The four and twenty elders represent a category identity just as the four and twenty in David's assigning represented families tasked with service inn the temple to aid the Levitical priesthood.
The four and twenty are IN HEAVEN witnessing the taking and opening of the Seven Sealed Scroll. I take their presence to represent the Body of Christ Believers Raptured before the Tribulation. The great clue so many miss is the opening chapter in the Revelation, with a clause repeated in chapter five. You've missed it too and substituted a fancy alternative.
Building an elaborate scheme of end-times events, which have real and practical implications for those who will go through them, on nothing more than hints and speculative assumptions seems risky and contrary to how God clearly operates.
When there was a famine coming, and Agabus foretold it, people got ready. See Acts 11:28.
When Christ warned His followers to flee Jerusalem when certain signs came, they did it. And it spared their lives. See Matthew 24.
But you are suggesting that the entire living body of Christ on earth rest in the idea of being rescued by a pre-trib rapture from things like war, famine, disease, natural disaster, and persecution based on the private interpretation of the 24 elders giving us supposed proof that the Church has been raptured to Heaven.
Further, ALL of these things have been experienced by the Church historically. Supposing that all of them happen again BEFORE the rapture even IF the pre-trib view is correct, are you going to suggest there is no need for Christians to prepare for this eventuality?
“You assert they would be of an uncountable number, mistaking them for the number coming out of the great tribulation. They are not from that group since they already have their crowns which they cast before the Lamb.”
What I’m asserting is that IF the rapture had already occurred at the time John foresaw the 24 elders in Revelation 4-5, it could have been shown by describing an uncountable multitude. God chose to exclude such a description in those chapters. But the descriptions of 3 multitudes (1 of them angels) before the throne prove that such a description could have been made in chapters 4 and 5 IF it were the case. But it appears that the raptured church is NOT in Heaven at this time. Granted the rapture is NOT depicted in Revelation, at least in terms of a large group being caught up to Heaven.
What you need to keep in mind is that I’m not making a case for a pre-wrath rapture based on my observations about small details in Revelation. I’m observing that the plain reading of these details is not inconsistent with a pre-wrath rapture.
“The four and twenty are IN HEAVEN witnessing the taking and opening of the Seven Sealed Scroll. I take their presence to represent the Body of Christ Believers Raptured before the Tribulation.”
Yes, I see that you do. I don’t have a problem with such speculation as long as it is regarded as speculation. To appeal to it as proof of a pre-trib rapture is dubious at best. In the very same passage we have a description of EVERY creature in Heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea praising God and Christ. This single event alone raises questions about the linear nature of the timeline of events. And that’s just one item to consider.
The pre-trib view is fixated on the 7-year timeline of Daniel’s 70th week. That’s not necessarily bad because it is a rock-solid framework to build upon. However, the pre-trib timing of the rapture hinges entirely upon whatever dispensational views a Bible student brings to the text along with his or her understanding of the relationship between Israel and the Church.
If we were to set aside the 7-year timeline to consider simply the future events, I think very few Bible students would object to the possibility of the Church on earth going through a period of fighting false prophets and teachers, war, famine, diseases, natural disasters, and persecutions. It is indisputable that God has allowed the Church, the bride of Christ, to experience all of these things.
Western Christianity has been lulled to sleep by extended periods of peace and safety. Word of faith and prosperity Gospel teaching is wildly popular. And even mainstream evangelicals seem to embrace the idea that it is harmful to warn Christians that end-times prophecy includes hardships for the Church.
I’m advocating that believers MUST endure hardships and that these are not contradictory to Christ’s love for the Church. Rather, we are called to be like Him, including His suffeiring. These hardships being a part of end-times prophecy is consistent with His return NOT being signless. We are able to anticipate His return based on the signs and “see the day approaching” as Hebrews says.