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loipos. "Peter and the rest of the apostles" (Acts 2: 37). This implies that Peter also was
an apostle.
"The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded" (Rom. 11: 7).
Here the "election" and "the rest" both belong to Israel, as the opening of the verse
shows. We could not say "the election" (of Israel) and "the rest" (of the Gentiles)
without adding an explanatory clause. Loipos occurs in Revelation eight times, thus:
"Unto the rest in Thyatira" not unto the rest of the seven churches, or the rest of the
world. (Rev. 2: 24).
"Strengthen the things which remain" (3: 2).
"By reason of the other voices" (8: 13).
"The rest of the men which were not killed with the plagues." Plainly not the rest of
mankind as a whole. (9: 20).
"The remnant were affrighted" (11: 13).
"The remnant of her seed" (12: 17).
"The remnant were slain" (19: 21).
"The rest of the dead lived not again" (20: 5).
This last reference which directs us to the judgment of the Great White Throne
warns us that a special company is envisaged. It is composed of believers, who together
with those who were martyred, formed one company AND NO OTHERS are in view.
The wicked dead of all ages will have their judgment, but that is not contemplated here.
One company and one only are before us, and that company is divided into two portions:
(1) the overcomers, (2) those who were not overcomers, or briefly "the rest". The
overcomers live and reign during the thousand years. "The rest" do not live again until
the Millennium is over. They do not forfeit "life" necessarily, but they have lost the
"crown", a doctrine not confined to any one dispensational as I Cor. 3: 10-15,
Phil. 3: 11-14 and II Tim. 2: 11-13 will show. This is the first resurrection; the
"former" of two, as we have seen earlier.
These overcomers are called "priests of God and of Christ". There seems a need to
discriminate once again between the restored nation, which will be a priestly nation on
the earth, and this company of priests which exercise their priesthood in the Heavenly
City. Let us see. At the foot of mount Sinai, the whole nation were given the terms by
which they could become "a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation". Those terms none
have ever kept; with those conditions no one has ever complied (Exod. 19: 5, 6). Isaiah,
visualizing not the old covenant, but the "everlasting covenant" (Isa. 61: 8) looked down
the age and beheld Israel restored, having the oil of joy instead of mourning, rebuilt and
raised up and repaired (Isa. 61: 3, 4), and named "The Priests of the Lord: men shall call
you the Ministers of our God . . . . . the seed which the Lord hath blessed" (Isa. 61: 6-9).
Just as the restored earthly Jerusalem will have a resemblance to the Heavenly City, with
its foundations of sapphires, and its gates of agates (Isa. 54: 11, 12), so we find at the
close of Isa. 61: this restored priestly nation likened also to a bridegroom or to a bride.
This must not lead us to confuse this company with the Bride of the Lamb (Rev. 19: 7),
for Isa. 54: 6-8 makes it clear that Israel as a "woman forsaken" and a "wife of youth"
who had been refused, is in view, whereas the Bride, the Lamb's wife, is not the nation of
Israel, once divorced but now restored, but a company of overcomers whose seat of