Revelation 7:9–17
The Festival of All Saints
November 1, 2026
Life in Christ Lutheran Church
Grand Marais, Minnesota
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”
I said to him, “Sir, you know.”
And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
“For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Who Can Stand?
The judgment of God is terrifying. It exposes every sinner. By God’s perfect standard, no one can stand before Him by personal goodness. You can’t stand before God by religious accomplishment. The strength of your faith isn’t the issue.
You are guilty. The law shows it to you. You can’t remove even the smallest spot. You will die. That is the wages of your sin. According to God’s Law, the terrifying question echoes in your ears.
Who can stand?
No one. You are guilty; you should be condemned. I am guilty and should be condemned. It is what every person deserves under the Law. None of us is worthy to stand in God’s presence.
John, the writer of Revelation, received the vision while in exile on the island of Patmos. The vision opens the curtain of heaven. There he saw a multitude that no one can number. The multitude is standing before God praising Him. Death didn’t end them. Judgment didn’t condemn them. Their suffering in the tribulation didn’t separate them from Christ. Something has happened that allows sinners to stand before the holy God.
It must have something to do with them, some reason inside of them that made them worthy. After all, we see saints as extraordinary people. They were good. They had courage. They sacrificed. They were very good Christians. They must have lived a better life than we have lived.
But if we look at their lives honestly, against God’s law, we know it isn’t true. We know that our lives don’t survive God’s just judgment. Our grief can’t do anything about what death has separated. Our goodness cannot make us saints.
Goodness doesn’t make saints.
Salvation Belongs to God and the Lamb
John sees people from every nation, tribe, people and language. They are still the people they always were. Their earthly distinctions are visible. But those distinctions don’t divide their praise. In fact, the Church, Christ’s church, is far larger than what can be seen or counted in one congregation. The future of the church can’t be measured by attendance, age, money, buildings or even the strength of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
The multitude says it:
Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!
Do you see what they do? They don’t praise their courage. They don’t list their accomplishments. They don’t claim they endured through their personal strength.
What they do say is that their salvation belongs entirely to God, and to the Lamb. In other words, their sainthood is received, not achieved.
The elder asks John:
Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?
It isn’t their appearance that explains why they belong there. By nature, they are not innocent or even clean. They came through the tribulation as sinners who needed cleansing.
They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
The elder continues.
It is an odd thing. Blood doesn’t clean; it stains. But the Lamb’s blood makes clean.
That’s because Jesus, the Lamb of God, bore the guilt and judgment of sinners. The Lamb was slain in their place. It is His blood that covers their sin with His righteousness.
Death Is the Enemy
Death is the enemy. There isn’t anything friendly about it. It tears apart what God created to be together. It separates the body from the soul. It separates people from one another. It leaves empty places and painful memories. There is no more sure and devastating enemy.
Christians do not pretend that death is the natural end to life. We don’t say that it is harmless. We certainly don’t say it is good. Death is the wages of sin. Their death. Your death and mine.
These saints came out of the great tribulation. That means they didn’t avoid suffering. During their lives they experienced temptation, fear, grief, weakness, persecution, illness, and death. The suffering was real and personal. Their faith didn’t make that suffering painless. But also, their suffering didn’t mean that they were abandoned by Christ.
Scripture tells us what we can say.
Jesus’ promises are true. He told the repentant thief on the cross beside him:
Today you will be with Me in paradise.
Paul says that departure—his death—means that he will be with Christ, which is far better.
Jesus promises that those who die in Christ are with Him. They are safe in His presence. They are beyond sin’s condemnation. They worship before God’s throne.
That’s what the Bible clearly tells us. We don’t need to make up our own images about our friends and family that have gone before us. We don’t have to say they are continuing their favorite hobbies. We don’t have to say they are looking down on us from heaven. We don’t have to communicate with them. Christian comfort rests upon Christ’s promises, not upon imagination or subjective experiences.
The Lamb Is Their Shepherd
And, of course, it says even more.
The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd.
This is the great reversal. Jesus Christ is the Lamb and the Shepherd. He is the one who was slain, and He now lives and reigns over all things. He became the Shepherd by laying down His life for the sheep. He passed through our enemy, death, and defeated its power. He came out of death alive forever. The great enemy, death, couldn’t hold Him.
The vision of John centers on God and on the Lamb. It doesn’t center on our reunion with our loved ones. The reunion is a promise, but it is only possible because Christ defeated death. Death is what separates. The Lamb gave His life to end death and separation.
And Christ continues to keep His saints. He shelters them. He feeds them. He keeps those who could not keep themselves. Without the Lamb, the Shepherd, there is no multitude. There are no white robes. There is no standing before God.
The Resurrection of the Body
What we see, what we are promised, is that the dead in Christ are alive, safe with Him, and free from every earthly suffering. And yet, they are still waiting.
For what?
For the resurrection of their bodies.
That is the ultimate Christian hope. The saints who stand before the throne are waiting for that great day when Christ Himself will raise their bodies. They await the day when He will give them physical life again and restore all creation.
So, at funerals we speak the words “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” They are spoken in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead.
Christ Gives His Word and Sacraments
And there is more. There always is with God. He gives us His Word and Sacraments. We cannot see what John saw. We still see our weakness, our guilt, the grave, and the tears. So Christ gives us promises that come from outside of us.
In Holy Baptism, Christ joined you to His death and resurrection. He clothed you with His righteousness and placed His name upon you. The white robes John sees remind us that the saints do not stand before God dressed in their own goodness. They stand covered by Christ.
And Christ continues to speak His saving verdict. He does not leave you to decide whether you are clean enough or whether your faith is strong enough. His Word is active and real. It does what He says. Through His Word and Absolution, He announces forgiveness right into your ears. The verdict spoken to you now is the verdict that will stand on the Last Day.
Then, in the Lord’s Supper, the risen Lamb gives you His true body and blood—the body that death could not hold, and the blood shed for your forgiveness. He gives them to strengthen you now and as a pledge that your body also will be raised.
Christ provides these gifts because He knows what sinners need. We need promises we can hear. We need forgiveness we can receive. We need assurance that rests not in us, but entirely in Him.
We grieve the loss of loved ones. It is a natural response to death. But the Christian hope, the sure Christian hope, is in Jesus’ promise of resurrection and reunion. So, we grieve. But we grieve with hope.
Our salvation, the Church’s future, and our reunion with our loved ones who have died in Christ rest entirely on the Lamb. They don’t depend on our worthiness, our endurance, our pastor, our generation, our institution, or even our building.
It is Jesus, and only Jesus.
God Will Wipe Away Every Tear
John sees those whom death appeared to defeat. Yet they are standing—alive in Christ, clothed in white, and praising the Lamb.
The same Lamb has baptized, forgiven, and fed us. Our hope rests in His promise:
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
He will remove the cause of every tear. The Lamb who was slain is risen. He will raise His saints and gather His whole Church before Him. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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