These are they which came out of great tribulation.—“ ‘The tribulation, the great one’—the twofold article being specially emphatic. See Rev. 3:10; 6:17; Matt. 24:21.” (Cook.) “They are those,” he said, “who have just passed through the great distress.” (Weym.) “The slaughter of this day of vengeance is said to be of the ‘lambs and goats.’ (Isa. 34:6.) The lambs would represent the tribulation saints.” (D. 17.) “The Great Company will pass through a great tribulation, with a view to effecting in them a proper penitence for sin and a proper appreciation of the Divine standard of truth and righteousness. This class, particularly large in the present day, will be delivered over to the Adversary—to suffer in a Time of Trouble such as was not since there was a nation—the great time of trouble with which this Age shall end. Such of them as fail to respond to those tribulations and to seek the Lord will die the Second Death, but such as respond faithfully will be counted as overcomers.” (Z. '07-232.)
“Many such are now being closely bound in with the various bundles of tares for the burning; and not until the fiery trouble of the latter end of the Harvest period shall burn the binding cords of Babylon's bondage shall these be able to make their escape—‘saved so as by fire.’ They must see the utter wreck of Great Babylon and receive some measure of her plagues.” (C. 364.) “Sad disappointments attach to the experiences of this company: it is because they fear the reproaches of Christ that they shirk present privileges and opportunities for walking with Him in white in the ‘sufferings of this present time:’ behold, they not only miss the present joy and rejoicing of those who are faithful, but eventually they must come through still greater sufferings, if they would attain even to a lower place. Although loving the Lord and His people, they are somewhat ashamed of them and hide, as it were, their faces from them, in the presence of the worldly: and behold the Master at His Coming for His ‘Bride’ cannot confess their names in the presence of the [pg 141] Father and the holy angels.” (Z. '97-162.) “These will be helped out of Babylon when she is falling, and will flee in the winter-time, saying in the words of the Prophet, ‘The Harvest is past, the Summer is ended [Winter has come], and we are not saved.’ (Jer. 8:20.)” (D. 578.) “These, surely, we cannot expect to see shielded from the very trouble which the Lord declares they need; and which in special mercy He will inflict for their perfecting.”—Z. '96-191.
And have washed their robes.—Spotted and soiled by contact with the world.—Z. '97-161.
And made them white in the blood of the Lamb.—“Not that their sufferings will wash their robes, but that in their sufferings they will learn to appreciate as never before their relationship to the Lamb of God and to His atoning merit, and by faith will be permitted to apply the same to their own cleansing.”—Z. '07-233; 1 John 1:7.
7:15. Therefore.—Because, in the final test, they suffered martyrdom and cleansed their robes rather than deny the Lord.
Are they before the Throne of God.—“With the world in the next Age, the Lord's power will be represented through the Great Company class, under the Bride. They will be a great police force, looking out for the whole people. They will have enough to do; for God has guaranteed that ‘nothing shall hurt or offend in all His holy Mountain’—Kingdom (Isa. 11:9). That will mean a careful supervision. Yes, indeed! How will they hinder wrong-doing? If a person were about to speak blasphemy or slander, the tongue might be instantly paralyzed. Very easy! A policeman right on the spot!—not waiting until the offender had done the mischief and then punishing him, but fixing him so that he will not get the chance to do it, and punishing him for trying to do so.”—Question Meeting.
And serve Him day and night in His Temple.—“Although they can never be the living Temple of which Christ is the Head (Rev. 3:12; 11:1), we are told they shall be servants in that Temple; and although they shall never sit in the Throne, they are highly privileged to serve ‘before the Throne.’ Grand and glorious privileges will be theirs.”—Z. '97-162; Rev. 22:3.
And He that sitteth on the Throne.—Jehovah.
[Shall dwell among] KNOWETH them.—To be known of the Lord is to be the sure recipient of blessings. Not to be known or recognized of Him is the greatest of all calamities. God keeps a record of His friends (Mal. 3:16) but no record of His enemies; and therein lies their ruin. “I never knew you; depart from Me.”—Matt. 7:23.
7:16. They shall NOT hunger [no more].—Poor things, how hungry they have been! How the light has shone in their poor, hunted, starved faces, as they have listened to Pastor Russell, by the tens of thousands; and yet, when the lecture was over, they have wearily gone back to the “husks,” from a sense of duty to the memory of some man, dead for hundreds of years, who would, if alive today, be a follower of the Reformer, Charles T. Russell, because he followed Christ.