Reading through Revelations was almost like watching an epic movie! I thoroughly enjoyed the reading. It was an excellent way to end the Bible. The imagery, narration, and book flowed very well together. A ton of questions came across to ask about this book; picking a question was not an easy task. I started to go off into lofty ideas about the book, but that wouldn’t be much fun looking into. One blog I almost went into was the dragon reference. Maybe it’s the child in me but reading about a dragon excited me. That was going to be my blog until I realized the dragon was Satan. Moving on I ran across a lot of different mentions of the number 12, 24, and 1026.I remember specifically seeing 24 elders mentioned almost constantly throughout this book. I always heard about these elders as a child growing up, this is probably because of my weird infatuation as a child with the show “Charmed”.  The elders in the previously mentioned show were magical dictators who always interfered with the sister’s weird outlook on magic. Nevertheless, who are these elders mentioned in Revelations, and why are there 24 of them? I intend on finding this answer within this blog.

   One of the first things that immediately eliminated about the 24 elders was that they were angels. This is obvious to any reader who reads the text. the text does not indicate that these elders were angels. After searching over a couple sites, my inference was indeed true. With that being said, who are these elder? One site that proposed some insight said the following: “These elders are spirit beings created by God to be His wise and intelligent counselors. They were created before the physical creation, along with cherubim (Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer are the only three mentioned in the Bible), the seraphim, the four living creatures and the billions of other angels that serve God.” http://www.gotquestions.org/24-elders.html

 

  This is a good opinion, but the spiritual implications cause me to be little skeptical about this sites results. Although I am a Christian hold heartedly, I am looking for an answer that is not geared with major influence of “faith”. These elders must have some kind origin, but I have reasonable doubt that they were created after the creation of our universe. From there I stumbled onto a website that gave me exactly what I was looking for. The source I used was http://www.escapeallthesethings.com/24-elders-revelation-heaven.htm.  This website broke down exactly what I had already set up in my mind about these 24 elders. They also presented an idea that I found compelling. This website spoke on the first fruit, and that really pushed in the direction I needed to go.  In Jesus’ resurrection, first fruits were also taken up to heaven once he ascended.  “These firstfruits were pictured and predicted in the Torah/Law by the Feast of the Firstfruits rehearsal done each year on the Sunday morning after Passover by a wave sheaf of barley being waved to God by the high priest”. The site then makes the point about the actual fulfillment of the Torah law when Jesus finally ascended. “They are the glorified saints who were raised in the "First of the Firstfruits" resurrection of the Messiah”.  These elders are the fulfillment of the laws established by the Torah, and its proven when Jesus makes the ascent into heaven.

Although there are no names given about the elders, this does help me kind of realize who they were. Could they have been created before the creation of our universe? Like I mentioned earlier, I doubt it do to the fact that there no mention of elders during the creation story. Could these 24 elders be indeed the “first fruits”, I believe so seeing how the Torah predicted about them way before John ever put them in Revelations. Both incident the ascension, and the feast of first fruits occurs during Passover. Both mention “first fruit” which points to the 24 elders in the book of Revelations.