The Two Witnesses *ARE* the Message of Revelation
Announcement!
I’m teaching an online Bible study on Revelation TONIGHT (11/3) from 8:00-8:45 CST. Take a break from watching election returns and join me. (www.facebook.com/mungerplace or www.mungerplace.org/watch.)
Warning!
Revelation is a difficult book in that it requires close attention to detail. What follows is therefore more detailed than is normal for me in these posts. But, we’re here because we want to better understand this amazing book, right?
So, take your time to read through this and follow the argument. Trust me, it’s worth it.
In Our Last Episode…
Allow me to remind of what I wrote when we read Revelation 10.
In that chapter, John receives the unrolled scroll that is God’s secret plan to bring heaven to earth—”on earth as it is in heaven”. It is the scroll that only the Lamb is able to open. What is the scroll? It is the mystery of God’s plan to redeem history, a plan that even the Old Testament prophets were never able to see. (See the ending of the book of Daniel, e.g.)
In Revelation 11, John begins to explain the message of that scroll. Today we’re looking at Revelation 11:1-14 and 11:15-19 (our reading passages for yesterday and today).
John’s Symbolic Prophetic Action (11:1-2)
Immediately after John eats the scroll, he is told by the angel:
And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.” [Revelation 10:11]
And this is what happens next:
11 Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, 2 but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. [Revelation 11:1-2]
A key principle to interpreting Revelation is that John often tells of the same thing multiple times; each time he revisits that thing he uses different symbolic language and provides different details.
So, 11:1-2 is a brief summary of the scroll; 11:3-14 is a further explanation of the scroll; and as we’ll see, chapters 13-15 again explain the message of the scroll, but each time the central point is made with different imagery and detail.
Here, just as with the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel when he receives his prophetic message (Ezekiel 3-4), John is asked to act out a symbolic prophetic action by figuratively measuring the sanctuary of the Temple and not measuring the outer court. The reason, he’s told, is that the interior of the sanctuary is protected, but the exterior court will be “trampled” by the nations.
This little symbolic action is based on an Old Testament passage (Zechariah2:1-2, 5), which indicates that the “measuring” means that the inner, spiritual reality of God’s temple is protected, even while the outer, visible reality is seemingly defeated by his enemies.
Revelation 11:1-2 means that, though it may seem as if evil is conquering God’s people, in fact they will be kept spiritually safe throughout the period of persecution.
Excursus: 42 months/1260 days/a time, times, and half a time
Numbers are always symbolic in John’s vision. Repeated phrases are also important, as a way of linking passages together. The same period—described in different ways—will be said to be “42 months” or “1,260 days”, or a “time, times, and half a time”
That last phrase comes from the ending of the book of Daniel, when Daniel—in an apocalyptic vision—is confused about what he’s seeing:
5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. 6 And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” 7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished. 8 I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” 9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.”
[Daniel 12:5-9]
Daniel is told that the period in which God’s people are persecuted and opposed (“the shattering of the power of the holy people”) will be “a time, times, and half a time". The rabbis understood this to mean 3.5:
one time+two times+one half a time = three and one half
to put it another way: 1+2+0.5=3.5
So, 3.5 came to be an important apocalyptic number.
If you take 30 days as the average number of days in a month, then 3.5 years is 1,260 days or 42 months.
Each time John uses “42 months” or “a time, times, and half a time” or “1,260 days”, that’s a clue that he’s talking about the same thing, but in a different way.
Please don’t try to interpret the numbers literally—they are symbolic, and tied to Old Testament prophecy. In essence this period of 42 months/1,260 days/a time, times, and half a time are all a shorthand way of saying “the period during which God’s people are persecuted and opposed until the Second Coming.”
The Parable of the Two Witnesses (11:3-13)
The next section of Revelation is a prophetic parable that dramatizes the church’s role in God’s secret plan.
Right away, we learn something important:
3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.
4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
The two witnesses will prophesy for 1,260 days, which means we’re looking at the same point being made as above in vv. 1-2 and the symbolic prophetic action, but with different imagery.
The two witnesses will be dressed in sackcloth. Sackcloth is the clothing of repentance—in other words, the message of the two witnesses will be about repentance.
Who are the two witnesses? John tells us—they are “lampstands”. In Revelation chapter 1, we learn that lampstands are a symbol for the church. The two witnesses represent the church.
Why two? Two is the required number in the Old Testament for the bearing of true witness.
Just as 7 churches in chapter 1 symbolize the church in its fullness and completeness, here the 2 witnesses symbolize the church in its capacity to give true testimony about Jesus.
5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. 6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.
The two witnesses are modeled on Moses and Elijah, Old Testament prophets who squared off against God’s enemies. (Elijah shut off rain and Moses called down plagues.) The witnesses are protected so that they can complete their mission. (Remember the sealing of the 144,000 in Revelation 7? John was describing the same idea.)
They are protected spiritually, but not physically (see above at the symbolic prophetic action John undertakes in 11:1-2), because:
7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.
I mentioned above that John continually comes back to the same idea throughout his vision and describes it in different ways or in greater detail. Another way to think of it is as a series of Russian nesting dolls: each detail, when opened, contains other details.
So, the symbolic prophetic action of 11:1-2 is unpacked and explained more in 11:3-13. And, many of the details in vv. 3-13 are unpacked and explained more in chapters 12-15.
So, here we have the first mention of the beast, which John will come back to in greater detail in later chapters, especially chapter 13.
But, here, John tells us that the two witnesses (the church), though spiritually protected for their mission will actually be physically conquered by the beast. They will be martyred, in other words. And then their bodies will lie in the street of the city “symbolically called Sodom and Egypt” (i.e., any city in which the church is persecuted), just as Jesus was martyred in Jerusalem.
9 For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, 10 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.
“For three and a half days”—the apocalyptic number again!—the people that persecuted the witnesses will perversely rejoice over their deaths! It’s a scene of complete depravity—the people who killed the martyrs will congratulate themselves on their murderous victory.
Why? Because they were tired of being told to repent. The witnesses’ message contradicted the world’s self-satisfied delusions of prideful self-sufficiency.
The Vindication of the Witnesses!
But, the witnesses don’t stay dead!
11 But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them.
Just as Jesus was raised to life after 3 days, so the witnesses will be raised to life after “three and a half days” (that number again!). And, it is obvious to everyone who sees it that God made it happen, thereby proving that they were telling the truth all along.
And so look what happens next:
The ConversIon of the Nations!
13 And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The majority of the city repents and gives glory to God! Previously, John has told us that the judgments do not produce repentance (see 9:20-21 and my sermon from Sunday, November 1, 2020). But here, the martyrdom of the two witnesses produces the amazing result of the repentant nations. Why? What’s changed?
Allow me to quote the New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham at length:
“The point is…that judgments themselves do not convey God’s gracious willingness to forgive those who repent….
[But when the two witnesses come and are] confronted with an addiction to idolatry and evil (9:20-21), they proclaim the one true God and his coming judgment on evil, but they do so as a call to repentance. Therefore, once their witness is seen, not to be refuted by their death, but vindicated as the truth (11:11-13), all who see this repent.”
from The Theology of the Book of Revelation, by Richard Bauckham (page 86).
Why does the testimony of the witnesses produce repentance when judgment alone did not? Because the witnesses tell the world that God is ready and willing to welcome them back!
The witnesses are initially hated, persecuted, and killed. But, they stay faithful to Jesus even to the point of death, and their faithful witness to Jesus is vindicated by God. In this way they participate in the Lamb’s victory and even conquer the beast, though he kills them, in the same way that Jesus defeated death by dying.
The faith of the witnesses is protected by God, and through their faithful witness to the world they demonstrate that the beast does not have ultimate power because he cannot make them deny the truth of Jesus. They are willing to die for the truth, and their faithful suffering brings the nations to faith in the true God.
In other words, their suffering has a purpose, and it is to be used by God to bring unbelievers to faith!
***In Summary: The Message of the Book of Revelation***
The message of the parable of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-13) will be reexplained over and over again through the rest of John’s vision, but allow me to sum up what we have learned so far.
The First Half of Revelation Leads Up to the Message of the Scroll
John has seen into the heavenly throne room (Revelation 4-5), and he sees that in heaven Jesus is worshipped.
Although in heaven all things are perfect, they are emphatically NOT so on earth. And so we pray “thy kingdom come, on earth as it already is in heaven.”
The rest of Revelation will be the explanation of how the kingdom comes to earth.
The Old Testament prophets had foretold of a future day when God’s kingdom would come (to cite one of many, many examples, see Micah 4:1-4), but the prophets were never told how God’s kingdom would come.
In the heavenly throne room, John sees that only the Lamb (a symbol for Jesus) can open the scroll that contains God’s secret plan to bring in the kingdom.
Why is Jesus allowed to open the scroll? Because he is the Faithful Witness and through his death and resurrection, he has conquered Death and Evil.
As Jesus unrolls the scroll and breaks its seals, judgment comes on the earth. The judgments are NOT the message of the scroll—they PREPARE for the message of the scroll.
And what do we learn from the judgments? That judgments alone do not bring about repentance on earth.
This fact shouldn’t surprise us, because judgments never worked in the Old Testament either, and, come to think of it, God could OBVIOUSLY destroy the entire cosmos whenever he wanted, so there must be a reason he forebears to bring destructive judgment on creation. And that reason is that judgment doesn’t produce repentance!
The Second Half of Revelation Is About What’s Written on the Scroll
John receives the scroll from the angel, eats it, and then begins to prophecy.
He first enacts the symbolic prophetic action of the measuring of the Temple, which tells us that although the church will be persecuted and conquered by the nations on the outside, its spiritual reality on the inside will not be touched.
Then John tells us the parable of the witnesses.
These two witnesses represent the true testimony of the church, and it’s a testimony about Jesus and against the lies of the world that the church faithfully tells even unto death.
Although the two witnesses are protected for their ministry, they are ultimately conquered by the beast.
But, God raises them again, thereby vindicating their message, and as a result, the nations come to true repentance and begin to worship God!
God’s secret plan is this: God sent his son, Jesus. Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, conquered death and created the church, into which he calls people of all nations, races, and peoples (see Revelation 7). The church then brings the kingdom from heaven to earth by its faithful testimony about Jesus, even to the point of death. Once the nations see that the church is not afraid of death, they repent and come to faith in God!
The rest of Revelation is a retelling of this point, with different emphases and imagery and details.
It’s so good!
P.S. The Seventh Trumpet
Just a quick word on the sounding of the seventh trumpet (Revelation 11:15-19). Remember, Revelation revisits the same events over and over, using different imagery to expand on a previous point. The seventh trumpet is The End—the last judgment. We’ve just read about the church fulfilling its purpose and seen the nations repent; now, heaven is coming to earth.
In later chapters we’ll get more details about the last judgment and what happens to those who refuse to repent, but here we just get the simple declaration:
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” [Revelation 11:15.]
Amen.