The Apostle Peter wrote confidently to the first-century church of their identity as a royal priesthood and a holy nation, and the Book of Acts vividly describes the dramatic birth of that holy nation on the Day of Pentecost. But Christianity dismisses that historic reality as a noble but unattainable ideal that was never intended to apply to Christians today. This freepaper challenges that comfortable point of view with the clear and compelling words of the Son of God and His apostles, and with the fact of the restoration of that "idealized" nation today.