Original Meaning
The Temple (11:1–2)
REVELATION REGULARLY BORROWS end-time portraits from its contemporaries, but reapplies them with a new and surprising meaning; the picture of the desecrated temple may fall into this category. John may be referring to a literal temple if he is writing before the temple’s destruction in A.D. 70, during a period of great distress for Jerusalem in A.D. 66–70; but most scholars date Revelation in the 90s. Some regard the oracle about the threat to the temple as an oracle originally directed to the literal temple in Jerusalem before A.D. 70, which John has now reapplied to the spiritual situation in the tribulation of his own day.1 Whatever the merit of this proposal, it is possible that Revelation is reapplying the literal three and a half year period of Daniel’s tribulation figuratively to the entire period between Christ’s first and second coming (see comment on 12:5–6).
Some believe that 11:1–2 demands the rebuilding of the literal temple.2 Given beliefs among John’s contemporaries that the temple would be rebuilt, such a view makes sense; but some factors incline us to favor a more symbolic reading of the passage. (1) The time period described (1,260 days) is probably symbolic for a period most of which lacked a literal temple (see comment on 12:5–6). (2) The witnesses are probably symbolic (see comment below on 11:3–14). (3) Since John is writing after the temple’s demise, he probably expects his audience to understand that he refers to a spiritual temple, because no temple stands in his day and he provides no explicit indication that the physical temple will be rebuilt. (4) Most important is the fact that the temple is symbolic elsewhere in Revelation (3:12; 13:6).
But if the temple is symbolic, what does it mean? John’s term for “temple” here is naos, the word that in the Greek translation of ancient Israel’s Scriptures generally designates the most sacred parts of the temple, not the entire building complex. Some suggest that the temple represents Israel and its altar the faithful remnant who refuse to assimilate with the world.3 This interpretation accords with ancient biblical prophecies about Israel; it possibly refers to the suffering of the literal Jewish people during the present age, surrounding a remnant of Jewish Christians who genuinely hold faithful to God in Christ. Surely the book of Revelation remains interested in the Jewish foundation and character of the believing community (1:20; 2:9; 3:9; 7:1–17).
In early Christian literature, however, the temple regularly symbolizes Christians, both Jewish and Gentile (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:18–22; 1 Peter 2:5). This is also what the temple symbolizes elsewhere in Revelation (Rev. 3:12; 13:6); not surprisingly, this is the more common scholarly interpretation of this temple today.4 Some thus suggest that the “outer courts” represent Christians who compromise with the world’s values (like some Christians in Thyatira), arguing that only they, not faithful Christians, will fall away under the world’s oppression.5 Others similarly argue that the enemies of God trample “the outward and visible church” in this age but that the invisible church hidden in Christ will not be crushed but will ultimately persevere.6 Still others maintain that the protection this passage refers to is physical rather than spiritual, hence that the inner part of the temple refers to those brought safely through the Tribulation, who survive to the end—the outer court being Christians who suffer death.7
Given the whole context of this passage, however, it is possible to adopt a more specifically Jewish Christian reading. In this case, the naos represents the church as the faithful remnant of Israel (including grafted-in Gentile Christians). The trampling of the outer courts then depicts the rule of the evil one, who misleads the rest of the Jewish people, the end-time remnant who eventually understands and repents (11:8, 13).8 This fits the description of unrighteous Jerusalem below (11:8). If we are correct here, the use of the outer courts is profoundly ironic, for it was Gentiles who were restricted to the outer court in the most recent temple that John’s contemporaries remembered.9 But while this proposal seems plausible to me, it is hardly certain; the exact meaning of the outer court remains open to debate.
What is the point of John’s “measuring rod” (11:1)? In the early 1500s Francis Lambert argued that the temple was the church and that the measuring rod was God’s Word.10 He may have at least been right that the first readers would have understood the act of measuring symbolically; a first-century Jewish work used the measuring of Paradise to signify the resurrection of the dead (1 En. 61:1–5). One might “measure” the righteous (1 En. 70:3–4), just as one might seal them to preserve them from judgment (Rev. 7:3).
The most likely symbolic interpretation of the act of measuring here is a promise of preservation, as in the measuring of Jerusalem (Ps. 48:12–13; Zech. 2:1–2) or the temple (Ezek. 40–42, esp. 40:3).11 It may also indicate the spiritual unpreparedness of Israel, if the outer courts relate to the Jewish people not yet turned to the Messiah (Amos 7:7–9). Most important, however, no measurements are given here; this defers the mention of the measuring rod until 21:16, when John begins to measure the gloriously massive new Jerusalem, which is shaped like the Most Holy Place.12 The small, persecuted remnant oppressed during this age constitutes the glorious Holy City of the age to come (cf. Mark 4:31–32).
Bridging Contexts
PARADIGMATIC WITNESSES. Those who view the two witnesses as future literal witnesses can view them as paradigmatic for the church, because we are also witnesses (19:10) in a time of hardship (1:9). Those who view the witnesses as symbolic for the church in this age will naturally view them as even more paradigmatic. Others have offered various historical explanations, but even in this case often have allowed the witnesses to function as models for their own experience.
Many throughout history have applied the sufferings of the two witnesses to their own experiences as a martyr church. For example, Pareus in the late 1500s to the early 1600s linked the two witnesses with the sufferings of Wycliffe and Hus and the Inquisition. Similarly, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) understood the suffering of the Protestant Reformers under the Antichrist.45 While it may be illegitimate to suggest that John’s focus was on a range of events as narrow as this, such sufferings surely fall within the range of acceptable application.
When called on to suffer for our Christian witness, we should identify with the two witnesses, because like them and like our Lord, we will be raised beyond death when Christ comes to avenge us. The problem arises when we assume that a specific application of the principle of the suffering witnesses is the text’s only proper interpretation. Hans Hut, for example, one of the most effective and devoted Anabaptist evangelists of the 1500s, thought the two witnesses were the martyred Thomas Müntzer and his coworker. Thus he expected Christ’s return in 1528; he died too soon to see his prediction disconfirmed.46
Three and a half years. Modern popular understanding of Revelation focuses on a literal seven-year Tribulation. One problem with this view is that it assumes that the entirety of Daniel’s seventieth seven-year week is the period of which Revelation speaks, when in fact Revelation speaks of only half that time, three and a half years. One might add two of the three-and-a-half year periods together (11:2–3; 12:6, 14; 13:5) to get seven years, but what does one do with the other ones? Why combine some but not all of these time references?47
Another problem is that Revelation regularly reapplies earlier Jewish images, including those from the biblical prophets, in fresh symbolic ways; did the literal three and a half years begin immediately after Jesus’ exaltation (for more detail, see comment on 12:5–6)? Taking into account Revelation’s genre forces us to at least grapple with the question as to whether even the stated time frame of 1260 days is symbolic or literal.
Divine vengeance. A doctrine of divine vengeance may sound socially “primitive” to many unbelievers (who assume their ever-changing cultural values a moral standard superior to divine revelation!), hence embarrassing to some Christians. But the oppressed can resonate with such promises. Those who are not oppressed should not hear in such texts a call to hate those who are not really oppressing them, but rather a summons to value the kingdom above worldly favor, lest we find our hearts ever drawn to Babylon more than to the new Jerusalem.
Mission to Jewish people. Those who see in our text or in other texts (especially Rom. 11:26) a report of Jerusalem’s final turning to faith in the Messiah Jesus are sometimes tempted to misapply this assurance. Some neglect bringing the message about Jesus to the Jewish people because “they will be converted anyway.”48 This approach is both illogical and misses the point of the text. Scripture mentions only the conversion of the surviving remnant of the final generation, not the majority of Jewish people in history until that point. Moreover, both Revelation (Rev. 11:3) and Paul (Rom. 1:16–17; 11:14, 25, 31) presuppose that believers must continue to proclaim the message to ethnic Israel as well as to Gentiles.
That church history reflects more of the tragedy of anti-Semitism (including Jewish people burned on “crosses” and drowned in mock baptisms) than a culturally sensitive witness to the people who gave the world the gospel reinforces all the more the need for believers to emulate the sacrificial, martyr witness depicted here (cf. 11:7). Nor dare we rest content with the current “remnant” of messianic Jews, sizeable though it may be.49 When Paul spoke of Jewish believers as a remnant (Rom. 11:5), he contrasted that with Israel as a whole (11:26). The percentage of Jewish believers in Jesus was much higher in his day than in ours, and this reflects the history of Christendom’s anti-Semitism, which we must now surmount.50
Contemporary Significance
THE APPLICATION IS difficult unless we can agree on the original meaning of the text, which on many points remains debatable. But we may offer some suggestions. The trampling of the outer courts probably signifies the suffering of God’s people (maybe Jewish, maybe Christian) in this age; more clearly, however, the measuring is deferred until the new Jerusalem of 21:16. Those who serve God may be a minority, often a persecuted minority, but the future is ultimately ours. God often works through what is small, broken, and despised in this age, but he will ultimately vindicate his remnant.
The two witnesses as symbols for today. If the two witnesses are the church, they provide a direct model for us. Those who interpret them as two literal individuals can also recognize that they nevertheless provide role models for us, just as other men and women of God in Scripture do (cf. 1 Cor. 10:11). We must therefore be Spirit-empowered witnesses to the world, ready to pay any cost and utterly dependent on God’s power to accomplish his purposes.
Various reasons exist for the dual number of the witnesses, but one may be the principle of shared witness (Deut. 17:6): We do not testify only by ourselves. Our own witness may not always bring a person or culture to Christ by itself, but our witness contributes to the broader witness of the entire prophetic remnant of the church. To whatever extent the witnesses represent the kingly and priestly aspects of the church’s mission, the text may also imply the importance of the church’s various functions. But again, such applications may be disputed, especially if the interpretations on which they are based remain disputed.
More clearly, like prophetic voices in the Bible, we must sometimes stand virtually alone, if need be, to challenge the wrongs of our day.51 Most often we stand as voices for the truth of God’s message in Christ. By reaching people for Christ and discipling them into mature witnesses (Matt. 28:19–20), we can multiply our impact many times over.52
In 1870 a Hindu convert to Christ led to Christ Ditt, a lame man from the untouchable Chuhra caste. He faced considerable persecution as he carried the message of Jesus Christ with him from village to village, but within eleven years over 500 Chuhras became Christians. “By 1900, more than half of these lowly people … had been converted, and by 1915 all but a few hundred members of the caste professed the Christian faith.”53 As some committed to evangelism have put it, “Today, in a world where three out of four persons have yet to believe in Jesus Christ and at least two out of every four have yet to hear of Jesus Christ, if a congregation is not reproducing, it is not a New Testament church, no matter what it calls itself!”54
We may rejoice in statistics that suggest large numbers of born-again Christians in our own and many other parts of the world. But even in apparently saturated regions like the United States, most younger unchurched people (and many church people) have never really understood the claims of the gospel. On the streets in some parts of the country, among some cultural groups, and among university students, I find that Christian experience is often largely partitioned off in the church; this is probably because most Christians share their faith primarily with fellow-Christians lest they face rejection from non-Christian peers.
If two fundamental Baptists had not witnessed to me on the street in 1975, I may never have heard the gospel, because I was at that time an atheist who would never have set foot in an evangelical church. Most amazingly, even in churches some people do not understand the gospel unless it is explained to them one on one. I have served in churches where attenders had heard salvation carefully and frequently explained from the pulpit but who never really understood how to be saved until it was explained to them personally. We dare not take too much for granted, and we must be ready to pay whatever price to spread God’s message, just as the two witnesses of Revelation were.
Signs and wonders. God empowered his church with prophetic anointing at Pentecost (Acts 2:17–18); although this includes prophecy in the narrower sense (21:9–10), that anointing’s focus is the power to witness (1:8).55 That these two witnesses performed signs and wonders suits the witness of the apostolic leaders of the church and other evangelists in Acts (2:43; 5:12, 16; 6:8; 14:3); signs and wonders constitute one of the most frequent methods of drawing the world’s attention to the gospel there (3:6–12; 8:6–7, 13; 9:34–35, 40–42; 19:10–20; 28:8–9). When I noticed this in Acts, I began praying for healing for people with whom I shared Christ; some were dramatically healed and responded quickly to the gospel message that God was confirming.
Yet the Western church today rarely experiences miracles. Indeed, even those parts of the Western church most triumphalistic about miracles rarely can testify of miracles on the scale on which they appear in the biblical ministries of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, or Paul. Some respond to this dearth of miracles and interpret Scripture in light of their experience to suppose that God stopped the flow of miracles after the completion of the canon. This explanation denies too much, however; the Bible assumes the continuance of supernatural gifts until the end of the age (1 Cor. 13:8–12; Eph. 4:11–13; Rev. 11:5–6), and both church history and recent revivals in some parts of the world attest that God still sovereignly graces his church with miracles.56
God’s sovereignty and Western rationalism may both account for some of the rareness of miracles in Western Christianity. Even more than that, however, we have on the whole too much in common with the compromised Christianity of cities like Laodicea, Thyatira, and Sardis, which were too comfortable with the world, or with the lovelessness of Ephesus.57 Miracles in the Bible appear most frequently on the cutting edge of God’s activity, especially spreading the good news of the kingdom (Acts 6:8; 14:3; 19:11–12). I have witnessed them far more when believers have been breaking new ground with the gospel than when we have become self-absorbed with our own comfort this side of paradise. Only when the church becomes prepared to challenge the idols of society with the claims of Christ, as the two witnesses do in our text, will we witness God’s power in biblical fullness.
On martyrdom. That no one can harm the witnesses until God allows their martyrdom (11:5) recalls how God’s judgments on the world will also not harm his servants (7:3). This reminds us that God is sovereign not only over nature but even over our enemies’ attempts to destroy us; truly not a hair of our heads will fall apart from our Father’s will (Matt. 10:29–30).
But the text also reveals that God’s servants who proclaim his Word in the world cannot always expect deliverance; Revelation calls us to prepare ourselves as a martyr church. The moment we become Christ’s followers, we forfeit our lives for the work of the kingdom (Mark 8:34–38); yet for the most part we have failed to prepare ourselves and our fellow servants for this calling. Our culture insulates us better than most from most confrontations with “natural” death; it certainly does not prepare us for martyrdom. Yet if we believe our Lord’s teaching, we must work to get the church ready for suffering, even martyrdom, if that becomes the necessary price of our witness to those who do not wish to hear (Rev. 2:10; cf. John 12:25–26; 15:18–21).
Divine vindication. In the end God vindicates his servants in the sight of the very ones who ridiculed them; such vindication is also a frequent biblical pattern (Ps. 23:5), though we do not always live to see it individually. Some of those who ridicule our message now may repent later. One drug addict I testified to during my high school days seemed as closed against the gospel as I had been as an atheist, and I frankly doubted he would ever be converted; on my return from my first year of college, guess who I found in church?
But sometimes it takes more than our preaching to make people’s hearts receptive. Two of us new converts witnessed boldly in high school, but the turning point in many people’s receptivity was after a two-month period when six individuals who had rejected and mostly mocked our message died in various ways. What preaching and witness may not accomplish for our land, God’s judgment may yet accomplish for those who survive it. In this age his judgment is always an act of love; he normally leaves a remnant who can learn from the judgment.
God’s vindication of the martyrs immediately prior to the end leads to the equivalent of a deathbed conversion of the city where Jesus was crucified: The bulk of survivors are converted (11:11–13). But while judgments get people’s attention, we cannot depend on them always happening immediately (6:10). Most people through history will not be alive at the time of Jesus’ return, nor will most people in the world who are alive genuinely repent (6:16–17; cf. 1:7). The appropriate time for repentance is therefore always “now” (cf. 2 Cor. 6:2). But we may note that while judgment often gets people’s attention for the truth, in Revelation acts of judgment apart from witness failed to do so (Rev. 9:20–21).
Original Meaning
The Identity of the Witnesses (11:3–6)
INTERPRETERS HAVE DIVERGED widely on the identity of the two witnesses.13 We may begin our own quest with the most obvious allusion, the two olive trees and the two lampstands (11:4). The olive trees recall the anointed king and priest who will truly lead God’s people in Zechariah 4:11–14. In the immediate context in Zechariah, these were Joshua and Zerubbabel, who worked for the good of a city trampled by Gentiles (Zech. 3–4; cf. Rev. 11:2).14 The lampstand in Zechariah 4:2 may refer to the source of the Spirit (cf. 4:6); presumably it burned by the same olive oil by which the two anointed ones were anointed. But Revelation regularly reapplies earlier symbols in strikingly new ways. This book, which elsewhere uses lampstands to symbolize the church, also would not present the Spirit himself as a martyred witness, and it hardly proposes the literal return of Joshua and Zerubbabel!15
While we may debate a present or future identity for the witnesses, the past figures to which they allude (even more plainly than Joshua and Zerubbabel) are easier to determine. Calling down fire recalls Elijah, who also was taken into heaven and who brought drought for three and a half years (cf. James 5:17). Turning water into blood and sending other plagues recall especially Moses, who some Jewish traditions also claimed ascended.16 Revelation may also conflate a few other allusions to provide a fuller symbolic picture, such as fire from the mouth (hence alluding to Jeremiah in Jer. 5:14) and a Jewish tradition that Isaiah was martyred for calling Jerusalem Sodom.17
Some suggest that John envisions the literal return of Elijah and Moses.18 Such a view is not impossible; Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Jerome, for example, believed that Enoch and Elijah remained alive and would return as witnesses.19 In John’s day other Jewish writers expected the return and preaching of those who had never died, presumably Elijah and Enoch (4 Ezra 6:26); other traditions also suggested that Moses had not died.20 But while this passage does model the two witnesses after Moses and Elijah, it also deliberately modifies the connections. Thus, for example, fire comes from the witnesses’ mouths (11:5) rather than from heaven, as with Elijah; this is figurative language for the harsh power of God’s word, as in Jeremiah’s ministry (Jer. 5:14). Is it not therefore more likely, given John’s consistent reinterpretation of traditional Jewish symbols elsewhere, that he transforms this traditional Jewish expectation of returning prophets, reapplying it symbolically?
Suggesting that the two witnesses are symbolic is, however, not helpful unless we can determine what they symbolize—one of the more difficult interpretative tasks in this book. Some view them as symbolic for the Law and the Prophets.21 Others suggest that the witnesses are Peter and Paul, both probably executed roughly the same time under Nero.22 (They were not, however, raised, as in 11:11.) Still others point to olive tree symbolism for Israel (Jer. 11:16; Hos. 14:6; Rom. 11:17) and argue that the two witnesses represent Israel and the church.23
While such proposals are as reasonable for guesses as any guesses may be, another view draws more directly from the evidence of the text. The most common view is that the two witnesses represent the prophetic witness of the church.24 Various factors support this interpretation.
(1) They are “lampstands” (11:4), which Revelation elsewhere explicitly identifies as churches (1:20).25
(2) Joshua and Zerubbabel were the high priest and king seeking the restoration of their holy city; what could better symbolize the saints as a kingdom and priests (1:6; 5:10) seeking their new Jerusalem?26
(3) Like John in this context, they prophesy (10:11; 11:3, 6), fulfilling the standard Christian mission of testifying for Christ (cf. 19:10).
(4) If the time period is symbolic for the entire Christian era, which may well be the case (see comment on 12:5–6), the witnesses would need to be symbolic for something of equally long duration (or to conceal their supernatural longevity with something more effective than merely Grecian formula).
(5) The cumulative adaptation of diverse Old Testament prophetic motifs, such as fire coming from the witnesses’ mouths rather than from heaven, suggests a broader symbolic interpretation.
The case for the two witnesses being the church is debatable, but it seems the best of available options. Those who object to the witnesses being the church do so especially on grounds that the literal details, such as lying in the street for three days, do not fit the church.27 Such objections are not unreasonable, but they presuppose that details in Revelation’s narratives must be read literally, a premise that contradicts much of what we find in the rest of the book. Likewise, some insist that a serious reading of Scripture requires us to take the figure of two witnesses as two literal individuals; but in Revelation, unlike many genres in Scripture, it is difficult to apply that interpretive method with consistency: few would insist, for example, that the women in chapters 12 or 17 must represent literal individuals.
If the witnesses represent the church, one can view the 1,260 days in one of two ways. (1) One can see here the church’s successful end-time witness (as opposed to its witness in most of church history). (2) One can instead take 1,260 as a symbolic number (fitting the symbolism in much of the book), in which case Revelation reinterprets this Jewish symbol as it does many others (see comments on 12:5–6). In this case Revelation is borrowing Daniel’s figure not to tell us the length of time but to inform us of the kind of time, that the era of the church is characterized by great suffering, as in Daniel’s tribulation.
John uses 1,260 days for the church’s time and the equivalent figure of 42 months to describe the beast’s time. The 1,260 days represent 42 months or three and a half 360-day years; this is likely intended as a symbolic number (see comments on 12:5–6). Revelation prefers this to a sum of 364 days for a year (1 Enoch 74:12–13), or Daniel’s 1,290 (Dan. 12:11) and 1,335 days (12:12), probably for reasons obvious to ancient geometers, who found great significance in numerical patterns.28
If indeed Revelation presents the two witnesses as the church, the biblical allusions provide a pattern for the church’s prophetic mission: “for those whose witness is a greater thing even than Moses’ or Elijah’s and against whom the beast musters greater forces….”29
The witnesses are probably two in number for several reasons. (1) Biblical rules of evidence required a minimum of two witnesses for valid testimony (Deut. 17:6; 19:15). (2) Early Christian witnesses were sent in pairs whenever possible (Mark 6:7; Acts 13:2–4).30 (3) More important, the allusion to Zerubbabel and Joshua in Zechariah 4 demands two representatives. (4) Finally, the dual nature of the witnesses provides a literary contrast with the two evil leaders in 13:11–12, one of whom also produces fire (13:13). The anointed king and priest of chapter 11 contrast starkly with the wicked ruler and his priest in chapter 13. This portrait reinforces John’s contrast between the church and the world system; the latter holds power to kill God’s witnesses, but the witnesses will triumph nevertheless, even through their sacrifice.
The two witnesses also present a different aspect of the church than we would see if we had only the following chapter. To be sure, God will provide for his people in the desert (12:6, 14), protecting them from the plagues (7:3). Here, however, they boldly challenge the evil rulers, who embody the spirit of Antichrist. Like the original apostles, the church confirms its message about Jesus with signs—and by suffering. They die at the Antichrist’s hand (11:7; 13:7), but in their very martyrdom they overcome him (12:11). Cutting-edge witness always demands the threat of suffering, and Christian witness and suffering together must precede the end (6:9–11).
Bridging Contexts
PARADIGMATIC WITNESSES. Those who view the two witnesses as future literal witnesses can view them as paradigmatic for the church, because we are also witnesses (19:10) in a time of hardship (1:9). Those who view the witnesses as symbolic for the church in this age will naturally view them as even more paradigmatic. Others have offered various historical explanations, but even in this case often have allowed the witnesses to function as models for their own experience.
Many throughout history have applied the sufferings of the two witnesses to their own experiences as a martyr church. For example, Pareus in the late 1500s to the early 1600s linked the two witnesses with the sufferings of Wycliffe and Hus and the Inquisition. Similarly, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) understood the suffering of the Protestant Reformers under the Antichrist.45 While it may be illegitimate to suggest that John’s focus was on a range of events as narrow as this, such sufferings surely fall within the range of acceptable application.
When called on to suffer for our Christian witness, we should identify with the two witnesses, because like them and like our Lord, we will be raised beyond death when Christ comes to avenge us. The problem arises when we assume that a specific application of the principle of the suffering witnesses is the text’s only proper interpretation. Hans Hut, for example, one of the most effective and devoted Anabaptist evangelists of the 1500s, thought the two witnesses were the martyred Thomas Müntzer and his coworker. Thus he expected Christ’s return in 1528; he died too soon to see his prediction disconfirmed.46
Three and a half years. Modern popular understanding of Revelation focuses on a literal seven-year Tribulation. One problem with this view is that it assumes that the entirety of Daniel’s seventieth seven-year week is the period of which Revelation speaks, when in fact Revelation speaks of only half that time, three and a half years. One might add two of the three-and-a-half year periods together (11:2–3; 12:6, 14; 13:5) to get seven years, but what does one do with the other ones? Why combine some but not all of these time references?47
Another problem is that Revelation regularly reapplies earlier Jewish images, including those from the biblical prophets, in fresh symbolic ways; did the literal three and a half years begin immediately after Jesus’ exaltation (for more detail, see comment on 12:5–6)? Taking into account Revelation’s genre forces us to at least grapple with the question as to whether even the stated time frame of 1260 days is symbolic or literal.
Divine vengeance. A doctrine of divine vengeance may sound socially “primitive” to many unbelievers (who assume their ever-changing cultural values a moral standard superior to divine revelation!), hence embarrassing to some Christians. But the oppressed can resonate with such promises. Those who are not oppressed should not hear in such texts a call to hate those who are not really oppressing them, but rather a summons to value the kingdom above worldly favor, lest we find our hearts ever drawn to Babylon more than to the new Jerusalem.
Mission to Jewish people. Those who see in our text or in other texts (especially Rom. 11:26) a report of Jerusalem’s final turning to faith in the Messiah Jesus are sometimes tempted to misapply this assurance. Some neglect bringing the message about Jesus to the Jewish people because “they will be converted anyway.”48 This approach is both illogical and misses the point of the text. Scripture mentions only the conversion of the surviving remnant of the final generation, not the majority of Jewish people in history until that point. Moreover, both Revelation (Rev. 11:3) and Paul (Rom. 1:16–17; 11:14, 25, 31) presuppose that believers must continue to proclaim the message to ethnic Israel as well as to Gentiles.
That church history reflects more of the tragedy of anti-Semitism (including Jewish people burned on “crosses” and drowned in mock baptisms) than a culturally sensitive witness to the people who gave the world the gospel reinforces all the more the need for believers to emulate the sacrificial, martyr witness depicted here (cf. 11:7). Nor dare we rest content with the current “remnant” of messianic Jews, sizeable though it may be.49 When Paul spoke of Jewish believers as a remnant (Rom. 11:5), he contrasted that with Israel as a whole (11:26). The percentage of Jewish believers in Jesus was much higher in his day than in ours, and this reflects the history of Christendom’s anti-Semitism, which we must now surmount.50
Contemporary Significance
THE APPLICATION IS difficult unless we can agree on the original meaning of the text, which on many points remains debatable. But we may offer some suggestions. The trampling of the outer courts probably signifies the suffering of God’s people (maybe Jewish, maybe Christian) in this age; more clearly, however, the measuring is deferred until the new Jerusalem of 21:16. Those who serve God may be a minority, often a persecuted minority, but the future is ultimately ours. God often works through what is small, broken, and despised in this age, but he will ultimately vindicate his remnant.
The two witnesses as symbols for today. If the two witnesses are the church, they provide a direct model for us. Those who interpret them as two literal individuals can also recognize that they nevertheless provide role models for us, just as other men and women of God in Scripture do (cf. 1 Cor. 10:11). We must therefore be Spirit-empowered witnesses to the world, ready to pay any cost and utterly dependent on God’s power to accomplish his purposes.
Various reasons exist for the dual number of the witnesses, but one may be the principle of shared witness (Deut. 17:6): We do not testify only by ourselves. Our own witness may not always bring a person or culture to Christ by itself, but our witness contributes to the broader witness of the entire prophetic remnant of the church. To whatever extent the witnesses represent the kingly and priestly aspects of the church’s mission, the text may also imply the importance of the church’s various functions. But again, such applications may be disputed, especially if the interpretations on which they are based remain disputed.
More clearly, like prophetic voices in the Bible, we must sometimes stand virtually alone, if need be, to challenge the wrongs of our day.51 Most often we stand as voices for the truth of God’s message in Christ. By reaching people for Christ and discipling them into mature witnesses (Matt. 28:19–20), we can multiply our impact many times over.52
In 1870 a Hindu convert to Christ led to Christ Ditt, a lame man from the untouchable Chuhra caste. He faced considerable persecution as he carried the message of Jesus Christ with him from village to village, but within eleven years over 500 Chuhras became Christians. “By 1900, more than half of these lowly people … had been converted, and by 1915 all but a few hundred members of the caste professed the Christian faith.”53 As some committed to evangelism have put it, “Today, in a world where three out of four persons have yet to believe in Jesus Christ and at least two out of every four have yet to hear of Jesus Christ, if a congregation is not reproducing, it is not a New Testament church, no matter what it calls itself!”54
We may rejoice in statistics that suggest large numbers of born-again Christians in our own and many other parts of the world. But even in apparently saturated regions like the United States, most younger unchurched people (and many church people) have never really understood the claims of the gospel. On the streets in some parts of the country, among some cultural groups, and among university students, I find that Christian experience is often largely partitioned off in the church; this is probably because most Christians share their faith primarily with fellow-Christians lest they face rejection from non-Christian peers.
If two fundamental Baptists had not witnessed to me on the street in 1975, I may never have heard the gospel, because I was at that time an atheist who would never have set foot in an evangelical church. Most amazingly, even in churches some people do not understand the gospel unless it is explained to them one on one. I have served in churches where attenders had heard salvation carefully and frequently explained from the pulpit but who never really understood how to be saved until it was explained to them personally. We dare not take too much for granted, and we must be ready to pay whatever price to spread God’s message, just as the two witnesses of Revelation were.
Signs and wonders. God empowered his church with prophetic anointing at Pentecost (Acts 2:17–18); although this includes prophecy in the narrower sense (21:9–10), that anointing’s focus is the power to witness (1:8).55 That these two witnesses performed signs and wonders suits the witness of the apostolic leaders of the church and other evangelists in Acts (2:43; 5:12, 16; 6:8; 14:3); signs and wonders constitute one of the most frequent methods of drawing the world’s attention to the gospel there (3:6–12; 8:6–7, 13; 9:34–35, 40–42; 19:10–20; 28:8–9). When I noticed this in Acts, I began praying for healing for people with whom I shared Christ; some were dramatically healed and responded quickly to the gospel message that God was confirming.
Yet the Western church today rarely experiences miracles. Indeed, even those parts of the Western church most triumphalistic about miracles rarely can testify of miracles on the scale on which they appear in the biblical ministries of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, or Paul. Some respond to this dearth of miracles and interpret Scripture in light of their experience to suppose that God stopped the flow of miracles after the completion of the canon. This explanation denies too much, however; the Bible assumes the continuance of supernatural gifts until the end of the age (1 Cor. 13:8–12; Eph. 4:11–13; Rev. 11:5–6), and both church history and recent revivals in some parts of the world attest that God still sovereignly graces his church with miracles.56
God’s sovereignty and Western rationalism may both account for some of the rareness of miracles in Western Christianity. Even more than that, however, we have on the whole too much in common with the compromised Christianity of cities like Laodicea, Thyatira, and Sardis, which were too comfortable with the world, or with the lovelessness of Ephesus.57 Miracles in the Bible appear most frequently on the cutting edge of God’s activity, especially spreading the good news of the kingdom (Acts 6:8; 14:3; 19:11–12). I have witnessed them far more when believers have been breaking new ground with the gospel than when we have become self-absorbed with our own comfort this side of paradise. Only when the church becomes prepared to challenge the idols of society with the claims of Christ, as the two witnesses do in our text, will we witness God’s power in biblical fullness.
On martyrdom. That no one can harm the witnesses until God allows their martyrdom (11:5) recalls how God’s judgments on the world will also not harm his servants (7:3). This reminds us that God is sovereign not only over nature but even over our enemies’ attempts to destroy us; truly not a hair of our heads will fall apart from our Father’s will (Matt. 10:29–30).
But the text also reveals that God’s servants who proclaim his Word in the world cannot always expect deliverance; Revelation calls us to prepare ourselves as a martyr church. The moment we become Christ’s followers, we forfeit our lives for the work of the kingdom (Mark 8:34–38); yet for the most part we have failed to prepare ourselves and our fellow servants for this calling. Our culture insulates us better than most from most confrontations with “natural” death; it certainly does not prepare us for martyrdom. Yet if we believe our Lord’s teaching, we must work to get the church ready for suffering, even martyrdom, if that becomes the necessary price of our witness to those who do not wish to hear (Rev. 2:10; cf. John 12:25–26; 15:18–21).
Divine vindication. In the end God vindicates his servants in the sight of the very ones who ridiculed them; such vindication is also a frequent biblical pattern (Ps. 23:5), though we do not always live to see it individually. Some of those who ridicule our message now may repent later. One drug addict I testified to during my high school days seemed as closed against the gospel as I had been as an atheist, and I frankly doubted he would ever be converted; on my return from my first year of college, guess who I found in church?
But sometimes it takes more than our preaching to make people’s hearts receptive. Two of us new converts witnessed boldly in high school, but the turning point in many people’s receptivity was after a two-month period when six individuals who had rejected and mostly mocked our message died in various ways. What preaching and witness may not accomplish for our land, God’s judgment may yet accomplish for those who survive it. In this age his judgment is always an act of love; he normally leaves a remnant who can learn from the judgment.
God’s vindication of the martyrs immediately prior to the end leads to the equivalent of a deathbed conversion of the city where Jesus was crucified: The bulk of survivors are converted (11:11–13). But while judgments get people’s attention, we cannot depend on them always happening immediately (6:10). Most people through history will not be alive at the time of Jesus’ return, nor will most people in the world who are alive genuinely repent (6:16–17; cf. 1:7). The appropriate time for repentance is therefore always “now” (cf. 2 Cor. 6:2). But we may note that while judgment often gets people’s attention for the truth, in Revelation acts of judgment apart from witness failed to do so (Rev. 9:20–21).
Original Meaning
The History of the Two Witnesses (11:7–14)
THE WITNESSES ARE authorized to prophesy, that is, to speak God’s message by his Spirit and on his behalf, like ancient Israel’s prophets. They wear sackcloth (11:3), a sign of mourning and self-humiliation, often specifically the mourning of repentance.31 This contrasts starkly with the gaiety that follows after their deaths (11:10), suggesting that the world would rather enjoy deception than hear unpleasant truth.
That the beast who rises from the Abyss (9:11, described in greater detail in 13:1–3) will “war” with the two witnesses (11:7, lit. trans.; NIV “attack them”) borrows the holy war language often adapted in Revelation.32 But the true Christian warriors (see comment on 7:1–8) are martyrs (7:9–17), and the ultimate battles will prove spiritual (in the heavens, where Satan loses without dispute; see 12:7) and eschatological (when Jesus destroys his challengers; see 17:14; 19:11; cf. the foretaste in 2:16). Worshipers of the beast ask who can make war with him (13:4); the answer is the slain Lamb, who also happens to be the supreme king (17:14). That the beast “overpowers” or “conquers” the saints (11:7; 13:7) indicates merely the temporal, human perspective. In the final analysis, the saints overcome the world by accepting martyrdom without compromise (2:10–11; 3:9, 12; 12:11; 15:2).
John’s images seem deliberately polyvalent (as in 17:9–10, where the same image represents two things).33 “The great city” (11:8) may refer to the ungodly world as a whole (i.e., Babylon), envisioned in John’s day as Rome; after all, representatives of all peoples (11:9–10) suggests the empire. But the reference to the place of Jesus’ crucifixion (11:8) presumably specifies Jerusalem (Mark 10:33; Luke 13:33–34; Heb. 13:12).34 The holy city that was trampled by pagans during the period of the witnesses’ testimony (11:2) was Jerusalem; Jesus’ witnesses thus suffer where he did. John’s insight regarding the names of the city is not “figuratively … Sodom and Egypt” (so NIV), but literally, “Spiritually”—that is, by the Spirit, who inspires prophets to understand God’s revelations (as in 17:3–5).35 “Sodom” was a prophetic title for Jerusalem that implied its judgment (Isa. 1:9–10; Jer. 23:14; Lam. 4:6)—not surprising in a book that calls Rome “Babylon” and false prophets “Balaam” and “Jezebel.”
Yet by John’s “spiritual” insight, this city also stands for the broader world in some sense, for representatives from all nations witness the bodies (11:9).36 The “great city” (11:8) may be Jerusalem in some sense here (perhaps the “holy city” of 11:2), but usually in this book it is explicitly Babylon (17:18; 18:10, 16, 18–21).37 As Babylon it contrasts with the new Jerusalem, the “Holy City” (21:2, 10, 19), whose dimensions prove incomparably greater than the “great city” (cf. 21:16). The Antichrist’s world system of John’s day would have been epitomized in Rome, but not limited to it. Unbelieving Jerusalem blends into the imperial world system of which it is a part, just as Jewish accusers of Christians to local officials have their synagogues linked with Satan in 2:9 and 3:9. “Egypt” (11:8) is an appropriate title for a world that has oppressed God’s servants but stands under plagues like those of the Exodus (chs. 8–9; 16); “Sodom” also fits a world system destined for destruction by fire (20:9; cf. 11:5).
That the witnesses lie in the street (11:8) indicates that they remain unburied, receiving what was considered the most shameful treatment in the ancient world, normally reserved for the most vile of criminals.38 The world’s celebration and mockery of the martyrs is deeply ironic: In earlier biblical tradition God’s servants escaped genocide, hence killed their enemies and celebrated with gifts (Esther 9:19). Here, by contrast, the enemies of God’s servants exchange gifts after slaughtering them, yet many are ultimately converted (11:11–13). But as in the biblical tradition of holy war, God’s side will enjoy the final exultation; heaven will rejoice over this city’s collapse (19:1–7).39
The three and a half days of the bodies’ defilement indicates that their corpses will be rotting, but probably also alludes to the three-and-a-half years of their ministry (11:9, 11). The text cannot function as a coherent narrative if John claims that they were continuously martyred during their ministry, but he may imply as much, indicating that while death cannot silence the church’s witness (cf. Matt. 16:18), martyrdom frequently accompanies its prophetic ministry.40
The witnesses are protected for the duration of their ministry (11:5) but die at the end (11:7). This may provide a way to show that God will preserve his church throughout the age for the sake of their witness, but that as the universal proclamation of the gospel is fulfilled, the world finally appears to crush the church through massive martyrdoms. (In John’s day, believers probably expected such events to follow immediately in the Roman empire, but they are no less believable in today’s volatile world.)
Thus the church will follow in the steps of its Lord: Christians will die but should look for the hope of the resurrection (11:11; cf. 1:5; 2:8–10; Heb. 11:35–12:4). The “breath of life” (Rev. 11:11), which can also be translated “Spirit of life” (cf. Rom. 8:2), alludes to God’s care in Genesis 2:7 (as in John 20:22) and contrasts with the false life imparted in Revelation 13:15.41 Like Jesus at the beginning of the era of hardship (cf. 12:5), these witnesses are caught up to heaven at its end (11:12), a sign of vindication and ultimate deliverance (12:5). In contrast to the “come up here” cited in 4:1, this instance of the phrase is a “rapture”; but in contrast with some popular North American eschatological schemes, it occurs immediately preceding the end of the age, not several years before (11:15).42
Given the world’s persistent refusal to repent in the face of God’s plagues (9:20–21; 16:9–11, toward the end of the trumpets and bowls), the repentance of the city in 11:11–13 is heartening. “And gave glory to the God of heaven” (11:13) plainly involves worship (4:9; 19:7), but for the unrighteous, also repentance (16:9; cf. 14:7). Their newfound fear of God (11:11, 13) also suggests an appropriate response to his judgments (Deut. 21:21; Acts 5:11; for the end-time earthquake, see also 6:12; 16:18–19). In this case the symbol’s significance seems limited to the image’s narrower meaning of Jerusalem or ethnic Jewry rather than to the world system as a whole. If 11:8 and the inverted allusion to Purim in the book of Esther suggests that the enemies here include unbelieving Jerusalemites, this text may imply the eschatological conversion of the bulk of the Jewish people in Jerusalem not previously converted. Such a prediction fits early Christian expectations (Matt. 23:39; Rom. 11:25–27), whereas the nonrepentance of most surviving Gentiles at the end seems assumed (Rev. 6:16–17).43
In this case Revelation includes a hopeful irony. Biblical prophets sometimes limited the surviving remnant after judgment to a tenth who would ultimately follow the Lord (Isa. 6:13; Amos 5:3). Here, however, the tenth dies (7000 suited well the image of a remnant, 1 Kings 19:18; Rom. 11:4), while the majority come to faith.44
Bridging Contexts
PARADIGMATIC WITNESSES. Those who view the two witnesses as future literal witnesses can view them as paradigmatic for the church, because we are also witnesses (19:10) in a time of hardship (1:9). Those who view the witnesses as symbolic for the church in this age will naturally view them as even more paradigmatic. Others have offered various historical explanations, but even in this case often have allowed the witnesses to function as models for their own experience.
Many throughout history have applied the sufferings of the two witnesses to their own experiences as a martyr church. For example, Pareus in the late 1500s to the early 1600s linked the two witnesses with the sufferings of Wycliffe and Hus and the Inquisition. Similarly, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) understood the suffering of the Protestant Reformers under the Antichrist.45 While it may be illegitimate to suggest that John’s focus was on a range of events as narrow as this, such sufferings surely fall within the range of acceptable application.
When called on to suffer for our Christian witness, we should identify with the two witnesses, because like them and like our Lord, we will be raised beyond death when Christ comes to avenge us. The problem arises when we assume that a specific application of the principle of the suffering witnesses is the text’s only proper interpretation. Hans Hut, for example, one of the most effective and devoted Anabaptist evangelists of the 1500s, thought the two witnesses were the martyred Thomas Müntzer and his coworker. Thus he expected Christ’s return in 1528; he died too soon to see his prediction disconfirmed.46
Three and a half years. Modern popular understanding of Revelation focuses on a literal seven-year Tribulation. One problem with this view is that it assumes that the entirety of Daniel’s seventieth seven-year week is the period of which Revelation speaks, when in fact Revelation speaks of only half that time, three and a half years. One might add two of the three-and-a-half year periods together (11:2–3; 12:6, 14; 13:5) to get seven years, but what does one do with the other ones? Why combine some but not all of these time references?47
Another problem is that Revelation regularly reapplies earlier Jewish images, including those from the biblical prophets, in fresh symbolic ways; did the literal three and a half years begin immediately after Jesus’ exaltation (for more detail, see comment on 12:5–6)? Taking into account Revelation’s genre forces us to at least grapple with the question as to whether even the stated time frame of 1260 days is symbolic or literal.
Divine vengeance. A doctrine of divine vengeance may sound socially “primitive” to many unbelievers (who assume their ever-changing cultural values a moral standard superior to divine revelation!), hence embarrassing to some Christians. But the oppressed can resonate with such promises. Those who are not oppressed should not hear in such texts a call to hate those who are not really oppressing them, but rather a summons to value the kingdom above worldly favor, lest we find our hearts ever drawn to Babylon more than to the new Jerusalem.
Mission to Jewish people. Those who see in our text or in other texts (especially Rom. 11:26) a report of Jerusalem’s final turning to faith in the Messiah Jesus are sometimes tempted to misapply this assurance. Some neglect bringing the message about Jesus to the Jewish people because “they will be converted anyway.”48 This approach is both illogical and misses the point of the text. Scripture mentions only the conversion of the surviving remnant of the final generation, not the majority of Jewish people in history until that point. Moreover, both Revelation (Rev. 11:3) and Paul (Rom. 1:16–17; 11:14, 25, 31) presuppose that believers must continue to proclaim the message to ethnic Israel as well as to Gentiles.
That church history reflects more of the tragedy of anti-Semitism (including Jewish people burned on “crosses” and drowned in mock baptisms) than a culturally sensitive witness to the people who gave the world the gospel reinforces all the more the need for believers to emulate the sacrificial, martyr witness depicted here (cf. 11:7). Nor dare we rest content with the current “remnant” of messianic Jews, sizeable though it may be.49 When Paul spoke of Jewish believers as a remnant (Rom. 11:5), he contrasted that with Israel as a whole (11:26). The percentage of Jewish believers in Jesus was much higher in his day than in ours, and this reflects the history of Christendom’s anti-Semitism, which we must now surmount.50
Contemporary Significance
THE APPLICATION IS difficult unless we can agree on the original meaning of the text, which on many points remains debatable. But we may offer some suggestions. The trampling of the outer courts probably signifies the suffering of God’s people (maybe Jewish, maybe Christian) in this age; more clearly, however, the measuring is deferred until the new Jerusalem of 21:16. Those who serve God may be a minority, often a persecuted minority, but the future is ultimately ours. God often works through what is small, broken, and despised in this age, but he will ultimately vindicate his remnant.
The two witnesses as symbols for today. If the two witnesses are the church, they provide a direct model for us. Those who interpret them as two literal individuals can also recognize that they nevertheless provide role models for us, just as other men and women of God in Scripture do (cf. 1 Cor. 10:11). We must therefore be Spirit-empowered witnesses to the world, ready to pay any cost and utterly dependent on God’s power to accomplish his purposes.
Various reasons exist for the dual number of the witnesses, but one may be the principle of shared witness (Deut. 17:6): We do not testify only by ourselves. Our own witness may not always bring a person or culture to Christ by itself, but our witness contributes to the broader witness of the entire prophetic remnant of the church. To whatever extent the witnesses represent the kingly and priestly aspects of the church’s mission, the text may also imply the importance of the church’s various functions. But again, such applications may be disputed, especially if the interpretations on which they are based remain disputed.
More clearly, like prophetic voices in the Bible, we must sometimes stand virtually alone, if need be, to challenge the wrongs of our day.51 Most often we stand as voices for the truth of God’s message in Christ. By reaching people for Christ and discipling them into mature witnesses (Matt. 28:19–20), we can multiply our impact many times over.52
In 1870 a Hindu convert to Christ led to Christ Ditt, a lame man from the untouchable Chuhra caste. He faced considerable persecution as he carried the message of Jesus Christ with him from village to village, but within eleven years over 500 Chuhras became Christians. “By 1900, more than half of these lowly people … had been converted, and by 1915 all but a few hundred members of the caste professed the Christian faith.”53 As some committed to evangelism have put it, “Today, in a world where three out of four persons have yet to believe in Jesus Christ and at least two out of every four have yet to hear of Jesus Christ, if a congregation is not reproducing, it is not a New Testament church, no matter what it calls itself!”54
We may rejoice in statistics that suggest large numbers of born-again Christians in our own and many other parts of the world. But even in apparently saturated regions like the United States, most younger unchurched people (and many church people) have never really understood the claims of the gospel. On the streets in some parts of the country, among some cultural groups, and among university students, I find that Christian experience is often largely partitioned off in the church; this is probably because most Christians share their faith primarily with fellow-Christians lest they face rejection from non-Christian peers.
If two fundamental Baptists had not witnessed to me on the street in 1975, I may never have heard the gospel, because I was at that time an atheist who would never have set foot in an evangelical church. Most amazingly, even in churches some people do not understand the gospel unless it is explained to them one on one. I have served in churches where attenders had heard salvation carefully and frequently explained from the pulpit but who never really understood how to be saved until it was explained to them personally. We dare not take too much for granted, and we must be ready to pay whatever price to spread God’s message, just as the two witnesses of Revelation were.
Signs and wonders. God empowered his church with prophetic anointing at Pentecost (Acts 2:17–18); although this includes prophecy in the narrower sense (21:9–10), that anointing’s focus is the power to witness (1:8).55 That these two witnesses performed signs and wonders suits the witness of the apostolic leaders of the church and other evangelists in Acts (2:43; 5:12, 16; 6:8; 14:3); signs and wonders constitute one of the most frequent methods of drawing the world’s attention to the gospel there (3:6–12; 8:6–7, 13; 9:34–35, 40–42; 19:10–20; 28:8–9). When I noticed this in Acts, I began praying for healing for people with whom I shared Christ; some were dramatically healed and responded quickly to the gospel message that God was confirming.
Yet the Western church today rarely experiences miracles. Indeed, even those parts of the Western church most triumphalistic about miracles rarely can testify of miracles on the scale on which they appear in the biblical ministries of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, or Paul. Some respond to this dearth of miracles and interpret Scripture in light of their experience to suppose that God stopped the flow of miracles after the completion of the canon. This explanation denies too much, however; the Bible assumes the continuance of supernatural gifts until the end of the age (1 Cor. 13:8–12; Eph. 4:11–13; Rev. 11:5–6), and both church history and recent revivals in some parts of the world attest that God still sovereignly graces his church with miracles.56
God’s sovereignty and Western rationalism may both account for some of the rareness of miracles in Western Christianity. Even more than that, however, we have on the whole too much in common with the compromised Christianity of cities like Laodicea, Thyatira, and Sardis, which were too comfortable with the world, or with the lovelessness of Ephesus.57 Miracles in the Bible appear most frequently on the cutting edge of God’s activity, especially spreading the good news of the kingdom (Acts 6:8; 14:3; 19:11–12). I have witnessed them far more when believers have been breaking new ground with the gospel than when we have become self-absorbed with our own comfort this side of paradise. Only when the church becomes prepared to challenge the idols of society with the claims of Christ, as the two witnesses do in our text, will we witness God’s power in biblical fullness.
On martyrdom. That no one can harm the witnesses until God allows their martyrdom (11:5) recalls how God’s judgments on the world will also not harm his servants (7:3). This reminds us that God is sovereign not only over nature but even over our enemies’ attempts to destroy us; truly not a hair of our heads will fall apart from our Father’s will (Matt. 10:29–30).
But the text also reveals that God’s servants who proclaim his Word in the world cannot always expect deliverance; Revelation calls us to prepare ourselves as a martyr church. The moment we become Christ’s followers, we forfeit our lives for the work of the kingdom (Mark 8:34–38); yet for the most part we have failed to prepare ourselves and our fellow servants for this calling. Our culture insulates us better than most from most confrontations with “natural” death; it certainly does not prepare us for martyrdom. Yet if we believe our Lord’s teaching, we must work to get the church ready for suffering, even martyrdom, if that becomes the necessary price of our witness to those who do not wish to hear (Rev. 2:10; cf. John 12:25–26; 15:18–21).
Divine vindication. In the end God vindicates his servants in the sight of the very ones who ridiculed them; such vindication is also a frequent biblical pattern (Ps. 23:5), though we do not always live to see it individually. Some of those who ridicule our message now may repent later. One drug addict I testified to during my high school days seemed as closed against the gospel as I had been as an atheist, and I frankly doubted he would ever be converted; on my return from my first year of college, guess who I found in church?
But sometimes it takes more than our preaching to make people’s hearts receptive. Two of us new converts witnessed boldly in high school, but the turning point in many people’s receptivity was after a two-month period when six individuals who had rejected and mostly mocked our message died in various ways. What preaching and witness may not accomplish for our land, God’s judgment may yet accomplish for those who survive it. In this age his judgment is always an act of love; he normally leaves a remnant who can learn from the judgment.
God’s vindication of the martyrs immediately prior to the end leads to the equivalent of a deathbed conversion of the city where Jesus was crucified: The bulk of survivors are converted (11:11–13). But while judgments get people’s attention, we cannot depend on them always happening immediately (6:10). Most people through history will not be alive at the time of Jesus’ return, nor will most people in the world who are alive genuinely repent (6:16–17; cf. 1:7). The appropriate time for repentance is therefore always “now” (cf. 2 Cor. 6:2). But we may note that while judgment often gets people’s attention for the truth, in Revelation acts of judgment apart from witness failed to do so (Rev. 9:20–21).