There is on the heads of all believers – the church in heaven, as well as truly converted people on earth – the symbol of crowns of gold. Even now, even though we still have sin in us – we are not pure until we go to heaven, and yet we are viewed as if we had crowns of gold.
The identity of the 24 elders is further confirmed by Revelation 5:9, where these 24 elders sing a new song: ‘Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation’ (Revelation 5:9). Clearly they are representative and the number is not literal, for there are many more kindred, tongues, and peoples, than 24, and they have been redeemed out of every one of them. Based on a variant reading which misses out the word ‘us’ and inserts the word ‘men’ instead, some claim that these 24 are not human elders but angels who sing not about themselves, but about what God has done for men. But this conflicts with Revelation 14:3 where we are told that none can learn this song except those who have been redeemed personally from the earth. The 24 elders sing about what Christ has done for them.
The presence of the 24 elders in heaven is understood by Dispensationalism to indicate that the church has now been raptured from earth and is in heaven. When John is called to ‘come up hither’ he is understood to stand for the whole church and so the rapture of the church is read into this passage, even though the church is not mentioned. Both forms of Premillennialism – Historic Premillennialism and Dispensationalism – teach that, from chapter 4 onwards, the book is dealing with the future: the seven-year period of tribulation that precedes the millennium and then the thousand-year reign of Christ itself on earth. From the end of chapter 3 to the start of chapter 4, it apparently passes entirely over the gospel age, the church age, and goes to this final period of earth’s history. But whereas Historic Premillennialism teaches that the return of Christ is post-tribulation – he returns at the end of the seven-year period known as the tribulation, Dispensationalism teaches that he returns start of the tribulation – a pre-tribulation return. The church therefore is delivered from going through the tribulation. For Dispensationalism this is necessary because the church age is regarded as a departure from God’s original plan, and the removal of the largely Gentile church allows God’s purposes for Israel to get back on track. According to this view, it is mainly Jews who will be saved during this tribulation period. But if the twenty-four elders stand for all those saved during the Old Testament and the New Testament period, then this interpretation cannot be sustained.