Who are the 24 elders ?

So in the earthly temple, the high priests  served in rotations throughout the year and took turns according to the 24 family divisions as watchmanjim shared in his post above.  
The high priests also sat on the Sanhedrin, which in scripture is also called "the council of elders" (see Luke 22:66 and Acts 22:5). It acted as a tribunal, a sort of supreme court. In Christ's day they met in a place connected to the temple called the Chamber of Hewn Stone. It was comprised of 71 men, most of whom had served as high priests and was headed by the current acting High Priest. The acting High priest sat on a throne.  (see image at link, I tried to embed it but for some reason it didn't work for me)

cafn.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/the-sanhedrin.jpg


The high priest also wore on his head a golden crown, which he was to wear at all times when he served in the temple (see Exodus 28:36-28). So you see we have the elements, the thrones, the golden crowns and the council of the elders, depicted for us on earth. This heavenly council of elders, as I have shared would serve as the pattern for the earthly council of elders AKA the Sanhedrin. 

We also have a precedent for what the function of these 24 heavenly elders is. 
I believe that during the millennium, these heavenly elders will be replaced by the resurrected disciples, to judge the tribes of Israel. Which is precisely the function that the Sanhedrin had. 

Daniel talks about how the kingdom is handed over to God's people:
We see that a court sits to judge the man we call Antichrist, I believe that "court" is the heavenly court of the 24 elders, after the Antichrist is cast alive into the lake of fire, and his dominion is annihilated forever, THEN the kingdom is handed over to the saints, which would include the disciples, the tribulation saints and the rest of the body of Christ. The idea that the 24 elders sit on thrones denotes that they act as judges. During the Millennial kingdom the disciples are given jurisdiction over the nation of Israel, while the rest of the saints, as we are told, judge the world and angels:

I was referring to the post just before mine, by watchmanjim, he shared the divisions of the priesthood. (The sons of Aaron)
But now that I look at it, he didn't share the full list of family divisions  so here it is:
These are the descendants of the surviving children of Aaron, Eleazar and Ithamar, who served as priests and performed the service of the temple. They were divided by lot according to families when David was King. 

Interesting thoughts, AP! Member rt had a lot to say about the 24 elders, too. I think I will merge this thread into one where we have been talking about it. Now that it's merged, you can go back and see what's been said before.

Welcome AlwaysPraying, I have often seen folks speculate on those saints that were raised at Christ's resurrection. However the scripture never says that they were resurrected to heaven. 


I believe that these "saints" were raised to live an extended mortal life. This incident is not unlike an event of the Old Testament, when Elisha died and was buried 


The dead man who was exposed to the spiritual power of Elisha the prophet's newly buried corpse came to life.  The spiritual power embodied in Christ caused a great earthquake and the veil in the temple was torn as He died. I believe this power may have spread through the earth to these dead saints buried within the tombs. Notice that not all the saints were raised, but many were. I would suspect that these saints were only recently buried and because their bodies had not undergone decay, that they were able to benefit by this power surging through the earth. But that is merely speculation on my part. 

There is another problem with this view, and that is that there is an appointed time for the resurrection of the righteous and it has not yet happened, there were some who were claiming that it had:

"The resurrection" is yet future from Paul's day. There is no special resurrection ever spoken of for a select few, other than the two witnesses in the Revelation, there is no scripture that would support that idea, the passage in Matthew never says that these saints were resurrected to heaven, only that they were raised and came out of their tombs and appeared to many. (They showed themselves to others)

The other issue, at least from my perspective, is that I see the scene in Rev. 4/5 as depicting something from John's past, which is the entrance of the Lamb that was slain into heaven, Jesus entering into heaven to assume His place at the right hand of the Father after His death and resurrection. John sees the 24 elders seated in heaven before Jesus enters, therefore there is no possible way that the elders could be resurrected saints, since Jesus Himself had yet to become the firstborn of the dead to be raised to heaven.They cannot possibly be human beings raise to eternal life. But many would disagree with my take on this.