The reason five "virgins" are left is that belief in Christian doctrine (the lamp) does not qualify us for resurrection. Resurrection is eternal life (the oil) created in us as we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ.

From our spiritual position in the heavenlies we gain access to the Tree of Life, which is inside the gates. We partake of resurrection life, of Divine Life. This is the life that will make alive our physical body.

As we gain resurrection life by partaking of the flesh and blood of Jesus, of the Tree of Life, we are being prepared for the day when we can go through the gates of the city in our body. The goal of redemption is to recover our body from the power of death. This is the destruction of the last enemy (I Corinthians 15:26). This is the goal of the Apostle Paul.

And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)

Our body is dead in the present hour because of the sin dwelling in it. There is no redemption for the body in the realm of flesh and blood. Redemption for our body is accomplished only by eating of the Substance of God, for our body is only dust. Yet our body is an essential part of our personality as "man." Man is spirit, soul, and body.

When we lose our body, we no longer are "man." After we die we never again will be "man" until we regain our body. When we regain our body we can enter through the gates into the city that is coming down from God, into Heaven come to earth.

The reader may have noticed a double action of redemption. First, God carries us on eagles' wings, as it were, so that spiritually we may partake of the perfections of the heavenly Zion. It is as though we fly from Egypt to the land of promise and are strengthened and perfected there while our body begins its arduous, dangerous journey through the wilderness.

Then, through the perfection our personality receives in the spiritual Zion, we are prepared for the day when our body will be filled with the same eternal life that already is permeating our new spiritual nature.

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:11)

The eternal life that is changing our spiritual nature is building for us a "house that is from heaven," a body of eternal life which, in the Day of the Lord, will clothe our flesh and bones.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (II Corinthians 5:2)

The resurrection to eternal life must be attained by coming to know the eternal life of Christ and by sharing His sufferings.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection [Greek, out-resurrection] of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ. (Philippians 3:10-12)

To be continued.