VI. The Two Witnesses

Could it be that no witness for Christ would be kept up all through that long and dreary time? Surely not Independently of the statements here made, we might have felt that the Lord would keep up a witness for Himself and for His truth, during all of the Apostasy.

Here He affirms that through precisely the same period His witnesses prophesy, that is, he truth of God as it is in Jesus. It is to be noticed that in the mention of these periods, the "times" and "days" are used in connexion with the Church and the witnesses; but the "months" in connexion with the nations and the Beast. This distinction of periods measured by the sun and by the moon corresponds with the in which Christians are described as children of the light and of the day, and unbeliever's as children of night and of darkness.

The Witnesses' History in Retrospect

At this particular point in the Vision, next after St. John's receiving the reed like to a rod asurement and reformation, of the mystic Temple, mention is made of Christ's These are they who throughout the great Apostasy, so long reigning, from which the Reformed Churches had now separated, would have kept up a testimony for thier Lord and Master, and for His truth.

Their history in retrospect is given to St. John - their character, work, conflicts, and especially the warfare in which they are slain by the dominant Power; all these and other particulars of their sayings and doings are related by the Angel, and set before St. John as a representative man. Various tenses are, used in this relation; some points of time being future as regards, the date of St. John's seeing the Vision, but past with reference to the prophetic epoch which the Vision represents. Thus "I will give" ("power" or "commission") is future at the time when St. John is being spoken to by the Angel, but past at the date that has now been reached in the progress of the prophetic drama.

They are Witnesses for Christ

"My two witness eg." They are Christ's witnesses, testifying for Him. Their primary function is to bear testimony for Christ and for His truth. The grand subject of their witness is His grace, glory, salvation, all sufficiency; also the authority of God's Word, as against the traditions and precepts of men. All this is something positive and substantial, not mere negation of error. They do not testify distinctively and only against the Papacy, though they do this too as a natural consequence; Christ's truth being opposed to all error, and His way of salvation to all systems invented by man.

They are persons; living confessors, not ordained ministers only, but also private believers. In Revelation XI 10 they are called "prophets," not soldiers or servants, as Christ's people are so often described. In Revelation xiii. 17 they are referred to as "the rest of the woman's seed, which keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus" -two characteristics always found together. They fulfil their testimony by returning to the written Word; for to men who are not themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost it is not given to testify, against the enemies of God or the corrupters of His truth, in any other way or with any other weapons than the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Two: One Alone not Enough

They are not three, nor a company, but only two, the smallest number sufficient under the Mosaic law. One alone would not have been enough for effective testifying. They are only "the remnant of the woman's seed" (Revelation xii. 17). They are not two individuals, but two representatives each of a body or series. They are "candlesticks," or lampstands that is, according to our Lord's own interpretation in Revelation i. 20, they are Churches. Individual witnesses, members of those Churches or bodies of believers, might die from time to time, slain by the Beast in his warfare against them, but the succession of witness was not yet extinct.

The two may also represent two separate lines of witness, east and west, in these divisions of the empire.

Commencing Epoch

The commencing time of their testifying in sackcloth (for they may have been testifying before, though not in that garb) seems coincident with that of the heathenized Christians treading the Holy City. The two statements are placed close together, as though to hint at the connexion of cause and effect, and the forty-two mouths of one are equal to the 1,260 days of the other. The expression of the witnesses' period in days may imply that throughout it they will prophesy day by day. They are clothed sackcloth, the sign of mourning; for not only are their righteous souls vexed by w they see and hear around, but also they themselves are persecuted by their enemies, are politically supreme.

Olive-Trees and Candlesticks

The union of the two symbols-olive-trees and lamps implies that both ministers a churches are included. The olive-trees are faithful ministers and Gospel preachers, who supply the oil to the lamps, the needful nourishment to the Churches. The witnessing fed by perpetual streams of heavenly oil, the unction of the Holy Spirit. A candlest being a Church, according to our Lord's explanation in Revelation i. 20, we must under stand this of Christian Churches or companies of believers, small as, well as large, hold ing the true doctrine of Christ and of His Word; communities of faithful persons, unji ing together in a true Christian profession and worship, the individual members shining by their, consistent life and pure doctrine as lights in the world. (Compare Zech. iv. 1 and Ps. lii 8) Since the two olive-trees and the two candlesticks are those of the litei Temple, the Churches which they represent must be sought within the precincts of mystic Temple, beginning before the "measuring."

But at the period represented in the Vision, the number of candlesticks has been grad ally reduced from sevenfold completeness to only two. It has dwindled down to the smallest number that God's purposes, and the maintenance of His Gospel truth, might allow.

The Witnesses' Power

"Fire.. . out of their mouth." The reference is to the power given literally to Moses, Aaron, and Elijah. Here it is figurative, and not as the witness's own wish or intention, but the sequel in God's providence manifested on their behalf. "Devoureth their enemies." does not imply immediate destruction, or how could the Beast make war upon tin and vanquish and slay them, as he is said to do? It refers to God's fiery judgment destroying nationally the apostates who persecuted them. The individual witnesses prophets might die, yet their words remained like fire to consume the guilty (Zech. i. 6). "Must be killed." This Judgment would be final; the destruction of their enemies by fiery judgments from God. "These have power. . . to shut heaven." Power, in sense of authority rather than in that of ability. This judgment of spiritual drought continuous during the whole period of their prophesying. The time is the same three years and six mounths as that during which Elijah's prophecy shut up heaven.

There was to be no blessing from heaven on the barren field of the Church; and it is historical fact that during the ages of their ministry there was neither dew nor rain earth, in the spiritual sense, but at their word. There was no right knowledge of salvation but by their preaching, no descent of the Spirit but in answer to their prayers; as they were shut out from all professing Christendom, a universal famine ensued. The word of God was locked up in a dead language, or forbidden to be read. The priesthood, instead of preaching the Gospel, descanted on the merits of Indulgences, or the efficacy of relics; or recounted ridiculous legends of so-called saints. None of these things could satisfy the hunger of the soul.

Through the five earlier centuries of the Witness period, in Christendom generally the -spiritual destitution was such that the people, poor and needy, sought living water and found none. On the scale of Christendom, as of individuals, God's sentence was fulfilled, "Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath." This may be viewed as a judicial infliction for rejecting the witness to, the truth, the heavenly light that had been offered.

"Turn the waters into blood." This is an occasional judgment, the bloodshed of wars inflicted in God's providence on the enemies of the witnesses (see Revelation viii. 8, 9). Saxons, Lombards, Saracens and Turks were of those whom God permitted to scourge the witness-rejecting nations. Compare Ezekiel xliii. 3, "when I came to destroy the city."

Their Testimony "Completed," not "Ended"

When they shall have finished their testimony" The idea is that of action complete or concluded, brought to a state of completion, perfected. The testimony is viewed as a thing of growth; having gone through preliminary stages, partial only, it comes at last to embrace all the intended subjects of protest, displaying all its evidence of Divine inspiration. The testimony is now perfected, but it is not implied that it then comes to an end; rather, that it continues in its complete form. It is completed, not in time but in matter.

What are the component parts of this testimony? Obviously as a whole it is a protestation for Christ against each of the antichristian errors, successively and gradually developed and enforced by the Apostasy. As soon as the witnesses had discerned and recognized each and all of these, and had brought to bear against them the full evidence of Scripture, they might be said to have perfected or finished their testimony. Similarly in Psalm lxxii. 20, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended " does not mean that David after that prayed no more, but that this that he was asking for was the utmost object of his prayers.

The Beast from the Abyss

"The beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war." This is the first mention to St. John of the Beast, and the definite article shows that there is but one Beast of this ongin. St. John might wonder what Beast this was, unless the reference were to the Fourth of the Great Beasts of Daniel vii. He might presume that this was some persecuting Power, that would combine and head those Gentile or paganized Christians just spoken of as usurping the mystic Temple and the Holy City throughout the period of the witness-prophesying; also that it was the same Ten-horned Wild Beast seen by Daniel, the last and most fearful form of the Roman Power as persecutor of God's saints.

There is need of suppleemnt and retrogression later on, to explain who this beast is and how and wence he arose, and this is given atfter the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet. The history of the Beast is too important to be given parenthetically here; it is the subject of two supplemental Visions( Rev 12, 13 and 17)

History of Christ's Witnesses Investigated

Exactly at this stage in the history of the Reformation, after the constitution of the Reformed Churches, the attention of the Reformers was directed back into the earlier ages of the Christian Church, to investigate the history of Christ's witnesses. The most remarkable correspondence with the Vision was brought about in the following manner.

There began to be urged against the Reformation by thier enemies the so-called novelty of thier religion; a favorite argument ever since, and to be met at all times as it was then, by reference to Scripture and to really primitive antiquity, teh first three centuries of the Christian era. The reformers reverted directly to the Bible and to the Fathers of the first ages of Christianity. They looked back into the earliest periods of the Christian Church to find those who like themselves had witnessed for Christ, and to trace the origin of that anti-christian Apostacy from which they had now separated themselves.

Important Works Appear

For this investigation much learning was required, but the ministers of the Reformed Church were learned, and teh Princes as well as the cheif Reformers encouraged learning in the universities and academies of thier kingdoms.

This retrospective view began to be taken about 1542-3. Bale's "Image of Both Churches", which included a brief cataloge of witnesses, was published before Henry VIII's death, about 1545. Important works now appeared, on these very subjects, especially that of Magdeberg Centuriators, so called because written by four ministers of Magdeburg. The first part was published in 1556, and bore the remarkably appropriate title, Catalogue Testium, A Catalogue of Witnesses. Another well-known work was published almost at the same time, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, or "Witnesses". In 1571 our English Convocation ordered that a copy should be placed in all Churches of England, What a tale does it unfold!

Eastern and Western Witness

Bearing in mind the distinction then existing between Eastern and Western divivsions of Roman Christiandom, we might expect two similar lines of succession of living witnesses for Christ, throughout the dark period of 1260 years.

In the East, even at the beginning of this period, the grosser visible superstitions of the Apsotasy were already fully developed and authoritatively enforced. There we might expect the witnessing to be made earlier than elsewhere, upon a larger scale than only of individuals and in public protest.

In the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries the Popes, destined to be in later times the chief adversarits of Christ's witnesses, were gradually advancing to the ecclesiatical subjection of the whole West, in actual fact, as it had already been subjected to them in right by the Theodosian Code. Wherever the papal authority prevailed, it was being used for the inculation of the same gross and open superstitions as in the East.

Paulikans and Waldenses

It appears from mere hostile eveidence that there was perpetuated in the Paulikan sect, at least from A.D. 653, an Eastern line of witnesses for Christ's truth, and against teh Apostacy.

"An interest attaches to the Paulikian sect from the place it occupies in Ecclesiastical History as an early "Protestant" element. The Paulikians persistantly rejected the vast fabric of traditional belief, which in the Greek and Latin Church had grown up around the Gospel....They bore a steady protest in favour of the right of the laity to the possession and use of the Holy Scriptures. They were in this respect, under the Byzantine despotism, what the Donatists, Lollards, Waldenses, and Puritans have been under in other times and places" (Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography)

There was also in France, Germany, and North Italy a witness line of western origin. This appears from hostile eveidence and from thier own writings that have come down to us.

These two lines were united in spirit, and intermingled as early as the opening of the eleventh century; then more marked about the end of the twelfth century; when in various countries they became known under the common name of Waldenses.

In this united line, as in its earlier branches, there was the union of teachers and taught olive tree and candle sticks. Their appeal was simply to the Word of God as the Rule of faith, and not man's traditions. The Person and Work of the Divine Saviour were prominate in their teaching; while they protested against the chief doctrines of the Apostacy, that sset Him aside. They were few innumbersas compared with the great mass around; and their robing was sackcloth, for they were in mourning and depression, at first from the prevalence of false doctrine, and then from direct and bitter persecution.

War Against the Witnesses

Before the end of the twelfth century the Waldenses, Paulikaians, and others made the great step in advance, and recognised Babylon the Harlot, and Antichrist, in Papal Rome and the Popedom.

Hitherto separate members of the Popedom, independently, had made war against heritics; but now the Popedom roused itself collectively, in the Third Lateran council, 1179, and declared war agaisnt them. The commencement of this Papal warfare against the Witnesses is strongly marked in European history. The Popes and all Western Christiandom under them entered on what evidently was a war of extermination against all whom Rome judged to be "heritics."

Why not till now?

Not until Rome's supremacy was established over each state of Christendom could she command the secular sword to strike down what she called heresy. Her pretensions to all this dated from the sixth or seventh century, but their enforcement required time and occasion. So also not until Rome's supremacy was established over every national church could she consider herself identified with the prevalent superstitions everywhere, as part of her greatness and wealth.

Moreover, as regards the Witnesses, not until Rome was completely and palpably identified with the corruptions of Christendom could their duty seem clear, to protest now against the source and head of the Apostasy, as they had done before against its particular errors. Then, as might have been expected, the Wild Beast, now thoroughly prepared, turned his fierce wrath against these Witnesses for Christ, and made war upon them unto extermination.

The Papal Warfare

In the decrees of the Papal Councils and the Bulls of the Popes, from the Council at Tours in 1163 to the Bull of Pope Innocent IV in 1244, the most determined war was waged against " the detestable Albigensian heresy," the "Cathari, Patareni, Publicani, and heretics of other appellation." All persons were interdicted from yielding them refuge, from communicating with them in buying or selling or conversation, from giving them Christian burial. The secular power was subordinated to the spiritual for the purpose of their extirpation, vassals were absolved from allegiance, inquisitors were appointed, crusades against heretics preached and organized.

Persecution the most cruel and relemless pursued them into all their missions and settlements; not in Piedmont and Dauphiny alone, but in Spain, France, Flanders, Germany and Bohemia. Everywhere the bloodhound spirit of Papal enmity and hatred tracked them, acting on and directing the secular arm in Western Europe. Nor was it against the Waldenses only, but also against any who were inspired with the same spirit of witnessing for Christ; especially Wickliffe and the Lollards in England, and Huss and the Hussites in Bohemia.

Kings and princes, having drunk of the cup of Rome, and being frenzied and maddened therewith, wasted at her instigation the blood and treasure of their subjects, and literally beggared themselves to carry on this war. It was marvellous, considering the might and craft arrayed against them, that these Witnesses endured as they did. Yet throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in spite of rack, prison, sword and flame, their voice was still uplifted for the truth as it is in Jesus, and in protestation against the lies and corruptions of the whole Papal system.

The Death of the Witnesses

At length, however, as the fifteenth century drew to a close, after a furious renewal of
crusades against the Waldenses of Dauphiny and Piedmont, and the purer remainder of the Hussites in Bohemia, the purpose of the Papacy seemed to be attained, and victory lay within its grasp. So indeed it had been predicted; the Beast was not only to make war upon the Witnesses, but was also to conquer and to kill them.

The Witnesses being symbolic, their death also is symbolic. It is a strong figure, implying complete silencing for the time, apparent extermination, the suppression of God's truth. Both Witnesses are killed, and lie dead, overcome and slain by the Beast.

Anti-Papal Testimony Silenced

Their death symbolizes the time when, by the common consent of historians, the voice of anti-Papal testimony was most effectually silenced throughout Europe, and the Popedom was most triumphant. In 1499 the Bohemian Church sent deputies through Europe to search for some of kindred spirit, but they sought for such in vain. The consonant voice of historians and not merely of prophetic commentators, testifies to the completeness of the witness-suppression throughout Western Christendom at this epoch. Affairs were at the lowest in the true Church, when they were at their highest in the kingdom of Antichrist.

The Witnesses Unburied

"Their dead bodies." The word is in the singular: - the dead body of the two Witnesses. This indicates the figurative character of the prophecy, and may also signify the unity in spirit of such witnesses as then remained. In verse 9 the word is in the plural. Compare Deuteronomy xxvii. 26: "Thy carcase shall be meat, "said of the Israelitish nation.

"The street of the great city" In St. John's time, and long after, none other but Rome was called, or could be called, the great city. In Revelation xvii. 9, 18, she is described as the great city " which reigneth over the kings of the earth." She, and she alone, was so reigning at that time, that is, in St. John's day.

Here we must understand not merely the literal city on the banks of the Tiber, but the great polity of which the city Rome was the centre and the seat of government. In St. John's time the Roman city, taking the word in the political sense embraced all Italy, besides other more distant citizens enfranchised by birth or by purchase. A century later Caracalla's edict enfranchised all the constituency of the Empire. At the date to which this Vision refers, "the great city" was the system of polity ecclesiastical and civil which centred in the city of Rome. It extended over all the Ten Kingdoms of Europe, and was supreme in them; so that under the government of the Papacy Europe, formed but one corporation or symbolic city.

"The street" was the open place in ancient cities where the chief gatherings were held, for business, justice, or politics. In this case, according to the proportion of the symbolism, it is the literal city of Rome, where the business here symbolized was transacted. The "great city," then, is the whole constituency of Papal Rome; "the street of it" is the literal city which was the capital and the seat of government, the central area of the professing Christian world.

"Which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt." "Is called," in the time of St. John; also at the time of the witnesses' death, at which latter date the Divine Spirit would call special attention to the fact of these titles attaching to the great Roman city. "Spiritually," is, in the eyes of men who have spiritual discernment. The evidence is only too clear the page of ecclesiastical history. The Great City was Sodom, in respect of its impurity, brutal passions, and other abominations; its doom was to be burned. It was Egypt respect of its idolatry its religious darkness, and its oppression of God's people; its d was the plagues.

Where also their Lord was crucified." The Lord of the Witnesses; see Revelation xi.
My witnesses." It is called also spiritually a Jerusalem, that is, a professed Church God, yet a place where ~Christ is crucified afresh in His members. As a matter of lit fact, our Lord was crucified within the Roman Empire, and by Roman authority; was spiritually crucified afresh in His members during the Roman persecutions. province of Judea, at the date of our Lord's crucifixion, was within the limits of Roman Empire. At a later era (Revelation xiv. 20), in accordance with historic fact, province is regarded as outside the great city.

Recognition of the Witnesses' Death

"And from among the peoples...." It is not the peoples and tribes and tongues themselves, but certain delegates or deputies from among them; representatives at some great assembly or council of Western Europe. This does not require a large concourse; a few hundred men in the House of Commons represent the whole British Isles.

"Look upon their dead bodies." It was not the death of the Witnesses that the Council to accomplish; that was the evil work of the Beast that warred against them. The Council had to recognize the accomplishment of their death as already effected by the Beast's warfare; or if anything were still wanting thereto, to see it completed so as to make death openly recognizable.

"Not.. . to be laid in a tomb." This also is symbolic, as are the Witnesses themselves, their death. But it is notorious that denial of Christian burial was one of the many indignities inflicted by Papal persecution upon so-called heretics, the individual witnesses who together constitute the witness-body. The usual death for heresy was burning, ashes being afterwards thrown to the winds or cast into rivers. The practice of exhuming the bodies of heretics already buried was derived from Paganism; but Papal practice went even a step further, in holding a formal process against a dead body, if after death suspected of heresy.

"Rejoice. . . make merry. . . send gifts." The public recognition of the witnesses' death is an occasion of joy and mutual congratulation for their enemies. The rejoicing of the citizens is the plainest proof of the trouble and vexation that they had experienced from the testimony of those faithful ones. When heretics are burnt, Papists keep holidays, celebrate feasts and banquets, sing Te Deum Laudamus, and wish one another joy.

Epoch of the Triumph of the Papacy

The Fifth Lateran Council, 1512-17, under Popes Julius II and Leo X, was constituted of deputies clerical and lay, from all the different states of Europe. Citation was issued to the dissidents (the Bohemian Brethren) to appear and plead either before the Cardinal Legate in Hungary or before the Council at its Ninth Session, May 5, 1514. This may perhaps be regarded as the commencing date of the predicted three and a half years, during which Christ's witnesses were to appear as mere dead corpses in the sight of Christendom.

But there was no pleading, no deputies, no movement made, no mouth opened, to support the ancient heresies. Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom Christ's witnessing servants were silenced; they appeared as dead. The period is one at which, by the common consent of historians, the voice of anti-Papal testimony was most effectually silenced throughout Europe, and the Papacy was most triumphant.

"No danger seemed to threaten the Roman Pontiff; the agitations previously excited by the Waldenses, Albigenses, etc., having been suppressed by counsel and the sword; and the wretched surviving remnant of the Bohemian heretics being an object rather of contempt than fear."
"Never was the Court of Rome more confident in the sense of security than at that instant. The various heresies which had so long disturbed the Church were for the most part dismayed and silenced."
"At the period when the Reformation burst forth, Rome appeared in peace and security. One might have said that nothing could ever disturb her in her triumph."
"Everything was quiet, every heretic exterminated, and the whole Christian world supinely acquiescing in the enormous absurdities inculcated by the Romish Church."

Congratulations and Rejoicings

The orator of the Session ascended the pulpit, and amid the applause of the assembled Council uttered that memorable exclamation of triumph, never possible before, and never since "Now nobody contradicts, no one opposes." To the Pope he said, "The whole body of Christendom is now seen to be subjected to its head, that is to thee." The same day as this triumph, an edict of reform and discipline was issued by Pope and Council, one object of which was "the perpetual elimination of all heretics from the Church Visible." Former penalties were reinforced, among which was the denial of burial to their bodies, as had been done by Pagan persecutors; but now thought to be tenfold worse, as involving eternal damnation.

In March, 1517, Pope Leo issued his Bull for the dissolution of the Council. There were congratulations and rejoicings, a plenary Indulgence, a Te Deum, and splendid banquetings. The assembled prelates and princes separated with complacency and confidence, and with mutual congratulations on the peace, unity and purity of the "Apostolic Church."

Three Days and a Half

From May 5, 1514, the day of the ninth session of the Fifth Lateran Council, to October 31, 1517, the day of Luther's posting up his Theses, is three years and a half. As far back as the fifth century Tichonius, an Apocalyptic expositor, argued that these could not three and a half literal days, for that would be too short a time for all to be done in city that is said to be done while the Witnesses lie dead, such as the congratulations a sending of gifts. Ere the inhabitants could have exchanged their tokens of joy, the rising again of the Witnesses would have filled them with consternation.

Retrospect ends; History begins

The history of the two Witnesses is given in retrospective narration, until it has brought down to the time corresponding with that of the Angel's descent (Revelation X 1); whereupon, but not before, the Witnesses are brought upon the scene in actual visic In Revelation XI 10 the characteristic future is still used, marking the Angel's narrative "they shall send." The transition from retrospect to history in the Vision cannot thei fore, be fixed earlier than here.

The Witnesses Rise Again

Things were to all appearance hopeless. But just at this extremity the Lord showed He had not forgotten His Witnesses. The very next recorded event is His raising then from their apparent state of death. So likewise the next scene in the drama of European history is the glorious Reformation. The death and rising again of the Witnesses precede the passing away of the Turkish woe (Revelation xi. 14), and therefore cannot represent so thing still future.

At the waking up of the Reformation, there was a speedy, sudden, wonderful revival the witnessing. Christ's Witnesses were seen to live again in Luther and the other Reformers.

Their Firm Attitude

"They stood upon their feet." Compare Ezekiel xxxvii. 10, said of the future restoration
Israel in national strength and vigour they lived, and stood up upon their feet."

"Fear.. . upon them which beheld." Not the Council, that had been contemplating corpses, for that, had separated a few months before Luther's protest. Nor even the at Rome, who was incredulous as to anything from so mean a source affecting supremacy and power. It was their enemies, who were on the spot, when the voice of the revived Gospel witness thrilled through Germany, that trembled in consternation speedily saw that the very foundations of the Papal system were assailed, and that was a might in the voice and in the movement as from heaven, which they could not withstand.

As the Reformed Body took successive steps towards the consolidation of Reformation, they stood more firmly at each stage of advance, and the religious revival was more and more confirmed; likewise the fears of their enemies which beheld increased.

"The term Protestant is positive, not negative. As first used it meant the earnest assertion of the mighty positive truths that, the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, the final court of appeal in the Christian Church, free to be read, and by the Lord commanded to be read by every Christian. These are not mere anti-Roman, they are vital Christian tenets. They touch directly on the very heart of the Gospel, the revealed work and will of God in Christ, revealed that the individual may know, believe; love, obey and be filled with Christ. Nothing discredits Protestantism more than identifying it with negations." (Prof H. G. C. Moule, who became Bishop of Durham.)