With my new Preterist understanding of scripture I am now filled with questions. One is, who are the two witnesses? The traditional dispy understanding is that they are Moses and Enoch because they supposedly did not die.

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Erick Bohndorf, Covenant Baptist Church, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
The question for us today is, will we be like the majority of Israel and continue to look in fear at the giants in the land and urge our fellow Christians to be "realistic," or will we be like Joshua and Caleb and faithfully follow our king, trusting to fulfill every one of his promises completely?

Maybe I'm showing my ignorance about a subject here, but I thought Moses did die.

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Andrew DeShazo, Deacon, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"All of us stumble in many ways, but if anyone is never at fault in what he says, then he is mature, able to control his whole body."(James 3:2)

I don't have an answer, but I grew up dispy and always heard a refutation of the belief that Enoch and Elijah (not Moses) were the two witnesses. They would say that the two witnesses seem to perform many of the miracles of Elijah (I would say, Elijah's God) but are not the same people.

*end of interruption*

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Kim G
Non-denom church (holds to the WCF)
Zion Community Church, Greenville, SC

Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
Psalm 86:11

The two witnesses are a symbol for the Church. There is a need for two witnesses for a credible witness against an offending party, and the Church stands, bearing a true witness of Christ against the world. Also, if you'll notice in 11:4, they are said to be the lamp stands, which should key your thoughts back to Rev. 1 where the universal, complete church is symbolized as the 7 lamp stands.

EDIT:

Art Azurdia III's sermons will help you out on this section of The Revelation:
The Vindication Of God's Witnesses - Part 1
The Vindication Of God's Witnesses - Part 2
The Vindication Of God's Witnesses - Part 3
The Vindication Of God's Witnesses - Part 4

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Jacob
Sovereign Grace Ministries
Covenant Fellowship Church
West Chester, PA

"Grace renews nature; glory perfects grace." ~ John Owen
Blog - The Strasbourg Inn

With Dispensationalists it's debatable as to who the two witnesses are. some hold to the view that the witnesses are Moses and Enoch. Others hold that it is Enoch and Elijah still others that it is two Jews in the Tribulation who are called and set apart by God to convert Jews and Gentiles. Then there is the whole argument as to the timing of when this is all spoused to happen. Some believe that it is during the first half of The Tribulation others the last half of The Tribulation but that's neither here nor there. I hold to the "two Jew" theory that it will be two Jews in the last half of The Tribulation before Christ returns. As far as who the two witnesses in Preterism in can be as far out as saying it is James and Peter others feel it was a group of christians or John The Baptist and Jesus.

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Aaron
Independent Baptist
Holland MI
Blog: earthdwell22.blogspot.com

Hannity and O'Reilly

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

^
chuckling...

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~ Steven Bradford ~
Member Covenant Presbyterian, Chattanooga, TN

Reeve and Muggleton:

From English Dissenters: Muggletonians

"According to the Book of Revelations, Chapter XI, in the latter days God would appoint "two witnesses" who will preach to an ungodly world in preparation for the beginning of the final days. Reeve and Muggleton were celebrated as the "two witnesses" according to their followers."

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Mike
London City Presbyterian Church
London
England

"Surely, we wish to be orthodox, but we must first learn what real orthodoxy is. Surely, we wish to be progressive, but we must first have a basis to progress from."

What about his greatness, Maha Rushie? Aseated atop his Attila the Hun chair?

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Erick Bohndorf, Covenant Baptist Church, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
The question for us today is, will we be like the majority of Israel and continue to look in fear at the giants in the land and urge our fellow Christians to be "realistic," or will we be like Joshua and Caleb and faithfully follow our king, trusting to fulfill every one of his promises completely?

That's my take on it. There are MANY things that I don't understand in Revelation, but that's one of the few things that has seemed pretty obvious to me for a long time.

When you take the view that scripture interprets scripture, I see attributing some sort of real-world individual identities to them as pure conjecture at best.

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Michael Mason (a.k.a. Dwimble)
Fort Worth PCA
Fort Worth, Texas
www.dwimble.com

The Word and the Sacraments is another view I've heard in addition to the Enoch and Elijah view.

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Seth Stark
Member, Communion Presbyterian Church (ARP), Irvine, CA
Biola University, Graduate Student, M.A. - Science and Religion
Seth's Blog

I do not believe the two witnesses are people but are in fact symbols of the church.

Rev 11.3: The church has been given authority to preach (prophesy) and clothed in sacklocth indicates that sorrow and repentance for sin (cf Mt 28.18-20; Mt 5.4)

Rev 11.4: The two witnesses are described as olive trees and lampstands. this I think indicates peace and illumination. The church is a peaceful society and as the light of the world (Mt 5.9, 14-16; Rev 1) is there to provide illumination thought the preaching of the word

Rev 11.5: The church is indestructable and we can see the end of all who would want to destroy the church (Mt 15.16; Song 6.4)

Rev 11.7-10: Satan is the enemy of the church and this manifests itself in human rebellion. Laws and social trends are all adopted by humanity to limit and restrict and even destroy the church. (Although Ps 2 relates a conspiracy against the Lords anointed, there is that same hatred of the true church) It also pictures the mood of the non-Christian when they perceive the church to be "dead" that is ineffective and irrelevent.

Rev 11.11: A great revival to look forward to. This shows the origin of true revival (cf Ezek 37)

Like most passages in Revelation interpreting it is fraught with problems but this is my basic understanding and based on the principle of scripture interpreting scripture.

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Stuart
Elder, Lambeg Baptist, Northern Ireland, UK

In Him the fulness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form and in Him you are complete (Col 2.9-10)

The sacrifice of a broken heart doth please Him but the sacrifice of a broken Christ alone doth satisfy Him (Richard Steele)

I had kind of gotten the impression that it referred to the church but had never heard anyone say that it was it could be.

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Erick Bohndorf, Covenant Baptist Church, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
The question for us today is, will we be like the majority of Israel and continue to look in fear at the giants in the land and urge our fellow Christians to be "realistic," or will we be like Joshua and Caleb and faithfully follow our king, trusting to fulfill every one of his promises completely?

I'm in no way disputing your answer but I must ask why then are there TWO witnesses when the church is only singular?

Ya' know, I've made this observation before but it is worth repeating: Reformed teaching is vastly different (and superior IMHO) in so many regards compared to what is typically preached and swallowed in "preaching" today.

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Donald P. Grubb
theol46@embarqmail.com

Berean Baptist Church, Mansfield, OH
Mansfield, OH

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

Where else are witnesses referred to in the scriptures? What do those passages say about witnesses? Where else are lampstands referred to? What is said about them there? Where else are olive trees referred to? What is said about them? In those places is the number two ever significant?

As a side note when considering Revelation...why are "Seven Spirits" and "Seven Spirits of God" mentioned multiple times? Do you think that means that there are actually seven spirits of God? Isn't God actually only one spirit?

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Michael Mason (a.k.a. Dwimble)
Fort Worth PCA
Fort Worth, Texas
www.dwimble.com

Interesting to note Isaiah 11:2...

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Seth Stark
Member, Communion Presbyterian Church (ARP), Irvine, CA
Biola University, Graduate Student, M.A. - Science and Religion
Seth's Blog

Good find. That illustrates my point very well.

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Michael Mason (a.k.a. Dwimble)
Fort Worth PCA
Fort Worth, Texas
www.dwimble.com

Forgive me if I am dense, but what am I missing here? Are you asking these Q's or are you answering mine?

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Donald P. Grubb
theol46@embarqmail.com

Berean Baptist Church, Mansfield, OH
Mansfield, OH

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

It is difficult to ignore the allusion to the letters to the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia in these two witnesses. The revelation of Christ to Smyrna is that He was dead and is alive; the witnesses die and live again. To Philadelphia He is said to shut and no man opens; the witnesses have power to shut heaven that it rain not. Both churches are plagued by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan; the witnesses prophesy after the temple is measured (the true people of God), and the court is given to be trampled by the Gentiles (Jews who are not). Smyrna must be faithful unto death; the beast of the bottomless pit overcomes the two witnesses and kills them. Philadelphia will have her enemies to come and worship before her feet and be kept from the hour of temptation coming on the world; the witnesses stood on their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them, and after they were ascended to heaven there was a great earthquake on earth. Such similarities suggest that the two witnesses are in fact an emblem of the faithful church maintaining the testimony of Jesus amidst faithless professors of Christ.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

That's very interesting. So then, you're not saying the two witnesses are Smyrna and Philadelphia, but (which is how I first read your comment), but a picture of the characteristics of the faithful church as exemplified by those two assemblies?

Am I understanding this correctly?

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Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
________________

"Whatever is laudable in our works proceeds from the grace of God."
-- John Calvin, Institutes III:xv.3.

"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
-- Martin Luther, Table Talk