After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude This first refers to the happy and prosperous state of the church at the end of so many grievous persecutions and sufferings: for an innumerable multitude of all nations and tongues embraced the gospel, and are here represented as clothed with white robes, in token of their acceptance with God, and their sanctification through his Holy Spirit. And, as Sulpicius Severus says, it is wonderful how much the Christian religion prevailed at that time. The historians who have written of this reign relate how even the most remote and barbarous nations were converted to the faith, Jews as well as Gentiles. One historian in particular affirms, that at the time when Constantine took possession of Rome, after the death of Maxentius, there were baptized more than twelve thousand Jews and heathen, besides women and children. These converts from the tribes of Israel and from the Gentile nations are here represented as having finished their course, and as standing before the throne in robes of glory, and with palms in their hands as tokens of joy and victory; because if they were sincere converts, brought to possess, as well as profess, the religion of Jesus, and should continue in the faith grounded and settled, and not be moved away from the hope of the gospel, they would certainly be presented before the presence of the divine glory with exceeding joy, and obtain all the felicity here spoken of. Doddridge indeed supposes that only the sealing of these thousands expresses the progress of the gospel under Constantine; and that the innumerable multitude here spoken of were the spirits of good men departed out of this world, and then with God in glory: and especially those who had weathered the difficulties and persecutions with which the church had been tried during the first centuries of Christianity, when the civil power was generally active against it, and when probably many persecutions raged in various parts of the world, whose histories are not come down to us.
Related Commentaries of Revelation 7:9
Revelation 7:9
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;