I have no idea who the 2 witnesses are!
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Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
How many have the foggiest about this difficult passage? Possibly the law and the prophets i.e. the OT Scriptures. It looked like they were dead and buried with the end of the theocracy in the first century, but Christ "resurrected" them in the Gospel.
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Cymro
Puritan Board Junior
Rev 11 has to be connected with Zech 4. Zechariah was perplexed as to the 2 olive trees
either side of the candlestick, and asks what are these my Lord? 3 times he asks. In the context they are the
2 sons of oil. Oil represents the Holy Spirit flowing unpressed and gratuitously from the 2 olive branches.
The context shows that Zerubbabel and Joshua, the Civil ruler ( of royal descent)and the prophet /priest,
typify Christ in His 2 offices. Under the old Dispensation these offices were the possession of separate individuals.
But in Christ the 2offices are unified in one person. So Ch6, "He shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." The priest/king upon His throne. It is Christ who gives
the Spirit to the Church, He sends the Comforter. The 2 olive trees symbolise Zerubbabel and Joshua functioning
as typical of the offices of Christ. It is in this context that "not by might or by power" etc is to be understood.
In the New Testament , the olive tree represent the church. But Christ cannot be separated from His body, and it is
through the Church that He dispenses the gospel by the power of the Spirit. "Ye shall receive power after the Holy
Ghost shall come upon you, and ye shall be WITNESSES unto me." The NT is replete with references to witnessing.
So Zechariah is looking to the coming gospel times and seeing Christ ruling from His throne as Priest and King over
His people, and building not the Temple but the Church. And the church witnessing to His risen power. Some would
think that two witnesses represent the church of the OT and the NT, the doubling of the church being the combined
testimony of the Old and the New. I think also that this is referred to in the Song of Sol 6:13, " What will ye see in the Shulamite (the church)? As it were a company of two armies."
either side of the candlestick, and asks what are these my Lord? 3 times he asks. In the context they are the
2 sons of oil. Oil represents the Holy Spirit flowing unpressed and gratuitously from the 2 olive branches.
The context shows that Zerubbabel and Joshua, the Civil ruler ( of royal descent)and the prophet /priest,
typify Christ in His 2 offices. Under the old Dispensation these offices were the possession of separate individuals.
But in Christ the 2offices are unified in one person. So Ch6, "He shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." The priest/king upon His throne. It is Christ who gives
the Spirit to the Church, He sends the Comforter. The 2 olive trees symbolise Zerubbabel and Joshua functioning
as typical of the offices of Christ. It is in this context that "not by might or by power" etc is to be understood.
In the New Testament , the olive tree represent the church. But Christ cannot be separated from His body, and it is
through the Church that He dispenses the gospel by the power of the Spirit. "Ye shall receive power after the Holy
Ghost shall come upon you, and ye shall be WITNESSES unto me." The NT is replete with references to witnessing.
So Zechariah is looking to the coming gospel times and seeing Christ ruling from His throne as Priest and King over
His people, and building not the Temple but the Church. And the church witnessing to His risen power. Some would
think that two witnesses represent the church of the OT and the NT, the doubling of the church being the combined
testimony of the Old and the New. I think also that this is referred to in the Song of Sol 6:13, " What will ye see in the Shulamite (the church)? As it were a company of two armies."
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Perg, this is sort of a continuation of your other thread on Revelation 14 and the three angels. This passage on the two witnesses was one of the very last things I let go of as I was coming to the amillennial view from the premil.
When I was converted in 1968, the default understanding in all the churches and literature I came in contact with was premil. Billy Graham was the main voice in the general Christian community at that time, and he was dispensational. Also at that time, in the East Village in Lower Manhattan where I lived, there were a couple of young men who frequented the Christian scene there, both Reformed Baptists going to Al Martin’s Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, NJ. But we never really talked much; Greg Nichols and Paul Gordon, both of whom went on to become RB pastors, and Greg a prof of systematic theology at Reformed Baptist Seminary. If I had talked with these men in any depth I might have heard the Gospel as it was preached by Al Martin. But no.
So I continued as a default Dispensational under the influences of John Wesley and Charles Finney, but that’s a whole other terrible story! Yet the sovereign Lord put my ignominious failure to later manifest His glory.
Some years later, after the Lord had me enter into a Reformed experience and understanding of soteriology, I was meeting with a couple of Jewish pastors to discuss the significance of our being Jews on our theology and lives. At one of our meetings, these two men were going on about what would happen in the millennium when Jesus came back to rule the earth from Jerusalem and how the sacrifices would be reinstituted in the newly rebuilt temple. In a flash I realized how off the premil view was, and I asked them, “Haven’t you guys ever read the Epistle to the Hebrews?” One of them, a scholarly man, had a bunch of amil books, which I had him lend me, and I saw the wisdom of amillennialism. It was a long but glad journey.
The idea of two great prophets arising at the end of days, whether Moses and Elijah (the best choice, I thought), or Moses and Enoch, etc etc, the specificity of their miraculous and mighty ministry seemed to warrant two actual people. Some Dispensational books I’d gotten seemed to confirm that.
But that kind of interpretation didn’t jibe with the amil hermeneutic method I was learning. Eventually I started to understand. So much was clearly symbolic imagery; in chapter 10 with the great angel and the little book which was given John to eat, and the measuring of the temple and worshippers in chapter 11, and then the time frames of 42 months, 3½ years (or times, time, and half a time), and 1,260 days, and how they are used in chapters 12 and 13 are significant symbols – a brief article of mine on that. That article also goes a little into who the witnesses are.
But for clarity’s sake let me quote Wm Hendriksen a bit. After his making the point about the symbolism of the beginning of chapter 11, he says,
This point having been established, it is not difficult to grasp the meaning of the rest of the chapter. The true Church is now represented under the symbolism of two witnesses. These witnesses symbolize the Church militant bearing testimony through its ministers and missionaries throughout the present dispensation. The fact that there are two witnesses emphasizes the missionary task of the Church (cf. Lk 10:1). The Lord sends His missionaries two by two; what the one lacks the other supplies. Now the Church as an organization, functioning through its ministers and missionaries, will carry on this work for twelve hundred and sixty days. This is the period that extends from the moment of Christ’s ascension almost until the judgment day (cf. Rev 12:5,6,14). . . It is the period of affliction; the present gospel age.
. . . just as the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, Joshua and Zerubbabel. . . (cf. Zec 4), represented the offices through which God blessed Israel, so throughout the gospel era He blesses His Church through the offices, that is, through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. (More Than Conquerors, p 129)
Dennis Johnson (Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation) also speaks well on this:
The Two Witnesses: Invincible Even in Defeat (11:3-13)
The One who gave John the rod now tacitly identifies himself as Jesus, who gives prophetic authority to “my two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3). In Revelation, as elsewhere in the New Testament, Christians are Jesus’ witnesses (martys; 2:13, 17:6), entrusted with the testimony (martyria) of Jesus (1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4), for he is the faithful witness (1:5). These two witnesses are prophets who bear a message of impending judgment and a call to repentance, as their sackcloth apparel shows (Isa. 37:1-2; Jonah 3:5; Matt. 11:21). They are portrayed as wielding the power to inflict miraculous signs of judgment after the pattern of Moses (water turned to blood and other plagues, Exod. 7-9) and Elijah (shutting up the sky, causing drought, 1 Kings 17:1; and destroying threatening enemies by fire, 2 Kings 1:10-12). They are two in number for two reasons. First, they satisfy the quorum needed to establish reliable evidence in biblical jurisprudence: “on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed” (Deut. 19:15; cf. Matt. 18:16; 1 Tim. 5:19). Second, they are portrayed in the imagery of Zechariah’s vision of the lampstand supplied with oil by two olive trees in the sanctuary of God (Zech. 4). (Again the imagery of the ancient prophet’s vision is modified as its symbolic vocabulary is employed in the revelation to John: Zechariah’s one lampstand has become two in Revelation 11:4.) To Zechariah the olive trees are interpreted as “the two anointed ones, who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth” (Zech.4:14). The context suggests that these are Zerubbabel, the royal figure who is to rebuild God’s temple (Zech.4:6-10), and Joshua, the priest who is to lead worship in that temple (Zech. 3:1-5). Both prefigure the coming Servant of God, the Branch who will unite the royal and priestly offices by building the temple, offering the atoning sacrifice, and ruling on his throne (Zech. 3:8-10; 6:12-13). Thus the two witnesses are explicitly presented as prophets, while the allusion to Zechariah’s olive trees implies that they are also kings and priests.
Since we have already seen the church portrayed as priests who reign (Rev. 5:10), we may suspect that these two witnesses symbolize the whole church in its role as witness to God’s truth and against the world’s lies and wickedness. Our suspicion is confirmed by further evidence: The description of the witnesses’ death so closely foreshadows a later statement that the two texts must concern the same protagonists:
In both texts the beast “makes war with” God’s faithful followers and “overcomes” them. In both contexts note is taken of the fact that people from the world’s “peoples and tribes and tongues and nations” support the beast in his aggression against God’s representatives (11:9; 13:7). The beast’s victory cannot be a spiritual and eternal one, for God soon vindicates the two witnesses. . .
The time period in which the two witnesses carry on their prophetic proclamation is symbolized in a way that equates it with the whole span of the dragon’s aggressive but frustrated attempts to eradicate the church from earth. (pp 169-171)
It’s too late now for me to continue, but I think you get the idea of the amil view. Very interesting is the vision of the two witnesses, after they have been killed (in the finale of the battle against them) and their corpses left to lie in the open, unburied, and after three and a half days (a very short time),
the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them (Rev 11:11-12).
Is this not the true vision of what has been called the rapture?
When I was converted in 1968, the default understanding in all the churches and literature I came in contact with was premil. Billy Graham was the main voice in the general Christian community at that time, and he was dispensational. Also at that time, in the East Village in Lower Manhattan where I lived, there were a couple of young men who frequented the Christian scene there, both Reformed Baptists going to Al Martin’s Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, NJ. But we never really talked much; Greg Nichols and Paul Gordon, both of whom went on to become RB pastors, and Greg a prof of systematic theology at Reformed Baptist Seminary. If I had talked with these men in any depth I might have heard the Gospel as it was preached by Al Martin. But no.
So I continued as a default Dispensational under the influences of John Wesley and Charles Finney, but that’s a whole other terrible story! Yet the sovereign Lord put my ignominious failure to later manifest His glory.
Some years later, after the Lord had me enter into a Reformed experience and understanding of soteriology, I was meeting with a couple of Jewish pastors to discuss the significance of our being Jews on our theology and lives. At one of our meetings, these two men were going on about what would happen in the millennium when Jesus came back to rule the earth from Jerusalem and how the sacrifices would be reinstituted in the newly rebuilt temple. In a flash I realized how off the premil view was, and I asked them, “Haven’t you guys ever read the Epistle to the Hebrews?” One of them, a scholarly man, had a bunch of amil books, which I had him lend me, and I saw the wisdom of amillennialism. It was a long but glad journey.
The idea of two great prophets arising at the end of days, whether Moses and Elijah (the best choice, I thought), or Moses and Enoch, etc etc, the specificity of their miraculous and mighty ministry seemed to warrant two actual people. Some Dispensational books I’d gotten seemed to confirm that.
But that kind of interpretation didn’t jibe with the amil hermeneutic method I was learning. Eventually I started to understand. So much was clearly symbolic imagery; in chapter 10 with the great angel and the little book which was given John to eat, and the measuring of the temple and worshippers in chapter 11, and then the time frames of 42 months, 3½ years (or times, time, and half a time), and 1,260 days, and how they are used in chapters 12 and 13 are significant symbols – a brief article of mine on that. That article also goes a little into who the witnesses are.
But for clarity’s sake let me quote Wm Hendriksen a bit. After his making the point about the symbolism of the beginning of chapter 11, he says,
This point having been established, it is not difficult to grasp the meaning of the rest of the chapter. The true Church is now represented under the symbolism of two witnesses. These witnesses symbolize the Church militant bearing testimony through its ministers and missionaries throughout the present dispensation. The fact that there are two witnesses emphasizes the missionary task of the Church (cf. Lk 10:1). The Lord sends His missionaries two by two; what the one lacks the other supplies. Now the Church as an organization, functioning through its ministers and missionaries, will carry on this work for twelve hundred and sixty days. This is the period that extends from the moment of Christ’s ascension almost until the judgment day (cf. Rev 12:5,6,14). . . It is the period of affliction; the present gospel age.
. . . just as the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, Joshua and Zerubbabel. . . (cf. Zec 4), represented the offices through which God blessed Israel, so throughout the gospel era He blesses His Church through the offices, that is, through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. (More Than Conquerors, p 129)
Dennis Johnson (Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation) also speaks well on this:
The Two Witnesses: Invincible Even in Defeat (11:3-13)
The One who gave John the rod now tacitly identifies himself as Jesus, who gives prophetic authority to “my two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3). In Revelation, as elsewhere in the New Testament, Christians are Jesus’ witnesses (martys; 2:13, 17:6), entrusted with the testimony (martyria) of Jesus (1:2, 9; 12:17; 19:10; 20:4), for he is the faithful witness (1:5). These two witnesses are prophets who bear a message of impending judgment and a call to repentance, as their sackcloth apparel shows (Isa. 37:1-2; Jonah 3:5; Matt. 11:21). They are portrayed as wielding the power to inflict miraculous signs of judgment after the pattern of Moses (water turned to blood and other plagues, Exod. 7-9) and Elijah (shutting up the sky, causing drought, 1 Kings 17:1; and destroying threatening enemies by fire, 2 Kings 1:10-12). They are two in number for two reasons. First, they satisfy the quorum needed to establish reliable evidence in biblical jurisprudence: “on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed” (Deut. 19:15; cf. Matt. 18:16; 1 Tim. 5:19). Second, they are portrayed in the imagery of Zechariah’s vision of the lampstand supplied with oil by two olive trees in the sanctuary of God (Zech. 4). (Again the imagery of the ancient prophet’s vision is modified as its symbolic vocabulary is employed in the revelation to John: Zechariah’s one lampstand has become two in Revelation 11:4.) To Zechariah the olive trees are interpreted as “the two anointed ones, who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth” (Zech.4:14). The context suggests that these are Zerubbabel, the royal figure who is to rebuild God’s temple (Zech.4:6-10), and Joshua, the priest who is to lead worship in that temple (Zech. 3:1-5). Both prefigure the coming Servant of God, the Branch who will unite the royal and priestly offices by building the temple, offering the atoning sacrifice, and ruling on his throne (Zech. 3:8-10; 6:12-13). Thus the two witnesses are explicitly presented as prophets, while the allusion to Zechariah’s olive trees implies that they are also kings and priests.
Since we have already seen the church portrayed as priests who reign (Rev. 5:10), we may suspect that these two witnesses symbolize the whole church in its role as witness to God’s truth and against the world’s lies and wickedness. Our suspicion is confirmed by further evidence: The description of the witnesses’ death so closely foreshadows a later statement that the two texts must concern the same protagonists:
11:7 the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and shall overcome them and kill them
17:7 And it was given to [the beast that comes up out of the sea, 13:1] to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
17:7 And it was given to [the beast that comes up out of the sea, 13:1] to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
In both texts the beast “makes war with” God’s faithful followers and “overcomes” them. In both contexts note is taken of the fact that people from the world’s “peoples and tribes and tongues and nations” support the beast in his aggression against God’s representatives (11:9; 13:7). The beast’s victory cannot be a spiritual and eternal one, for God soon vindicates the two witnesses. . .
The time period in which the two witnesses carry on their prophetic proclamation is symbolized in a way that equates it with the whole span of the dragon’s aggressive but frustrated attempts to eradicate the church from earth. (pp 169-171)
It’s too late now for me to continue, but I think you get the idea of the amil view. Very interesting is the vision of the two witnesses, after they have been killed (in the finale of the battle against them) and their corpses left to lie in the open, unburied, and after three and a half days (a very short time),
the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them (Rev 11:11-12).
Is this not the true vision of what has been called the rapture?
Ask Mr. Religion
Flatly Unflappable
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Great quote, Patrick – thanks! By the way, did you type all that, or do you have Beale's book in digital format?
J.Paton24May1824
Puritan Board Freshman
Jewish tradition expected Moses and Elijah to return. Malachi 4:5 speaks of Elijah returning. The Jews think that God's promise to raise up a prophet like Moses is speaking of perhaps him returning. Plus Elijah never died and Moses was buried in a secret location.
In any case, the two witnesses are "the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth." Rev.11:4. They will preach for 1260 days, the last 3 1/2 yrs of the trib.
In any case, the two witnesses are "the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth." Rev.11:4. They will preach for 1260 days, the last 3 1/2 yrs of the trib.
Ask Mr. Religion
Flatly Unflappable
I have Beale in my Logos collection. Whew!
Ask Mr. Religion
Flatly Unflappable
Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Hello Paul – welcome to PuritanBoard!
When you say of the two witnesses / two olive trees / two lampstands that “They will preach for 1260 days, the last 3 1/2 yrs of the trib.”, it sounds like you are interpreting the passage literally, as it would be done in the Dispensational interpretive method – am I right in understanding you thus?
Patrick, as indebted to Dr. Beale as I am, I don’t follow him in every detail, and Rev 11:11-12 is one of them. He sees the identical language – “Come up hither” – of Rev 4:1-2 and 11:12, where in the former John’s prophetic ministry was confirmed by his being brought into heaven, and says that this is the same for the two witnesses – and not meant to indicate an actual resurrection / rapture of the church – this is meant to vindicate the witnesses’ (the church’s) prophetic ministry before their enemies. He ends it rather weakly, in my view, when he says, “In what exact way God vindicates the witnesses before the world is not clear in the text itself. But the point of the narrative is not the precise form of vindication but the revelation that the witnesses are God’s true spokesmen” (p 600).
I hold instead – in this instance – with the commentators I quote below:
From William Hendriksen (More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation):
This gospel age is, however, going to come to an end (cf. Mt. 24:14). The Church, as a mighty missionary organization, shall finish its testimony. The beast that comes up out of the abyss, that is, the antichristian world, urged on by hell, shall battle against the Church and shall destroy it. This is the Battle of Harmagedon. The beast will not kill every believer. There are going to be believers on earth when Christ comes again, although they will be few in number (Lk. 18:8). But the Church itself, as a mighty organization for the dissemination of the gospel and regular ministry of the Word, will be destroyed. By way of illustration, think of conditions in Communist China at the present time; to be sure, there are sincere believers in Communist China, but where is the powerful, official, unhindered and public proclamation and dissemination of the gospel? And is not this condition spreading to other countries? Thus, just before the second coming, the corpse of the Church, whose public and official testimony has been silenced and smothered by the world, lies on the great city’s High Street. This is the High Street of immoral and antichristian Jerusalem. Jerusalem crucified the Lord. Because of its immorality and persecution of the saints it has become, spiritually, like Sodom and Egypt (cf. Is. 1:10; 3:9; Jer. 23:14; Ezk. 16:46). It has become the symbol of Babylon and of the immoral and antichristian world. So when we read that the corpse of the Church is lying on the broad avenues of the great city [fn: The term ‘great city’ always refers to Babylon and never to the New and Holy Jerusalem], this simply means that in the midst of the world the Church is dead: it no longer exists as an influential and powerful missionary institution! Its leaders have been slaughtered; its voice has been silenced. This condition lasts three days and a half, which is a very brief time (Mt. 24:22; cf. Rev. 20:7-9). The world does not even allow the dead bodies of the witnesses to be buried. In the High Street lie these corpses, exposed to insects, birds, and dogs. The world has a grand picnic: it celebrates. People send each other presents and gloat over these witnesses (cf. Est. 9:22).
Their word will not torment them any more. Foolish world! Its joy is premature.
The corpse suddenly begins to stir; the breath of life from God has entered onto it; the witnesses stand upon their feet. In connection with Christ’s second coming the Church is restored to life, to honour, to power, to influence. For the world the hour of opportunity is gone, and gone forever. On the day of judgment when the world shall see the Church restored to honour and glory, the world will become frozen with fear. The Church—still under the symbolism of the two witnesses—now hears a voice, ‘Come up hither’. Thereupon the Church ascends to heaven in a cloud of glory. ‘And their enemies beheld them.’ This is no secret rapture! (pp 130-131)
From Michael Wilcock (The Message of Revelation):
It may not be altogether fanciful to see in the church’s experience a reflection of Christ’s experience, in his three days of death following three years of ministry, since his place of suffering is explicitly identified with hers (Rev 11:8). The city where their corpses lie exposed to public gaze is no more literal than the rest. . .
. . . Scripture does seem to envisage a time (this is the first clear indication of it in Revelation) when at the very end of history an unexampled onslaught will be mounted against the church, and she will to all appearance ‘go under’. Paul speaks of it as ‘the rebellion’, the coming of ‘the man of lawlessness’ (2 Thes. 2:3), and Christ hints at it in Matthew 24:11 f., 24. We shall hear more of it, and of the Beast who initiates it (verse7), in chapter 20. But it will be brief; and at the end of it the church will rise again to meet its Lord, and the world in confusion will at last give worship to its Maker, not the willing worship of love but the grudging worship of compulsion. For the warnings have been in vain. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Scene 2 showed how the church will suffer, yet be indestructible; Scene 3 now shows how the world will be warned, yet be unrepentant. (pp 106-107)
Although this view – that Rev 11:11-12 shows the resurrection of the church to be with the Lord – differs from Beale’s view, one should know how highly Beale holds Hendriksen and Wilcock; on page 49 of Beale’s own Revelation commentary, he says,
The present commentary fits most within the overall interpretive framework of such past commentators as Caird, Johnson, Sweet, and above all Hendriksen and Wilcock.
Lastly, I shall briefly quote from Dennis E. Johnson (Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation),
The two witnesses cannot be destroyed as long as their prophetic mission remains incomplete. . . When the witness church has completed its mission, however, it will seem as if the beast has had the upper hand, having conquered and killed those who hold to the world of God and the testimony of Jesus. . .
“Those who dwell on the earth,” who rejected the two witnesses’ call to repentance, will celebrate contemptuously the demise of the church and its testimony to truth (Rev. 11:8-10). But the duration of the beast’s apparent triumph will be brief (3½ days) in contrast to the prolonged period (3½ years) of the suffering church’s faithful testimony. God intervenes to raise his witnesses from death as “the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet” like the mighty resurrected army in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of bones (Rev. 11:11; Ezek. 37:10). As their oppressors look on in terror, the witnesses are summoned by God to enter heaven, imitating their Lord’s resurrection and ascension in the clouds (Rev. 11:12; cf. Acts 1:9; Dan. 7:13; Matt. 26:64; Rev. 12:5). (pp 172-173)
[end commentators]
-----------
This scene of the witnesses being caught up is very similar to these two below:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (2 Thess 4:16-17).
and,
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Cor 15:51-52).
As can be seen in Rev 11:15, this is also the time of the “last [seventh] trump”, and is not this the shout of the Lord when He descends from heaven, “Come up hither”?
I think this scene, where the witnesses are slain, and the Lord comes down to rescue and vindicate them, and executes fiery vengeance on their killers, is shown again in Rev 20:7-9,
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
This phenomena of recapitulated visions of both the entire NT church age – from differing angles – and also the very end of the age, is remarkable. We see this in the brief cameo of Rev 17:14, and also the great battle of Rev 19:11-21.
Note: When Hendriksen wrote his commentary in 1940 (first edition), things were different in China; for a while they got better, but now there is again a strong wave of oppression against the unregistered churches. Yet this underground church keeps growing! And the oppression keeps growing.
When you say of the two witnesses / two olive trees / two lampstands that “They will preach for 1260 days, the last 3 1/2 yrs of the trib.”, it sounds like you are interpreting the passage literally, as it would be done in the Dispensational interpretive method – am I right in understanding you thus?
Patrick, as indebted to Dr. Beale as I am, I don’t follow him in every detail, and Rev 11:11-12 is one of them. He sees the identical language – “Come up hither” – of Rev 4:1-2 and 11:12, where in the former John’s prophetic ministry was confirmed by his being brought into heaven, and says that this is the same for the two witnesses – and not meant to indicate an actual resurrection / rapture of the church – this is meant to vindicate the witnesses’ (the church’s) prophetic ministry before their enemies. He ends it rather weakly, in my view, when he says, “In what exact way God vindicates the witnesses before the world is not clear in the text itself. But the point of the narrative is not the precise form of vindication but the revelation that the witnesses are God’s true spokesmen” (p 600).
I hold instead – in this instance – with the commentators I quote below:
From William Hendriksen (More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation):
This gospel age is, however, going to come to an end (cf. Mt. 24:14). The Church, as a mighty missionary organization, shall finish its testimony. The beast that comes up out of the abyss, that is, the antichristian world, urged on by hell, shall battle against the Church and shall destroy it. This is the Battle of Harmagedon. The beast will not kill every believer. There are going to be believers on earth when Christ comes again, although they will be few in number (Lk. 18:8). But the Church itself, as a mighty organization for the dissemination of the gospel and regular ministry of the Word, will be destroyed. By way of illustration, think of conditions in Communist China at the present time; to be sure, there are sincere believers in Communist China, but where is the powerful, official, unhindered and public proclamation and dissemination of the gospel? And is not this condition spreading to other countries? Thus, just before the second coming, the corpse of the Church, whose public and official testimony has been silenced and smothered by the world, lies on the great city’s High Street. This is the High Street of immoral and antichristian Jerusalem. Jerusalem crucified the Lord. Because of its immorality and persecution of the saints it has become, spiritually, like Sodom and Egypt (cf. Is. 1:10; 3:9; Jer. 23:14; Ezk. 16:46). It has become the symbol of Babylon and of the immoral and antichristian world. So when we read that the corpse of the Church is lying on the broad avenues of the great city [fn: The term ‘great city’ always refers to Babylon and never to the New and Holy Jerusalem], this simply means that in the midst of the world the Church is dead: it no longer exists as an influential and powerful missionary institution! Its leaders have been slaughtered; its voice has been silenced. This condition lasts three days and a half, which is a very brief time (Mt. 24:22; cf. Rev. 20:7-9). The world does not even allow the dead bodies of the witnesses to be buried. In the High Street lie these corpses, exposed to insects, birds, and dogs. The world has a grand picnic: it celebrates. People send each other presents and gloat over these witnesses (cf. Est. 9:22).
Their word will not torment them any more. Foolish world! Its joy is premature.
The corpse suddenly begins to stir; the breath of life from God has entered onto it; the witnesses stand upon their feet. In connection with Christ’s second coming the Church is restored to life, to honour, to power, to influence. For the world the hour of opportunity is gone, and gone forever. On the day of judgment when the world shall see the Church restored to honour and glory, the world will become frozen with fear. The Church—still under the symbolism of the two witnesses—now hears a voice, ‘Come up hither’. Thereupon the Church ascends to heaven in a cloud of glory. ‘And their enemies beheld them.’ This is no secret rapture! (pp 130-131)
From Michael Wilcock (The Message of Revelation):
It may not be altogether fanciful to see in the church’s experience a reflection of Christ’s experience, in his three days of death following three years of ministry, since his place of suffering is explicitly identified with hers (Rev 11:8). The city where their corpses lie exposed to public gaze is no more literal than the rest. . .
. . . Scripture does seem to envisage a time (this is the first clear indication of it in Revelation) when at the very end of history an unexampled onslaught will be mounted against the church, and she will to all appearance ‘go under’. Paul speaks of it as ‘the rebellion’, the coming of ‘the man of lawlessness’ (2 Thes. 2:3), and Christ hints at it in Matthew 24:11 f., 24. We shall hear more of it, and of the Beast who initiates it (verse7), in chapter 20. But it will be brief; and at the end of it the church will rise again to meet its Lord, and the world in confusion will at last give worship to its Maker, not the willing worship of love but the grudging worship of compulsion. For the warnings have been in vain. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Scene 2 showed how the church will suffer, yet be indestructible; Scene 3 now shows how the world will be warned, yet be unrepentant. (pp 106-107)
Although this view – that Rev 11:11-12 shows the resurrection of the church to be with the Lord – differs from Beale’s view, one should know how highly Beale holds Hendriksen and Wilcock; on page 49 of Beale’s own Revelation commentary, he says,
The present commentary fits most within the overall interpretive framework of such past commentators as Caird, Johnson, Sweet, and above all Hendriksen and Wilcock.
Lastly, I shall briefly quote from Dennis E. Johnson (Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation),
The two witnesses cannot be destroyed as long as their prophetic mission remains incomplete. . . When the witness church has completed its mission, however, it will seem as if the beast has had the upper hand, having conquered and killed those who hold to the world of God and the testimony of Jesus. . .
“Those who dwell on the earth,” who rejected the two witnesses’ call to repentance, will celebrate contemptuously the demise of the church and its testimony to truth (Rev. 11:8-10). But the duration of the beast’s apparent triumph will be brief (3½ days) in contrast to the prolonged period (3½ years) of the suffering church’s faithful testimony. God intervenes to raise his witnesses from death as “the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet” like the mighty resurrected army in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of bones (Rev. 11:11; Ezek. 37:10). As their oppressors look on in terror, the witnesses are summoned by God to enter heaven, imitating their Lord’s resurrection and ascension in the clouds (Rev. 11:12; cf. Acts 1:9; Dan. 7:13; Matt. 26:64; Rev. 12:5). (pp 172-173)
[end commentators]
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This scene of the witnesses being caught up is very similar to these two below:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (2 Thess 4:16-17).
and,
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Cor 15:51-52).
As can be seen in Rev 11:15, this is also the time of the “last [seventh] trump”, and is not this the shout of the Lord when He descends from heaven, “Come up hither”?
I think this scene, where the witnesses are slain, and the Lord comes down to rescue and vindicate them, and executes fiery vengeance on their killers, is shown again in Rev 20:7-9,
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
This phenomena of recapitulated visions of both the entire NT church age – from differing angles – and also the very end of the age, is remarkable. We see this in the brief cameo of Rev 17:14, and also the great battle of Rev 19:11-21.
Note: When Hendriksen wrote his commentary in 1940 (first edition), things were different in China; for a while they got better, but now there is again a strong wave of oppression against the unregistered churches. Yet this underground church keeps growing! And the oppression keeps growing.
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