While I respect all godly Christians who differ with me on Revelation, I think the spiritual, worldwide nature of Israel in Revelation is easy enough to demonstrate, beginning with Rev 5:9-10. This text builds on Exodus 19:5-6, where ethnic, geographical Israel is a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Israel in Exodus was an ethnic group heading for a geographical place. But the New Israel of Revelation is the purchase of the cross, and is applied to people from every tribe, language, and nation. Rev 5:9-10 adopts the language of Old Testament Israel. But there is no ethnic or geographical limitation to the New Israel of Revelation 5.

Another example of the New Israel in Revelation is the 144,000. In Rev 7:4-8 there is a description of 144,000 individuals made up of 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. It sounds like a very ethnic group. But in the vision John never sees this group. Instead, when he looks he sees a great multitude that cannot be numbered, made up of people from every tribe, language and nation (7:9-10). This “heard” and “saw” pattern is common in Revelation (Rev 1:10-12; 5:5-6; 17:1-3; 21:9-10). What John hears described and what he sees seem very different, and yet at another level they are the same. So although he hears about 144,000 Israelites, the meaning of the image is not focused on ethnic Israel. Israel has spiritual, worldwide characteristics in Revelation. This has huge implications for the interpretation of much of the symbolism in the book.

In Revelation, not only Israel is seen in spiritual and worldwide terms, but the same is true of Israel’s enemies, such as Babylon and the beasts. Let’s look at a specific geographical term in Revelation 16:12: “The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east.” If you take the language of Revelation literally, the Euphrates River must mean the Euphrates River, a literal, geographical spot in the Middle East (in modern day Iraq). But John himself explains what the Euphrates River is all about. Revelation 16:12 is part of the sixth plague. In Rev 17:1 he elaborates on the sixth plague when he describes a prostitute called Babylon sitting on “many waters” (the Euphrates River as described in Jer 51:13). The Euphrates River passed right through ancient Babylon. So the angel who comes to John in Revelation 17 is the sixth bowl angel. He has come to explain something about the Euphrates River. That something is found in Revelation 17:15.

“Then the angel said to me, ‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.’” The waters John saw (in Rev 17:1) represented the Euphrates River. And what does the Euphrates River represent in Revelation? In verse 15 the angel tells us exactly. They are “peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.” The Euphrates River is a symbol of many nations– the political, secular, and economic powers of this world. In the Old Testament, the Euphrates River was a literal and local river but in the book of Revelation it is a symbol of world-wide powers in support of end-time Babylon. So not only Israel is seen in spiritual, worldwide terms, so are the enemies of Israel, represented as Babylon, the Euphrates River, Sodom, and Egypt. This is crucial for the interpretation of such symbols within Revelation.