            And, as similarly seen in Biblical Israel and the history of world kingdoms/societies, the more righteous this NJK society will be/attain/remain, the less of these added explicit legislative “Orders” and “Policies” will actually be needed for everyone will be making decisions based on ‘what is truthfully right, by God and by their fellow men’ (Matt 22:34-40; 1 Cor 14:1; Jer 31:31-34|Heb 8:8-12). And with the fullest and ultimate pattern/model/example of Righteous being Jesus Christ (cf. Gal 3:19; Rom 3:20b; 5:20, 7:7).

(12x2) Main Ministries/Ministers Portfolios

            Much like elected people in a Parliamentary system who themselves come to form the government and thus certain members of parliament come to have Executive Cabinet portfolios, the leaders of the NJK’s 12x2 Main Ministries will have both a functional duty as well as a thematic portfolio according to their specific appointment in their Power’s Entity. Thus, in the Pastoral Branch, a District Pastor who will have regular/weekly preaching duties will also have a Main Ministries portfolio of e.g., “Arts and Film”, or a Senator will be guiding the deliberating of representatives within its district, while also having a portfolio for overseeing “Civil Order” development. In fact, the same portfolio duties will occur for each lower leadership positions. In a way, this will serve to reduce the required to operate personnel for leadership positions but it will also allow the leadership position holders/workers to have a direct power into how their position is effectuate. And this should not be a doubled burden given the fact that their added thematic ministry duties will mostly be decision-making and directorial, and involve much delegating power in the Departments that they will be overseeing.

Conclusion

            Now the same detailing, “calculus” and charting can be detailedly done for each NJK Power and their organization sub-levels , but that is really a very specific, and large scale (entire) “Kingdom Planning” work, which is not being so detailedly/specifically done now. Indeed just seeing the typical organization charting of current Governmental (Cabinet) Ministry/Departments, (such as, e.g., here for the United States’ Department of Defense; and also here on the organizational Department-Offices-Agencies[2] listing outlay of the U.S. Federal Government Executive Branch), this is a planning work that will require in depth consideration. In fact it can be best fully done in direct response the actual needs of a society. However, as stated above, for the NJK, and its core foundational objectives, it can be readily visualized/done to, albeit genericly, the “Ministries” level. What is sufficient at this point in plannings, is to see and understand how the 144,000 number can, and I see/believe, does have a perfect and Biblically-supported, tangible application in its overall and specific Kingdom Organization.

            So their indeed are 144,000 to be concretely filled in order to establish the New Jerusalem Kingdom, all in order to achieved God’s long-frustratedly-delayed, Global, Church Triumphant/Zion of Israel objectives.


Notes
[1] Of course, the there will be a total of 7 ruling powers in the NJK Political system, with that 7th being the overheadship of the Presidency. However, as the Presidents Constitutional mandate will be to ensure that the will of the People is done, i.e., that each of the 6 (sub-)Ruling Powers properly carry out and fulfill their Constitutional Mandate, the Presidency has the Power to commandeer any (sub-)Power (which really simply will be to issue a binding, judicious Presidential Decision (cf. “Executive Order”) to any of (Heads of) the applicable (sub-)Powers), in order to carry out a/the democratically requested mandate.

[2] Just going through that listing of current U.S. Federal Executive Agencies, simply from the fact that most of them are likely not known, indeed even ever-heard-of, by most people, reflects the fact of how low significant they may really be. In fact, when it comes to affecting public life, most of the agencies which are to service the population merely have an advisory effect, which is really mostly completely ignored. Take for example the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Just looking at how unhealthy and non-nutritious most breakfast (kid) cereals on American Grocery store shelves are, it is evident that whatever this agency, and any other similar government/public agency does in direct behalf of the people, it certainly does not have any binding claim upon breakfast cereal producers. So if the public did want to heed those nutritious guidelines, they are instead left at the mercy of greedy cereal makers who are just interested in getting American kids addicted to their cereal, -by whatever unhealthy means/measures necessary. So, as this occurs with many, if not most U.S. Federal (public) agencies, it can be seen how much of a fiscal waste such agencies are in that Capitalistic Environment. Just more of the mindless pain-or-pleasure operating principle prominently found in most Capitalistic societies/economies.

            What initiated this ‘insignificant-wasteful agencies’ view for me, and really immediately “took the cake”, was seeing a few years ago, a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson reporting the agency’s safety failure findings on an train accident which had casualties, and stating that ‘the NTSB actually does not have the power to require/enforce the safety improving implementations that it had cited, (thus merely “suggested”). An agency which is to look out for the safety of Public Transportation having no power to enforce its safety recommendations is the epitome of being “utterly useless”. It is comical to, especially in America, repeatedly see the pain-or-pleasure results of such senseless operational policies such as in e.g., Healthcare/Obesity/Diabetes crises; Mass Shootings; Economic Recessions/Depressions, etc.

            In the NJK, there will not be such wasteful-insignificance of any governmental positions, nor senselessly self-inflicted/incurred damages, with the common purpose of all of its positions being to best serve and protect the country and the people. For one major thing, the pervasive individualistic, trial-or-error/boom-or-bust approach in “Free-Market”/Capitalistic Societies will be simply replaced with ascertaining beforehand (i.e, before production/manufacturing) what the people/“consumers” actually want, and then coordinately working towards best/most economically meeting that desire. And as most people want to have the best product feasible, it is an economic fact, even in “Free-market” Economies, that the higher the production of an item, the more economic it becomes to produces. So the NJK will not be wasting resources of producing cheap (imitation/“knock-off”) products and instead invest in the more, especially resources, economical and sustainable approach of working to provide the best goods/products/services for all. (Cf. here).

            Relatedly, the “Agency” level of governmental positions in the NJK System can be, and indeed is today seen, in the use of facts collecting and services dealing, internet/online resources. E.g., before it was a luxury for a person to hire the services of a Travel Agency to book their travel, accommodation and/or local transportation needs, not to mention either through an in person visit, by phone or by mail. Now all of these arrangements can be personally, and even more efficiently, done by the traveller through specially dedicated websites. So many of the “Agency” positions in the NJK System will be such dedicated, governmental/formal websites, with the added advantage of not having the wasteful and time consuming, lottery-like, services competing redundancy of Capitalistic which either manage to, unofficially of course, collude to maintain prices at a certain artificial level or all end up having the same prices.