=Their names were written in heaven.= "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."--Luke 10:20. The critic will say that this was said of the seventy and not of the twelve. Well, it was said of the seventy, but how could it be less true of the twelve whom he had previously chosen and sent out to preach the kingdom of God, to cast out devils, and to heal the sick? It is likely that a number of those seventy, if not all, were among the one hundred twenty at Pentecost. To say the least concerning the spiritual standing of the twelve, they were equal with the seventy. =They were not of the world.= "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."--John 15:19. "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.... They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17:14,16. =They kept the word of God.= "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me."--John 17:6, 8. =They belonged to God.= "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. All mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them."--John 17:9, 10. This was the spiritual condition of the eleven before Pentecost testified to by Jesus himself. It is certainly a blessed condition--born of God, their names written in heaven, not of the world. They belonged to God, and they kept His word. Would that every professing follower of Jesus were in this blessed state. It would produce a revolution in Christendom. Does not this signify all that can possibly be comprehended in justification? Then after the blood of Jesus had been shed and the ransom for sin paid, he opened their understanding (Luke 24:45) that they might understand the scriptures, how he should suffer and rise again from the dead. We see that they believed in him the Redeemer, and now understood the object of his suffering and death; but there was still a glorious work of grace awaiting them, to be inwrought by the Holy Ghost, the sanctifier. =They were not yet sanctified=, and for this reason Jesus prayed for them as he did. He well knew that they could not be kept from the evil of the world in a manner that would prove satisfactory to themselves and the Father, unless there should be accomplished in them more than had yet been done. Therefore he prayed, "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth."--John 17:17.