Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #17 of Revelation chapter 19 and we are going to be reading Revelation 19:14:

And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

This refers to those following the Lord Jesus Christ, “The Word of God.”  He is the one called “Faithful and True,” and is seated upon a white horse going forth to judge and make war.  It is the battle of Judgment Day and God says there are “armies in heaven” that are following Christ.

The way this sounds we might think it is speaking of angels or those apart from this world and, in some ways, it is.  The “armies in heaven” is a reference to all of God’s elect, many of which died long ago and their bodies were buried.  Of course, the Bible tells us that when a child of God dies, his spirit goes to be with the Lord in heaven.  Those souls that are under the altar in heaven, according to Revelation 6, are also coming with Christ in the Day of Judgment. 

However, at the same time, the “armies in heaven” include the great multitude, all that God saved during the little season of the Great Tribulation period which just ended a few years ago.  It is true that a few of that great multitude have died since then and to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, so their souls went to heaven.  But it is also true that the vast majority of that great multitude is still alive and living on this earth as they go through this period of Judgment Day.  They, too, are included in the sum total of God’s elect and all whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  They are, therefore, part of the “armies in heaven.”

How can that be?  If we are still here on earth and we are saved, we are part of that army and if all that are saved are coming with Christ to do battle in Judgment Day, how is that possible if we are just going about our ordinary lives wherever we happen to be in the world?  How can God speak of us as part of that glorious army following the Lord Jesus Christ on His white horse and we are also on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean?  Is this not a tremendous picture, if we could imagine such a sparkling image of this huge host, all riding white horses?  Of course, in the forefront is the Lord Jesus Christ, as it said back in Revelation 19:11:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

So, here is Jesus in the forefront on His white horse and He would be shining with a brilliance as the sun, pure and holy.  Following Him is an enormous multitude of horses – they are all white and every rider is wearing this fine linen, white and clean.  It would be a “sea of white,” sparkling with a bright white color everywhere you look.  Of course, the color “white” in the Bible points to holiness, purity and the absence of sin.    Christ has no sin and His armies have no sin.  There is not a single sin to be counted among the entire multitude of them, so what a vivid and glorious picture God draws.

Yet, again, how can we be a part of that?  We are still in our sin-cursed physical bodies and we have not left this sin-cursed earth.  We have seen corruption and we have not yet died, so how can that glorious picture include us?  We have to keep in mind this Biblical principal concerning salvation, which God tells us about in Ephesians 2:4:

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

This is a very important Scripture.  At the point of salvation, God makes us sit together with Christ in heavenly places.  When God saved any person it was as though that individual was translated into heaven to reside in Christ.  As Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God, we are seated in Him and that is the principal God uses when He speaks of these armies.

It also says in Philippians 3:20:

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

We look for Christ from heaven.  This word “conversation” is Strong’s #4175 and it is only found here, but this word is derived from another Greek word, Strong’s #4176.  That word is also translated as “conversation,” but it is also translated as “lived” in Acts 23:1:

… I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.

The Apostle Paul is referring to his “conduct” or “life,” before God.  This is the idea with this word when it says, “For our conversation is in heaven.”   Remember, we read in Colossians that when we become saved, our lives are hid with Christ in God.  So our “life” or our citizenship is in heaven in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, God counts each one of His elect as being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and as being a part of New Jerusalem and as having their “conversation in heaven.”  There are several different ways to say it, but each of the elect is seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and this is why the Lord can refer to His armies in heaven – whether they are present in their soul existence or whether they are still living on the earth – as being clothed in fine linen, clean and white.

We can show how God uses this word “armies” to refer to a spiritual battle and the elect living on the earth would also be a part of this.  In the parable of the king which bid all to come to his son’s wedding, we read in Matthew 22:3-7:

And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

In these verses, God typifies the New Testament Gospel call to come to the wedding or marriage of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The call went forth and the Word of God was despised and the king was angry and he sent forth his army to destroy the murderers that had slain his servants and he burned their cities.  We know this has to do with the end of the church age because God had been very patient with the world and He did not destroy the world as the Gospel was going out.  God allowed His Word to be rejected and despised for centuries and it was not until the end of the church age that God came to “visit” the churches.  Had those in the churches slain the servants of God?  Yes, they had, because when they drove God’s people out of the congregations, they killed them, spiritually.  So God came to visit and notice that it says, “he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”  Here, the “city” would be earthly Jerusalem, the corporate church, which came under the wrath of God.

Was it an invisible army from heaven that burned their city?  The answer is that it was through the Bible when God opened up the Scriptures and made known to His people the fact that the church age had come to a close; it was time to depart out and, spiritually, the churches began to “burn” under the wrath of God.  This was all done on earth over the course of the 23-year Great Tribulation period.  It is the same word for “armies” that is used in our verse in Revelation 19:14: “And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses.”  Likewise, it is a similar judgment.  It is a spiritual judgment on the world, just as there was a spiritual judgment on the corporate church.  If you continue to read Matthew 22, you find the Gospel goes out again, as God sends forth His servants a second time to beckon people from the highways and byways to come in and they are all brought into the marriage feast.  That relates to the Gospel going out during the second part of the Great Tribulation, after the church age came to a close and God orchestrated that worldwide proclamation and saved the great multitude.

But, it says in our verse in Revelation 19:14:

And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

Let us go back to a couple of earlier verses in Revelation 19:7-8:

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

This is the same language regarding the fine linen that we see in verse 14 in regard to the armies that follow the Lord Jesus.  They are clothed in fine linen, white and clean.  Regarding the bride of Christ, it said in verse 8, “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.”  It is the same entity.  It is the bride of Christ that is in view and it is made up of everyone God has saved.  She has made herself ready; all have become saved.  Likewise, the armies in heaven are comprised of everyone God saved and the army is complete because God has finished His salvation program.  The bride is clothed in “fine linen, clean and white,” and the armies in heaven are clothed in “fine linen, white and clean.” 

Notice it says at the end of verse 8: “for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”  We have discussed this before.  There is much error involved with the word “saints” concerning what some churches believe.  They have really twisted and perverted the Bible’s definition of “saints.”  They have caused people to get ideas in their minds of statues of certain saints and dead martyrs.  They think certain people are saints and they are people that did great deeds according to a certain church that canonized them with official “sainthood,” but that is not how the Bible uses the word “saint.”  I would encourage you to look up the Greek word for “saint.”   It is Strong’s # 40.  Just look at how God uses the word.  For instance, it says in Acts 9:13:

Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:

He is speaking of Saul of Tarsus, who later became Paul.  What evil did he do?  He gathered together Christians and hailed men and women to prison.  That was the evil that Saul did to the “saints.”

It also says in Acts 9:32:

And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda.

Then it says in Acts 9:41:

And he gave her his hand, and lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and widows, presented her alive.

Again, this just refers to true believers, God’s elect.

It says in Romans 1:7:

To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:

This may not be the best verse to go to because it mentions “Rome” and “Rome” is associated with the Catholic Church, which is the church which has done such violence to the definition of a “saint.”  But, here, this verse just refers to the true believers in Rome.  It is someone who has been made holy by the blood of Christ.  When Christ saves dirty, rotten, filthy sinners and washes them perfectly clean, that is how it is said they are “clothed in fine linen, white and clean” and riding upon white horses.  They are pure and holy in the sight of God and God does not see any sin – they are a “saint” or a “holy one” in God’s sight.  So this is how God describes these “holy ones” that the Lord Jesus has sanctified through salvation.  It says in 1Corinthians 6:2:

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Do you see how God defines the word?  He is speaking to His people: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?”  Is He referring to a few extremely faithful and dead individuals a church has canonized?  No, God is not saying that, but He is talking to each believer.  If you are a true believer, you are a “saint.”  If this other person over there is a true believer, that person is a “saint.”  There are an enormous number of saints and they include all the people God has saved and this is why it says in the little Epistle of Jude, verse 14:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

There are “ten thousands” and the number “10” (or multiples of “10”) points to the completeness of whatever is in view.  God is coming with the complete number of His elect, all those that were made holy through His salvation.  We have confirmation that this is an accurate understanding when we go to the last part of Zechariah 14:5:

… and JEHOVAH my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.

Zechariah speaks of the same grand event and says “all the saints” because the number “ten thousands” points to the completeness of all the saints and they are the “armies in heaven.”  They are also the bride of Christ and they are the ones following the Lamb and entering into the battle of Judgment Day.  Again, God says in 1Corinthians 6:2: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?”

Revelation 19 is describing that process regarding Jesus and the armies in heaven, or Jesus and His bride in the marriage supper of the Lamb.  It is Jesus and His elect and they are all the saints, including those that went on to heaven before us and those that are presently alive and remain living on the earth.