Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #10 of Revelation, chapter 5, and we are going to be reading Revelation 5:11:

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

Again, we are continuing, verse by verse, through this glorious vision being shown to the Apostle John.  God is revealing the happenings in the throne room of heaven where He sits upon His throne and rules as King of all kings and Lord of all lords.

In our last study we saw in verse 10 that the statement was made: “And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”  And we looked at both of those words,  kings and priests, and we saw how God, spiritually, has given the office of the priesthood to His people and He has made all His elect of royal blood so that we (spiritually) are kings and priests and we shall reign in the new heaven and new earth.  God’s people will rule with Christ, as Revelation, chapter 20, tells us; all who have experienced the first resurrection (every saved individual) will reign with him “a thousand years;” that thousand years reference has to do with the completeness of whatever is in view. 

And what is in view?  When God saves a sinner, He gives that person eternal life and He lifts them up into heavenly places to be seated (to rule) in Christ Jesus; we reign together with Him for ever, for the completeness of eternity.  That is what that thousand years is really saying.  So we will reign on the new earth that God will create.

Now the vision is continuing into verse 11, which we would like to look at in this study.

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders…

Now the question for us is this: Who are these angels that are round about the throne?  We saw in the previous statement that the kings and priests had to do with God’s elect and we know that God’s elect are often identified with this Greek word angelos (angels) which the King James translators often translated as angels – too often – and many times it would better have been translated as messengers and then there would not have been confusion with God’s elect (that are messengers of God) with angelic beings, because there are angelic beings; there are angels that were created as angels – that is the type of creature they are; they are spirit beings and the Bible speaks of them as being “ministers to the heirs of salvation.”  God uses them to accomplish His purposes in the lives of His elect.  These are the good angels that did not fall. 

We know there are angels because Satan and the demons were once angels themselves and they were in heaven.  They were created “good” with the rest of the angelic host and, yet, they fell.  And we know, absolutely, that Satan is a spirit being (a creature that we cannot see) because he is a spirit and, likewise, all the fallen angels or demons are spirit beings.  They were created as angels and angels are spirit beings, so we know that there are angels and not all of them fell – only a portion of them fell – and that means that there are still “good” angels.

So whenever we come across this word, we have to try to figure out and understand if God is referring to His people (whom He identifies as His messengers) or is He speaking of these spirit beings known as angels?  In this case, it is a little difficult to discern and to realize who exactly is in view.  I think it is, once again, God’s elect, that are in view.  Let me read here, again, starting in Revelation 5:11-13:

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

Now let us compare that with Revelation 7 where we read of the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation.   And we know that is language that is referring to the tens, upon tens of millions of people that God saved during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation that came at the end of the world (which we have just gone beyond and now we are living in “those days after that tribulation”), and it says in Revelation 7:9:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

Verse 12, here, is listing seven glorious attributes of God that are being praised, just as in Revelation 5:12.  The many angels, likewise, were praising God for seven glorious attributes.  It appears, as we read in Revelation 5:10, of those that are “made unto God kings and priests” and then we read of many angels glorifying God; and then, as we read in Revelation 7, of a great multitude being saved and we read of many angels about the throne glorifying God, that they are one and the same – the great multitude is those angels.  The kings and priests are the many angels that are spoken of in the following verse. 

I do not think it is conclusive, so that we can say this absolutely.  At least, right now, I do not feel comfortable in saying that, but we also find related Scriptures in the Book of Daniel to what we are reading in Revelation 5.  It says in Daniel 7:9:

I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool…

Now the wool identifies with a lamb and in Revelation 5 it is the Lamb of God.  The Lamb is praised again, and again, because He was the Lamb that was slain.  It was the Lamb that took away the sins of the world for His elect.  It was the Lamb who died and accomplished the will of His father and was victorious over sin and death and it was the Lamb who purchased for Himself a people.

And now we find in Daniel 7:9, “the Ancient of days…whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

This is the same Person – it is eternal God, the Lord Jesus Christ and here in Daniel 7 we are given a look at God upon the seat of judgment and He is the Lamb.  And, likewise, that is the case in the Book of Revelation.

Then it says in Daniel 7:10:

A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

And, here, you probably noticed the same numbers as we have in our verse in Revelation 5:11:

… and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

Now what does “ten thousand times ten thousand” equal?  The answer is that it is equal to one hundred million – one hundred million of these many angels plus “thousands of thousands.”  And we cannot tell you how many that is because it is not specific enough.  It does not say “one thousand times one thousand,” because then we could know, but it says “thousands of thousands.”  And that could be two thousand or five thousand or nine thousand – we are just not sure, so we cannot multiply that number like we can “ten thousand times ten thousand.”  All we can say is that it is “one hundred million” plus. 

And another thing we can say is that what is in view here is the completeness of these (many) angels – one hundred million or “ten thousand times ten thousands.”  The number ten in the Bible points to the completeness of whatever is in view and, likewise, in the case of “thousands of thousands,” these are multiples of ten, so God is emphasizing the utter completeness of all of these angels.  Now this could just be language indicating all of the elect that Christ would ever save.  We do not have to think that just because this is happening before the seals come off the Bible that God cannot give a vision concerning all of the elect, just like the twenty four elders represent all of the elect; so, too, do these angels.

But we do have to keep the thought open that the angels could be referring to the angelic beings and, if that were the case, then this would be pointing to the completeness of the entire angelic host, or all the spirit beings that God has created.  But, again, I believe this is referring to the true believers.

Let us go on to Revelation 5:12:

Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

And, again, there are seven things listed here:  power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and blessing.  We are not surprised that there are seven wonderful, glorious attributes of God that are being lauded and praised.  The number seven is found repeatedly in the Book of Revelation.  It was found already back in verse 6 when the Lamb that had been slain had “seven horns” and “seven eyes” which are the “seven spirits of God.”  Seven, seven and seven, which points to the perfection of these things and, likewise, the number seven in our verse points to the perfection of the power of Christ, perfection of His riches, perfection of His wisdom, perfection of His strength and perfection of His honour and glory, and perfection of His blessing.  These are all things that completely identify with the Lord Jesus.

When we get together in our next study, we are going to look a little bit more closely at each one of these attributes that the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, is said to be worthy to receive.  It is always wonderful when we can look up a word in the Bible and see how God uses it elsewhere; it will help us, likewise, to realize that the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, is worthy of all the praise and honour that we could ever lift up toward His name.