The 144,000 Jewish Witnesses

The so-called “Bible Answer Man,” Hank Hanegraaff says the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14 are “the purified bride,” “true Israel,” which is the church. This is a classic replacement theology interpretation. He then continues to torture the biblical text by equating the 144,000 from every tribe of the sons of Israel (Rev. 7:4) with another group of believers said by the biblical text to be “a great multitude, which no one can count from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Rev. 7:9). Hanegraaff says, “the 144,000 and the great multitude are not two different peoples, but two different ways of describing the same purified bride.” So what does the Bible actually teach?