REVELATION ITS GRAND CLIMAX AT HAND!/Chapter Nineteen - The Israel of God Today

 Interestingly, the first president of the Watch Tower Society, Charles T. Russell, recognized the 144,000 to be a literal number of individuals making up spiritual Israel.  In the New Creation, Volume VI of his Studies in the   Scriptures, published in 1904, he wrote: "We have every reason to believe that the definite, fixed number of the elect [chosen anointed ones] is that several times stated in Revelation (&:4; 14:1)  namely 144,000 redeemed from amongst men.' " In Light, Book One, published in 1930 by the Watch Tower Society's second president J.F. Rutherford, it was likewise  stated: The 144,000 members of the body of Christ are thus in the assembly shown as selected and anointed, or sealed."  Jehovah's Witnesses have consistently held to the view that literally  144,000 anointed Christians  make up spiritual Israel. 

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