5. What did the Bible Students believe about the 144,000?

⁵ Of course, the Bible Students also discerned from the Scriptures that some would be “bought from the earth” to rule with Jesus in heaven. (Rev. 14:3) That group would be made up of 144,000 zealous and dedicated Christians who had served God faithfully while on earth. What about the great crowd?

6. What did the Bible Students believe about the great crowd?

⁶ In his vision, John saw that group “standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:9) Those words led the Bible Students to conclude that, like the 144,000, the great crowd would reside in heaven. If both the 144,000 and the great crowd were to live in heaven, how would one group differ from the other? The Bible Students thought that the great crowd must be made up of Christians who had not been fully obedient to God while on earth. Although leading reasonably clean lives, some of them may have remained in Christendom’s churches. The Bible Students concluded that such ones demonstrated a measure of zeal but not enough to rule with Jesus. Because their love for God had not been sufficiently fervent, the great crowd would qualify to be in heaven before the throne but not to sit on thrones.

10. Why would it be necessary for the great crowd to be educated in Jehovah’s ways before the Millennium?

¹⁰ Since 1935, Jehovah’s Witnesses have thus understood that the great crowd of John’s vision is made up of a group of faithful Christians who have the prospect of living forever on earth. In order to survive the great tribulation, the great crowd would have to be educated in Jehovah’s ways before the Millennium begins. They would need to show strong faith in order to “succeed in escaping all these things that must occur” before Christ’s Thousand Year Reign.​—Luke 21:34-36.