REVELATION ITS GRAND CLIMAX AT HAND!/Chapter Twenty - A Multitudinous Great Crowd - Continue

 Worldly commentators have interpreted this great crowd to be fleshly non-Jews converted to Christianity or to be heaven-bound Christian martyrs.  Even the Bible Students in the past regarded them as a secondary heavenly class, as noted in the 1986 in Volume I of Studies in the Scriptures, The Devine Plan of the Ages:  "They lose the prize of the throne  and the divine nature, but will finally reach  birth as spirit beings of  an order lower than  the divine nature.  Though these are truly consecrated, they are to overcome by the worldly spirit to such an extent that they  fail to render their lives in sacrifice."  And as late as 1930, the though was expressed in Light, Book One:  "Those who make up this great crowd  fail to respond to the invitation to become the zealous witnesses for the Lord." They were described  as a self-righteous group that had a knowledge of the truth but did little about preaching it.  They were to get to  heaven as a secondary class that would not share in reigning with Christ.

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