It is the writer's point of view that one of the purposes of the tribulation period is to perfect the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb. It will require much suffering before the Christian Church begins to be without spot or wrinkle or blemish of any kind.

The tribulation shall produce the desired result.

In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:2-4)

There will be a fulfillment of the above passage in the physical land and people of Israel, as we have pointed out. Great suffering will be involved but the end will be a purified Jerusalem.

The above passage applies also—and particularly—to spiritual Israel. Spiritual Israel, as we have stated, is made up of the elect Jews and Gentiles, those who have been called to be part of the Body of Christ.

Notice the perfection for which the Body of Christ is destined:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:13)

This unity, knowledge, perfection, and maturity indeed shall be brought into being. The ministries given by the ascended Christ will play their role. The latter rain must fall in order to give the required growth. Then the burning sun of tribulation must harden the "heads of wheat" until the desired perfection and beauty have been attained.

The Bride of the Lamb is destined to be perfect.

God will accomplish this by His wisdom and power.

When the army of the Lord has been restructured (and the Wife of the Lamb is just that—an army), the Lord Jesus will return from Heaven and breathe resurrection life into the remains of the saints who have died physically while abiding in Christ, and into the bodies of the true saints who are alive at the coming of the Lord.

Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? (Song of Solomon 6:10)

This will be, for the members of the Body of Christ, the maturity of the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles. The victorious saints will receive bodies like the glorified Jesus. The Father and the Son in the fullness of the Holy Spirit will enter the saints—now in their glorified bodies.

The saints, being filled with the Presence of the Father and the Son, will enter their "land," their inheritance in God. They have attained the "rest" of God, having submitted patiently and continually to God until they have arrived at all God has spoken concerning them from the creation of the world.

To be continued.