The 144,000 Apocalypse Thing: A Catholic Take on Christian Division

We start with the the pesky 144,000 of Apocalypse, appearing in chapter 7 with great substance, briefly in the fifth trumpet [Apocalypse 9], and then briefly in the Apocalypse chapter 14. The 144,000 are the subject of great controversy!

For SDA’s [Seventh Day Adventists, who are obsessed with the great need to keep the Old Sabbath] the Seal of God that marks the 144,000 is those who keep the Sabbath.

For JW’s [Jehovah’s Witnesses] it is a literal number of those will ultimately go to heaven, as opposed to all others, who will live on earth forever.

In pretersim, where the book is mainly set in the first century with pagan Rome and the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, it is Jewish Christians who know to get out of Jerusalem because of Jesus’ Gospel prophecy of the destruction of the Temple and who are subsequently spared the woes of that calamity

In futurism it is 144,000 literal Jewish non-Christians who are protected from helicopters of the fifth trumpet [again, Apocalypse Chapter 9], among other things

Finally, the real sense. The 144,000 are the Church in its entirety, but especially in the age of doctrinal development, since to be protected physically is absurd. Jesus never promised that we would get out of suffering, but the contrary. We must take up our cross and follow Him. Miracles are exceptions. Hence, the protection of that Seal of God is spiritual. And what? To protect the forehead, the mind, from error, for that protection is always willed by God, and it is guaranteed if we but remain in the Church and heed her proclamations of truth.

As for 144,000, it is 12 x 12 x 1000

12 tribes of Israel, x 12 Apostles = fullness of Old and New x 1000 = great multitudes

Now that's meaningful.

The Old Kingdom flowered into the New, and found its fulfillment. Hence, the fullness of all the kingdom of God, the New. Now that we have 12 Apostles indicates Apostolicity, which is authority, which in turn is realized in Christian division: Schismatics, or the Orthodox Churches, retain all Apostle Succession except the Supreme Successor, Peter. On the other hand, heretics, or Protestants, lose all Apostolic Succession

With this in mind, we also notes that the 144,000 are delineated as OT tribes, 12,000 for each tribe. Toward this end, we should expect some omissions, whether explicitly or implicitly, to occur in this list if division is to be imaged, one for each form of division, if it were possible. It will work out perfectly related to OT theology of the twelve tribe!

Moreover, that Scripture associates the 12 apostles with the twelve tribes seems to imply a mystical connection

And it works! Apostles, again, are about division and authority. Well, it so happens that the 12 tribes were about division.

More specifically, the Northern Kingdom of the Hebrew People split from the Southern division and took 10 of twelve tribes with it, yet, the South, with the remnant 2 tribes, was still the true kingdom. Here, it is interesting to note that in the East/West split of the NT history, the East took four of the five Apostolic Sees [the 12 Apostles did not leave 12 Seats of Authority, but ultimately five: Rome (the supreme See), Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria]. So, again, the East took all but one see, Peter, yet Peter, the Supreme Shepherd, is the ruler of the true Church, so that the Catholic Church of the West, though it contain but one See out of the five, is still true Church. Kewl, huh? Anyway, let us move on.

Here, we need to back up to the Woman at the Well. There we saw the woman in that essay was an image of Christian division. She is of the remnant of the North, which is the divided kingdom. The woman expresses to Jesus that Her People worship in the true place, Jacob's well, which is perfectly situated in the midst of Samaria, between the tribes of Mannasseh and Ephraim. Later on that...

Jesus corrects her. He says Jerusalem of the South, or Judea, is the true place, for salvation is from the Jews.

This is important because, the litmus test now of the true kingdom is where to worship.

Now the first killer stuff. When the North split away, she established not one but two places of worship to compete with Jerusalem. One was in Bethel, of the tribe of Ephraim; The other was in Dan, of the tribe of the same name. This already suggests a possible parallel, in this: in Catholicism, there are ultimately two forms of division, schism, a minor form; and heresy, a serious form.

Hence, two great forms of invalid worship in the North, or separated part of the OT Kingdom

And two great forms of invalid Christianity, schism and heresy.

Now it gets better. Bethel was very south, geographically, in the northern kingdom, that is, very close to Jerusalem since Jerusalem was very far north in the Southern kingdom. On the other hand, Dan was very far north in the northern kingdom, which made it very far away from Jerusalem

This is a perfect image of schism and heresy.

Schism is spiritually very close to the Catholic Church, and Protestantism, very far away. How? Well, the Orthodox, the main kingdom of schism, possesses almost all elements of the Catholic Church. More specifically, they have Apostolic Succession in general, all Seven Sacraments, Sacred Tradition, and all of Scripture from the Greek Canon. Mainly they lack only Peter, and the doctrinal development that succeeded him in the millennium to follow, and even much of Peter's doctrine, they accept.

Protestantism, on the other hand, or the primary form of heresy, possesses very little of the Catholic Deposit. They lack all Apostolic succession. They lack five of the seven sacraments. They lack Sacred Tradition. And part of Scripture. And they are in serious error in may respects, being in rejection or ignorance of many various Catholic teachings.

Returning to our two places of invalid worship in OT. We had that Dan is very far away geographically from Jerusalem and Bethel is very close geographically to the city and, again, in this image there are two divided invalid forms of Christianity that are separated from the church, one of them is very close to the Catholic Church spiritually and one that is very far away from the Catholic Church spiritually. Again, Orthodoxy is very close and Protestantism is very far away theologically from the Catholic Church.

Okay so now what we're going to find is that when we look at the list of the twelve thousands in the 144,000, certain ones will be emitted to retain the 12,000 and things will perfect according to the invalid forms of worship.

Towards this that one has to ask a question. If there are already Twelve Tribes how do you omit ones without detracting from 12? Here we need a digression

It is this: almost all of the 12 tribes are single tribes in the sense that they don't contain any sub-tribes. However one tribe from tradition has two sub-tribes. This is Joseph and his two sub-tribes are Manasseh and Ephraim. With this, and including some redundancy, it is possible to come up with a list of 14 tribes which will then enable omission that we are looking for.

And how? Well, with Joseph of course. 

Let's look at first the perfect list of 12:

This is just listing all the single tribes and then St Joseph by himself without his sub-tribes. Redundancy would then be if Manasseh and Ephraim were listed in addition to Joseph. This is actually what one will do to get 14.

And this is precisely what the 144000 do with two omissions.

And here is the amazing result: which two are omitted? Answer: Ephraim and Dan

But why is this important? Because again Ephraim was the tribe that held the city Bethel which was invalid worship proximate to Jerusalem. And Dan was the only other place of worship in the North, and it was contained by the tribe Dan. Hence, the tribes of the two places of worship which were invalid in the North are themselves excluded as if to imply the exclusion of the Orthodox and the Protestants from the true communion.

Let us also look at the 12 tribes in general as the Catholic church and on the other hand the implied presence of Ephraim. Remember that Apostolicity is a symbol of authority and Orthodoxy. Hence, we can conclude that since the 12 tribes mentioned are themselves an image of the Catholic church, then inclusion of these tribes, even though some of them enter into the North, is itself an expression of the Catholic Church itself. Hence, in the symbolism any tribe mentioned must imply membership in the Catholic Church.

Now there's something to mention here, something interesting. Remember the Joseph implies by inclusion Manasseh and Ephraim. In the 12000 delineation Manasseh is mentioned, but, as we have seen, Ephraim is not. But Joseph includes Ephraim by way of implication

From here, a rule exists. Whenever a tribe is not explicitly mentioned it means that its ultimate form of relationship is exclusion to the body of Christ. On the other hand if it is implied, it is granted Apostolicity. This is exactly what we see with Ephraim. Ephraim is not part of the deposit because its fulfillment, the Orthodox, are separated. On the other hand, Ephraim is implied by Joseph, and this would imply she has in some sense a membership of Apostolicity; this is true: the Orthodox have Apostolic Succession. Dan is telling, too. Dan is not mentioned either explicitly or implicitly since he is a tribe unto himself. Hence, he is neither Apostolic nor part of the church.

Finally, Samaria is part of the kingdom of Joseph and fairly spread out between Manasseh and Ephraim. Samaria was the capital of the North. And since the North is the ultimate vision of division then we can argue that Samaria in her Essence, images what it needs to be separated from to South.

And here's a profundity. Samaria, again, actually has one foot in Manasseh and one foot in Ephraim. From our original idea that all tribes mentioned in the 144,000 image membership in the Catholic Church, and since the Manasseh is mentioned in the list of 12, she is part of the Catholic Church. On the other hand we know Ephraim is not.

Bingo! Samaria has one foot in the Catholic church and one foot out of it

And since, therefore, some Samaria images division in general, it becomes an image of division, which means that divided forms of religions have one foot in the Catholic church and one foot out of it, that is, sanctifying elements and errors and omissions.

This is precisely what the modern Catholic Church teaches today on Christian division: all divided spiritual kingdoms have one foot in error and omissions, to whatever degree, but they all possess some sanctifying elements that bind its bosom to the Church.

How is that for 144,000! Indeed, it shows that the 144,000 perfectly image the Catholic Church and division therefore!

Awesomeness, Wayne’s World!