Two Witnesses

Revelation 11 (CET)

The Two Witnesses

1An angel gave me a measuring stick and said:
Measure around God's temple. Be sure to include the altar and everyone worshiping there. 2But don't measure the courtyard outside the temple building. Leave it out. It has been given to those people who don't know God, and they will trample all over the holy city for forty-two months.

It is disputed as to the exact date John's Apocalypse was written. If it was 95AD, it would be written AFTER the fall of the Jewish temple by 25 years. However, to the credit of the preterist argument, this still probably refers to the Jewish temple and people. Also, Revelation is an example of "Jewish Apocalyptic Literature," as was Daniel, the book that is connected umbilically to Revelation. So the Jewish explanation and the fall of the Temple is, for me, the most compelling argument.

3My two witnesses will wear sackcloth, while I let them preach for one thousand two hundred sixty days. 4These two witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand in the presence of the Lord who rules the earth. 5Any enemy who tries to harm them will be destroyed by the fire that comes out of their mouths. 6They have the power to lock up the sky and to keep rain from falling while they are prophesying. And whenever they want to, they can turn water to blood and cause all kinds of terrible troubles on earth.

If my analysis above is true, then this reference to Zechariah 14 would likely refer to the Jewish people who actually had been split into two kingdoms. The 1,260 days (times, time, and a half) would be symbolic of Jewish history from Abraham to Jesus. During those two centuries, the two greatest prophets were Moses and Elijah who performed the miracles mentioned here: lock the sky, turn water to blood. So while this statement sounds future (written in the future tense, a Jewish apocalypse tool), it is really about the past. We are looking back on the Jewish Age.

7After the two witnesses have finished preaching God's message, the beast that lives in the deep pit will come up and fight against them. It will win the battle and kill them. 8Their bodies will be left lying in the streets of the same great city where their Lord was nailed to a cross. And that city is spiritually like the city of Sodom or the country of Egypt.

The obvious meaning of "the Beast" here is the Roman Empire. The exact reference is the fulfillment of Jesus's prophecy that the Temple would be razed in Matthew 21:
2Jesus replied, "Do you see these buildings? They will certainly be torn down! Not one stone will be left in place."

3Later, as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him in private and asked, "When will this happen? What will be the sign of your coming (disclosure, parousia) and of the end of the world (Jewish age)?"

Continuing Revelation 11:
9For three and a half days the people of every nation, tribe, language, and race will stare at the bodies of these two witnesses and refuse to let them be buried. 10Everyone on earth will celebrate and be happy. They will give gifts to each other, because of what happened to the two prophets who caused them so much trouble. 11But three and a half days later, God will breathe life into their bodies. They will stand up, and everyone who sees them will be terrified.

We're back, here, to allegorical or symbolic language, which permeates the entire book. There was probably celebration in the Roman Empire at the fall of the Jewish nation. Verse 11 is a little more malleable. If the Jewish nation was a precursor of the goyim regenerated through the Spirit, then the Jewish religion was not ended, it was transformed into a new or transcendent revelation. Futurists and partial-preterists might say this is a reference to the Jews returning to Israel in the 20th century.

12The witnesses then heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, "Come up here." And while their enemies were watching, they were taken up to heaven in a cloud. 13At that same moment there was a terrible earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were frightened and praised the God who rules in heaven.

Futurists and dispensationalists use the "Come up here" as a reference to the idea of "rapture" or "catching away" of the saints discussed elsewhere in this blog. I would have to lean to using this as symbolic language for the transformation of the Jewish religion to the new paradigm of life in Christ who is "heaven." (He said so.) The "cloud" is not literal here, or else it is not only literal. It is symbolic of the spiritual dwelling that is in Christ. We are lifted-up or snatched-up into the new disclosure or revelation that is launched through Christ.

Jesus was witnessed in Acts 1 as rising into the clouds and the angels announcing, "He will return in this same manner." This is likely where we get the popularization of the idea of this event referring to the "Second Coming," which is not specifically stated anywhere in the Bible. The word translated "coming" is parousia, and "coming" is a theological insertion in translations, missing what is likely the more sensible meaning of the Greek word, which is disclosure. So the 70AD destruction of Jerusalem is symbolic of a transitional "age-change" from the Jewish age to the age of Christ. I see no compelling evidence to say that the idea of a future "return of Christ" is not scriptural; but this is the closest meaning of the events described in Revelation 11, that the end of the Jewish age would be the dawn of the Christ age. But I am also still open to the NT suggesting more than this, including the future resurrection of mankind.