‘These are they who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are they who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were purchased from among men to be the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no lie. They are without blemish.'
In Revelation 21:27 we are told that no one can enter the Heavenly city except those who are clean, those who avoid idolatry (abomination) and those who make no lie. Thus those who can enter that City must be undefiled, must follow the Lamb and must have in their mouth no lie as here. This is their idealised state. They have been changed into His image from glory into glory by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18), they have been made like Him for they see Him as He is (1 John 3:2), they are holy and without blemish before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4), they are presented to Him ‘a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish' (Ephesians 5:27).
‘Not defiled with women for they are virgins'. When the people of Israel were preparing to see the revelation of God and to receive God's covenant of grace at Sinai, Moses sanctified the people and they washed their garments, and he exhorted them not to come near a woman for three days (Exodus 19:15). The followers of David could only eat of the holy bread if they had kept themselves from women for three days (1 Samuel 21:4). Sex is seen as having an earthiness about it which comes short of the heavenly. Those who are resurrected will be like the angels, neither marrying nor being given in marriage (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25). Thus they will be ‘virgins'. Whether men like it or not the ideal world is peopled by virgins, whose minds are set on things above (Colossians 3:2). (It should be noted that the idea in Revelation 14 is of virginal men, not women).
Paul likens the church to a pure virgin presented to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2). Here we have John's representation of the same idea. So the picture of the one hundred and forty four thousand as ‘virgins' is to indicate their acceptable state before God and that they are now in their resurrection bodies. They are cleansed, sanctified and purified. They are pure of all taint of sin and of all earthiness. They are ‘in Christ' and share His total abstinence from all that was earthy. This does not condemn sexual relations within marriage but it does indicate that they are secondary and earthly. These are now beyond such things. Whatever was their state they are now undefiled and pure. As we have seen earlier the misuse of sex, promiscuity and unnatural sex, was one of the prime things condemned by God in the churches (Revelation 2:14; Revelation 2:20-22) and was part of the teaching of the false teachers, and that must clearly be in mind here.
However we must note that the forbidding of marriage on earth is also a heinous crime (1 Timothy 4:3) and in Hebrews 13:4 the undefiled bed is one where sex has been retained for fulfilment within marriage. Thus some have seen the thought of their ‘virginity' here as suggesting that ideally they have only partaken of sex within the marriage bond, being husbands of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6), but the idea here does seem to go beyond this, and many Christians do not come within that description. It does suggest that it is not just earthly virginity that is in mind.
‘These are they who follow the Lamb wherever He goes'. This echoes Revelation 7:15-17 and demonstrates that the one hundred and forty four thousand are also the great multitude whom no man can number. They are the sheep of the Shepherd Lamb (Revelation 7:17 - compare John 10:27; Luke 9:57). They look to Him with a fully developed desire to be ever with Him in loving obedience and service.
‘These were purchased from among men to be the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb'. The idea of the firstfruits here must be seen in the context of the chapter. God is about to reap His grim harvest (Revelation 14:14-20). But before He reaps the harvest He collects the firstfruits. The firstfruits are those who have enjoyed His deliverance and belong to Him. The remainder are reaped to condemnation. Compare how Jeremiah declares the true Israel to be ‘holiness unto the Lord, the firstfruits of his increase' (Jeremiah 2:3) where the emphasis is on the firstfruits as that which is set apart to God. Thus His people are seen to enjoy a unique place in His affections as those who have been made clean and pure and are freely offered. They are that part of the harvest which belongs to God.
This echoes to some extent James 1:18 where the redeemed are again seen as the firstfruits but there as the firstfruits of the restoration of creation. There he says we are ‘a kind of firstfruits of His creatures'. The firstfruits had to be selected as without blemish, as something special. So God's people are seen as selected out to be offered to God prior to the redemption of the whole creation.
Contrast this with Romans 8:18-25 where the idea of firstfruits is amplified in terms of a creation groaning for deliverance. ‘We who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for our adoption, that is the redemption of our bodies' (Romans 8:23). There the idea is that we have experienced the entry of the life-giving Spirit, a quickening which creation will have to wait for. The idea of the firstfruits is therefore connected with the resurrection of His people as the initial preparation for the deliverance of creation in the new Heaven and the new earth (Revelation 21:1). They are partakers with Him Who is ‘the beginning of the creation of God' (Revelation 3:14).
(The idea of a superior group of ‘firstfruits' in comparison with other Christians is nowhere found in the New Testament. In that sense it is Christ alone Who is the firstfruits (1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:23). However the picture of the firstfruits is applied to the idea of those first becoming Christians in a particular place prior to further conversions (Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:15) but that is not the idea here).
‘In their mouth was found no lie. They are without blemish'. They have been made like Him ‘Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth' (1 Peter 2:22), Who had no ‘deceit in His mouth' (Isaiah 53:9). This demonstrates that we have here the idealised state. There may be men who are ‘virgins' in earthly terms, but there are none who are totally free from lies, guile, dishonesty or deceit, none who are without blemish, except for those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).
Similarly, in Zephaniah 3:13, Zephaniah declares ‘the remnant of Israel (the true Israel) will not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they shall feed and lie down and none shall make them afraid'. There we have its fulfilment in the idea of ‘the remnant of Israel', those chosen of God, as being freed from all deceit and as a result being shepherded by God. That can also be seen as connecting the one hundred and forty four thousand with being ‘shepherded', as being those who follow the Shepherd (Revelation 7:17).
We may also see as included in this passage in Revelation reference to the fact that having received the love of the truth they did not believe and proclaim ‘the Lie' (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11). Those who are genuine and truthful will themselves know the truth and will boldly declare it (John 7:17).
The whole picture is of total purity in contrast with those who dwell on earth who glory in the worship of false gods and false ideas, believing the lie, and in over-indulged sex and fleshly enjoyment. The pure are the firstfruits. The full harvest, the harvest of the earth-dwellers to judgment, comes later (Revelation 14:14-20).