Consider the words that are sung by the symbolic four living creatures and the twenty-four elders: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” [Rev 5:9,10]. We know who literally answer to this description. Christ did not die to redeem 24 elders and four creatures: he died to redeem those that were under the law (Gal 4:4), and also to gather together the children of God that are scattered abroad (John 11:52) — the other sheep he had which were not of Israel’s fold after the flesh (John 10:16), viz., of the Gentiles, whom he afterwards visited by the hand of Peter and Paul, to take out of them a people for his name (Acts 15:14; 26:17,18). Consequently the 24 elders and four living creatures, who in song affirm these things of themselves, are but the symbols of that element of the kingdom of God which consists of the glorified brethren of Christ in their numerical totality.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One