God is calling out from the churches a holy nation, a royal priesthood. Those who respond are the true Christians. Those who do not pursue the Christian discipleship with enough vigor to gain victory over the world, Satan, the lusts of the flesh, and self-love will not receive many of the blessings we associate with being part of the Church. The victorious saints, those being transformed into the image of God in relationships, in service, and in holiness, are the true Christians, the true royal priesthood.

Various terms are being employed for these victorious saints: the Bride, the sons of God, the brothers of Christ, the godly remnant, the victorious saints, the Body of Christ, and so forth.

In an attempt to emphasize the need for believers to press into the fullness of God, some teachers have stated that the brothers are different from the Bride; the sons of God are different from the Church; and have made other distinctions of this sort.

As we see it, these terms apply to the same set of people and merely are expressing different relationships and roles.

The concept often is held that the victorious saints (the sons of God, the Body of Christ, the remnant) are a special set of super-Christians; that there is the normal Christian church, and then there are these rare, unique type of unusually holy believers. The present writer has written concerning David's "mighty men," and indeed there is a scriptural basis for a "firstfruits to God and to the Lamb" (Revelation 14:4).

However there is another way of viewing the fact that the Christian assemblies contain both disciples and nominal believers. It is that the victorious saints of Revelation, Chapters Two and Three are, in the present hour, the true Christians. The remainder of the church members of the "seven churches that are in Asia" are not as yet wholly acceptable to the Lord.

If such is the case, true Christians are in a minority. Most of the believers in Christ are not attaining the first resurrection from the dead. They will not receive their bodies from the dead when the Lord Jesus appears, according to our present understanding. We are not stating that they are lost to the purposes of God, but we do maintain they will not reign with Christ as members of the royal priesthood.

The victorious saints, the overcomers, are not super-Christians. They merely are genuine Christians. The remainder of those who profess faith in Christ will be judged by the Lord and their behavior corrected (if they do not lose their salvation). Some will be saved as by fire. Others will be vomited from the Lord's mouth. This clearly is scriptural.

We believe the victorious saints are the firstfruits of a much larger church, a church that will not be seen in perfection and completeness until the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age.

To be continued.