And one of the elders answered, saying to me, These who are clothed with white robes, who are they, and whence came they?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And I said to him, My lord, *thou* knowest. And he said to me, These are they who come out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
John sees a huge crowd in white robes and cannot say who they are. An elder asks him the question, then answers it himself — naming where they came from and what made them fit to stand there.
The elder's wording sets him apart from the crowd he asks about.
Besides, one of the elders raises the question and then gives us the answer. In this book the elders are always marked by their spiritual understanding, as we have noticed before. He asks: "What are these who are dressed in white robes? And where did they come from?" Do not these questions at once distinguish them? The elder does not say, Who are we? but, What are these? and where did they come from?
John's reply, "Sir, you know," is the answer of a learner.
Note how strange such a question is, and how much stranger John's inability to answer. But he had seen another company in heaven. They still kept their place before his eyes, and they had sung the new song, with fuller praise at that. No one had raised any question about them at all. You would think he could work out who these were — and one of those elders was now speaking to him!
Because the elder explains them to John, they cannot be the elders themselves. They are a company with a place of their own.
But one of the elders explains to the prophet who the white-robed crowd are. The elders always have understanding from God. This crowd was no part of the prophetic revelation up to now, and it was not the church's own place. "Sir, you know," says the prophet. They had come out of the great tribulation, faithful in it, their robes white in the blood of the Lamb.
Earlier in the same chapter a set number is sealed out of Israel. This crowd is different, and where they stand is a further question.
They are certainly not all the saints, because we have seen the hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel expressly distinguished from them. They are a crowd of Gentiles whom God's gracious power will keep safe in these last days. Not a word implies that they were glorified here, and there is no reason to doubt that they were still in their natural bodies. The words "before the throne" cannot overturn the many proofs that they are alive on the earth.
The wording is sharper than older English translations show. It is not just a great tribulation, but the one.
First, then, they have come out of the great tribulation. It is not only great, as older English versions put it, but pointedly the great tribulation... It is not the same thing as "Jacob's trouble," though it is surely connected with it, if it does not spring out of it. It will happen during the three and a half years of antichrist's terrible rule. "The great tribulation" refers to the oppression and persecution the Gentiles will have to pass through.
What made the robes white is not what the crowd went through.
In God's purpose the blood of the Lamb was shed from the foundation of the world. That blood is the only basis for appearing before the throne of God, and it is enough. "Therefore," or on this account, "are they before the throne," that is, because of the blood. The blood made these sinners saints; the tribulation made them sufferers.
This puts them on the same footing as every other believer.
They have renounced the thought of any proper whiteness in their robes except that produced by the blood of the Lamb. On this ground they are as we, and we are as they.
Commentators differ on the exact force of the phrase. Some read the robes as standing for conduct rather than for the forgiveness of the person.
The blood of the Lamb is the basic and effective cause of all their blessing. But the white robes may show that they were morally fit for their position. They had kept up practical holiness.
Read that way, a forgiven believer can still have a soiled robe. That makes it a daily concern.
Our consciences are purged, but we want our robes washed too. That company is fit outwardly as well as inwardly. One might have a cleansed conscience, but a soiled robe. A believer ought not to allow a spot. Your robes are to be spotlessly white as you go along — fit to walk with the Lord.
- Question — The elder asks "what are these?" and not "who are we?" John cannot answer. The question itself marks the crowd as new to him.
- Origin — They are Gentiles out of the great tribulation, not the sealed of Israel earlier in the chapter.
- Cause — Suffering made them sufferers; blood made them saints. Their trials never whitened a thread of their robes.
- Common ground — Standing before God rests on the blood alone. That puts them on the same footing as believers of every age.
- Result — The blood is the reason they stand before the throne. So ask whether your robe is as clean as your conscience.