OBJECTION 13. — THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR THOUSAND

“Her visions,” we are told, “are contradictory in regard to the 144,000.” The only trouble with this objection is, that like all those we have thus far examined, it is false. There is no truth in it. What is the objection made of? Just this. In Experience and Views, Page 11, she speaks of the living saints at the time the voice of God is heard, as being 144,000 in number. In Gifts, Vol. 1, page 205, she says that those who have died in faith under the third angel’s message, are raised at the voice of God. She does not say that these raised ones are numbered among the 144,000, as the objector assumes; but we will consider it so, in order to give the objection all the force that it can have. Then, says the objector, the first statement that the 144,000 are the living saints, is contradicted by the second that it takes these resurrected ones to make up the number. Will the objector tell us when these persons are raised? Is it the voice of God pronouncing the day and hour of Jesus’ coming, that brings them up, or do they come up before, and in season to hear it? This point is conclusively settled by the testimony in immediate connection. We read on the page last referred to: “There was a mighty earthquake. The graves were shaken open, and those who died in faith under the third angel’s message, keeping the Sabbath, came forth from their dusty beds, glorified, to hear the covenant of peace that God was to make with those who had kept his law.” What this covenant of peace is, is shown a few lines further on: “And as God spake the day and hour of Jesus coming and delivered the everlasting covenant to his people,” etc. Now what can be meant by the declaration that they came forth to hear the covenant of peace, etc., unless it is that they are raised before this covenant is proclaimed, or the voice of God announces the day and hour of Jesus’ coming, and are raised, and standing alive with the saints who have never died, are they not in all propriety reckoned among the living saints? And it is this very declaration of the day and the hour of Jesus’ coming that the company then alive, 144,000 in number, hear and understand. Experience and Views, pages 10,11. Then where is the contradiction? It does not exist.VEGW 55.1

But it is further objected, that at the general resurrection of the righteous at the appearing of Christ, the 144,000 rejoice to meet their friends who had been torn from them by death. Experience and Views, page 12. This is claimed as a contradiction. But is it not barely possible that some of the 144,000 had Christian friends taken away by death previous to the rise of the third angel’s message? Such captious criticism is unworthy of notice.VEGW 56.1

It is objected again that this makes too many resurrections. We leave the objector to settle this with the Bible; for the prophet Daniel brings to view this very resurrection. Daniel 12:1, 2: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”VEGW 56.2

Here is a resurrection which takes place after the great and final time of trouble for this world has commenced. But it is not the general resurrection either of the righteous or the wicked; for it is only “some” out of each class; not all of either class. Hence here is a resurrection of a certain number of righteous ones, before the general resurrection of the righteous, at the appearing of Christ; for there will be no possibility of this partial resurrection after that event; and coming in as it does, after the time of trouble commences, and before the appearing of Christ in the clouds of heaven, it must be the very resurrection here brought to view in the visions. To no other event can Daniel’s testimony apply.VEGW 57.1