MidnightWatcher's Blogspot

Darrell, “If we look at this as symbolic representation, rather than two individuals, we see that all will have power over rain, waters, and to smite with plague…seems a little vague concerning the events that Revelation describes unfolding.”

Hi Darrell. I’ll take a bit of the scenic route, but in doing so let’s approach this with the understanding that the book of “Revelation” is the revealing of Jesus Christ, Yeshua the Messiah. He is the central focus of the entire book.

Now, first, we know that the two witnesses are not two individual men because John says in Revelation 4 that they are the “the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.” In fact, the text doesn’t even call them “men” at all (the NIV in Rev 11:6 uses the word “men”, but it is not in the original Greek). The word for “standing” in verse 4 is “histemi” and it means that the “two witnesses” are being steadfast and standing firm in the Lord.

When some passages are difficult we need to let Scripture interpret Scripture. Since John calls them the “two olive trees and two lampstands” and not “men”, what does Scripture have to say about this symbolism? What could it mean? Let’s have a look at Zechariah, who writes an interesting passage concerning both the olive tree and the lamp stand in the same context:

Zechariah 4:2-3,11-14, “And he said to me, ‘What do you see?’ So I said, ‘I am looking, and there [is] a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the [stand] seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. ‘Two olive trees [are] by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.’ … Then I answered and said to him, ‘What [are] these two olive trees–at the right of the lampstand and at its left?’ And I further answered and said to him, ‘What [are these] two olive branches that [drip] into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden [oil] drains?’ Then he answered me and said, ‘Do you not know what these [are]?’ And I said, ‘No, my lord.’ So he said, ‘These [are] the two anointed ones, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.'”

Notice how the olive trees drip oil into the lampstands. Without oil from the olive tree a lampstand will be, for all intents and purposes, little more than a useless lampstand because oil is its source of light. Without the oil, there is only darkness. Now here is something that I find illuminating. David writes, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalms 119:105). “The entrance of Your words gives light” (Psalms 119:130a). Isaiah says, “Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark” (Isa 8:20 NLT). This suggests to me that the oil from the olive trees — the source of light for the lampstands — represents the Word of God. (Consider Psalm 23 and think about David’s words when he writes, “thou anointest my head with oil” and how much more meaningful this is in light of what the head and oil represents).

In Revelation 1:20 John tells us that “the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches”. The lampstands represent the church or churches, and the olive trees — which represents believing Israel (Romans 11) — are feeding the lampstands with oil. In John 5:39 Jesus says, “Search the scriptures … they are they which testify of me.” The New Testament wasn’t written at that time, and He obviously meant the Old Testament texts. A whole entire study could be done on how and why Jesus (Yeshua, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Aleph and the Tav) is proclaimed all throughout the Old Testament, but suffice to say, He is fulfillment of the old Law and is the Messiah whom the prophets spoke of. Not only that, He is the Word of God manifested in the flesh, for “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” (John 1:1,14). “His name is called The Word of God” (Rev 19:13b). The oil — the Word of God, the manifested Messiah — is “the light of the world” and the “light of life” (John 8:12), and therefore the source of light for the lampstands as well as believing Israel who looked forward to the Promises (cf Heb 11:13). And as Paul is clear to inform us, both believing Jew and believing Gentile together (the two olive trees and two lampstands) are now built up as the ekklesia of God, His spiritual temple. (Also notice how the very beginning of Revelation 11 refers to this temple and describes the “holy city” trampled under foot for 42 months).

(So in Zechariah 4 we learn about the “Ekklesia” which is the Bride of Christ, then in Zechariah 5 we read about a wicked “woman“, who symbolizes the Whore of Babylon, referred to in modern language as the “Ummah“).

Now, to your question specifically, what could it mean that fire comes out of their mouths to destroy their enemies, or that they have the power to shut heaven, turn water into blood, and strike the earth with plagues? One argument could be made that this could be referring to the military might of the Judeo-Christian West in the Middle East. Israel and America, for example, are the mightiest militaries in the world and have never been defeated/destroyed, much to the chagrin and deep dismay of the Islamic world which seeks their destruction or subjection by the religion and ideology of the Beast. They indeed issue commands “out of their mouths” and launch military campaigns with pin-pointed, targeted strikes using smart missiles. In fact, the word for “plagues” in Rev 11:6 is “plēgē” and it doesn’t necessarily mean some sort of disease or pestilence. It refers to an afflicting blow, a calamity, a strike, which is what we see during warfare. As for “shutting heaven”, even Ahmadinejad has accused the west of shutting the sky so that it does not rain – read here.

Another argument could be made that this simply harkens back to the Law (Moses turned water into blood) and the prophets (Elijah shut up the heavens – cf Luke 4:25 where Jesus says, “But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land”). That is for you to decide, or if its something else entirely. But the bottom line is undeniable, in my opinion. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law (Matt 5:17), and the prophets prophesied of Him (both His coming in a manger, and His Second Coming in power and great glory). In my view “the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth” have nothing to do with two mere men. They represent the ekklesia of God which stands firm in the faith of Jesus Christ (Rev 14:12).

Luke 24:44,48, “Then He said to them, ‘These [are] the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and [the] Prophets and [the] Psalms concerning Me … And you are witnesses of these things.'”

Darrell, “clearly these are resurrected and caught away, well before the sounding of the seventh trumpet, as we see that following this event there is an earthquake (granted it is the same hour [figurative?]), the (10th part of) city falls and seven thousand slain, and then…the second woe is declared finished. And not only that, but, the third woe is said…to be coming, not to have begun, at this point.”

There are “three woes” that befall Antichrist and his people:

First Woe: A period of “5 months” when “locusts” torment them (Rev 9:1-5). Not only will the people of the beast be tormented, they will “seek death” but will be unable to find it. Perhaps this could be referring to martyrdom in the cause of Allah but they are unable to do so because of their torment, or they are unable to wage any successful terror attacks that kill the intended targets. See here, for example.

Second Woe: Four angels that are loosed to kill 1/3 of Antichrist’s men (Rev 9:15) with the plagues of “fire, and smoke and brimstone” (9:17). The English text says “to slay the third part of men” or “mankind”, but I believe that this is referring to those of the Beast only and not the entire literal earth because they are the focus of the trumpet/bowls of wrath – those who “have not the seal of God”; cf. Rev 16:2 – “upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image”; 16:6 – those who have “shed the blood of saints and prophets”; 16:10 – “upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness”), yet despite these judgments all of them refuse to repent (Rev 9:20-21).

Third Woe: This is the Day of the Lord and is the “orge” wrath of God. The third woe happens during the blowing of the Seventh Trumpet, however the “gathering” of the elect is immediate when this trumpet begins, thus “the third woe cometh quickly” (Rev 11:14). Rev 10:7a, “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound [the last trumpet], the mystery of God should be finished …” (cf 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, “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.”) There is no indication as to how long this trumpet blast will last, but after we are “raptured” the time will then soon come for the third woe: the destruction of the armies that come up against Israel, the complete downfall of the Antichrist kingdom, the utter decimation of the first and second Beasts, and the restoration of all things.

LikeLike

Agreed. And one more point I think that should be made here is that although both believing Jew and believing Gentile together are the ekklesia of God and have been created as “one new man” in Christ, the reason why John describes them as “two witnesses” here may be because — in light of the importance of what you have described above — the angel gave John a vision of two olive trees and two lampstands. One olive tree and one lampstand is one witness. But there are two of each, and therefore two witnesses.

The Holy Spirit seems to be making the same point here through John that He made through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:

Ephesians 2:13-16, 19-22, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, [that is], the law of commandments [contained] in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man [from] the two, [thus] making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity… Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner[stone], in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

LikeLike

Hi Willard, Revelation 11:6 doesn’t refer to them as men at all. The NIV in Rev 11:6 inserts the word “men” into the text, but it is not in the original Greek. See other translations, and it isn’t there. Also, we are not referring to the church in the sense of a building made of stone. It is the spiritual temple of God (cf 1 Pet 2:4-5).

In Revelation 11:1-2 we read, “Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, ‘Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot [for] forty-two months.’”

Let’s take a close look here at the temple and the temple imagery in Revelation 11.

1. The very first time we find the word “temple” in Revelation is in 3:12a regarding the Church in Philadelphia when Christ says, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more.” For one to be made a pillar in the temple it must mean that the temple in view here is not one made of stone, but rather one that is made of people.

2. Lampstands were important items that were found in the physical temple in the Old Testament, yet John shows us that this time the lampstands in the temple are represented by the “two witnesses” (11:4), which again would indicate that the temple in view is not a physical temple made of stone, but rather one of people.

3. In the Old Testament a priest was one who served within the physical temple of God. In Revelation 1:6 and 5:10 we are told that anyone who has been washed by the blood of Christ is a priest, and the Christian understanding of this according to 1 Peter 2:5 is that as priests we now “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” We no longer offer animal sacrifices in a temple made of stone.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this should remind us of Ephesians 2:19-22, which says, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner[stone], in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

It therefore stands to reason that when John speaks of the temple (the “holy city”) being trampled underfoot in 11:2 for 42 months (3.5 years) that he is referring to God’s people — the ekklesia (the Church) — and not a physical third temple built in Jerusalem. The rest of the chapter then symbolizes this as the “two witnesses” (two olive trees and two lampstands) and the intense persecution that they will endure during ‘great tribulation’, after which they will then be caught up to God at the seventh trumpet once the “3.5 days” (years) are complete.

Keep in mind that the centricity of the prophetic texts are often Israel/Jerusalem and Middle Eastern specific in terms of location, so I view this as primarily affecting the ekklesia within the Beast’s kingdom (the Islamic world). It’s ok to have a different opinion on something like this though.

LikeLike

That’s ok. A different view or understanding is often a process that takes time to sink in, if it does at all, especially when it is so different from the position previously held, so I can relate to not wrapping my mind around something, too. For instance, I was at one time solidly “pre-trib” and typically read Scripture through a traditionally dispensational hermeneutic. But over time, and I stress that it was over time through prayer and study, I have eventually been able to shed pre-tribism and arrive to the understanding that I now hold today. But at the end of the day, never believe what I or anyone else says. Instead, test all things in light of Scripture, and hold fast to that which is good.

LikeLike