There have been many questions regarding the number of Christians that will go in “the first resurrection” (the rapture); here is another conjecture for whatever it is worth.

Revelation 20:6 says, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years”.

Notice that those who are “of Christ” shall enjoy the “first resurrection”.  The words “of Christ” have a Strong’s reference number of 5547 and this Greek word “Christos” has a numeric value of 1480.

Also, Revelation 21:2 says, “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”.

Notice that “a bride” is a “numphe” in the Greek (see Strong’s #3565) and has a numeric value of 998.

Thus, it appears that the phrase “a bride of Christ” has a Greek numeric value of 998 + 1480 = 2478.  When analyzing any number, I think it is important to look at “all rotations of the digits” , i.e. the 24 permutations of 2478, which, in this case, would equal 139,986.  The first thing I notice about this number is that the “99” is “in the Lord Jesus Christ”, where the Greek value for the “Lord Jesus Christ” is 3168.  With this number 139,986, the digits 1386 are just one of 24 permutations of 3168.

So what is the bottom line with all of this?  Well, if we add three (3) zeros to 139,986, we get 139,986,000 which is equal to 144 X 972,125.   And according the latest U S Government count, the world population was approximately 6,792,945,470 people as of March 11, 2008 at about 1 PM EST.  Now the 139,986,000 figure could well grow into 144,000,000 very soon as new Christians are added to the flock world wide.  Also, the figure of 139,986,000 possible raptured “a bride of Christ”  seems to me to be a “realistic number” taken out of the “church” worldwide.  Notice too that the number 144 is a factor of 139,986,000.  I know that many scholars believe, as I do, that this number of 144,000 represents Jewish believers during the Great Tribulation.  But I think the number 144 could also have reference to the “bride of Christ”.

What do the other Doves think?  Does this seem reasonable?