Question:
What is the meaning of Rev. 11:3, and who are the two witnesses?
Answer:
God’s law of witness is that at least two witnesses shall witness the same thing. Deut. 19:15; Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1. The two witnesses of Jesus Christ were God’s Word in the Scriptures and God’s Word in the life and works of Christ. John 5:36, 39. Thus, the Father and the Son witnessed to the same thing. John 8:17, 18. Thus, the Old Testament, the Scriptures recorded before the incarnation of Christ, and the New Testament, which recorded the life and works of Christ, are God’s witnesses of the ages. In Revelation 11, the symbols given, vv. 5, 6, point us to Moses and Elijah, two men who represent the law and the prophets–Biblical monikers of the two testaments. In a still broader sense, the two witnesses of God are His written Word and the living epistle of His true church, in whom that Word is inwrought and revealed. It was dimly revealed during the 1260 days of Rev. 11:3. This was prophetic of the Dark Ages of the union of Church and State–A.D. 538 to 1798–when the enemy, through the apostate papal church endeavored to destroy the witnesses of God’s Word. They prophesied in sackcloth, mourning, and persecution but were not destroyed. Their power is in God, and the oil of the grace of His Spirit supplies the power so that every word will prove effectual and every prophecy will be fulfilled.
