(Revelation 11:3, 4)

THE TWO WITNESSES—THEIR CONSPICUOUSNESS—THE ACCOUNT OF THEM DICTATED BY CHRIST—THEIR NUMBER—THEIR PERSONALITY—THEIR INDIVIDUALITY—ARE SAINTS FROM HEAVEN—DISTINCT FROM RESURRECTED AND GLORIFIED SAINTS—ENOCH AND ELIJAH ANSWER TO THE DESCRIPTION—BEINGS FROM HEAVEN HAVE COME TO EARTH AND DIED—THE PERSONAL RETURN OF ELIJAH AFFIRMED BY MALACHI, CHRIST, THE JEWS, THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS—A TWOFOLD ELIJAH COMING—ANOTHER PROPHET TO ACCOMPANY ELIJAH—ENOCH THAT PROPHET—BOTH ARE JUDGMENT-PROPHETS—THEIR CLOTHING—HOW "THE TWO OLIVE TREES AND THE TWO LAMPS"—THEIR STANDING BEFORE THE LORD OF THE EARTH.

Rev. 2:3, 4. (Revised Text.) And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive-trees and the two lamps, which stand before the Lord of the earth. 

Whoever these witnesses may be, they are the most extraordinary of whom there is any account. Many martyrs perish under the Beast (see chapters 13:15; 20:4); but none of them receive a tithe of the notice given to these two. Antichrist himself, in all his despicable preeminence and vast dominions does not more conspicuously stand out on the record than they. Nay, in all the earth there are none to cope with him but them. He tramples the world beneath his feet, and they alone are more formidable against him than all other men besides. And this one simple fact is itself sufficient to shake and overthrow forever many of the modern attempts to identify them. The priests Ananus and Jesus at the time of Rome's siege of Jerusalem, Pope Sylvester and Mena, Francis and Dominic, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, the Waldenses and the Paulikians, in this view of the case, are not once to be thought of.

These Witnesses are not presented to John in vision. They are described to him by the glorious Angel, who is the Lord Jesus Himself. The account we have of them is not John's account, as in most other instances in this book; but it is Christ's account, given in Christ's own words. But few interpreters have remarked this, though a striking feature of the case, which shows that we here have to do with something altogether extraordinary and special.

The narrative is also somewhat anticipative. It brings together into one compendious account the whole history, some of the details of which relate to agencies and scenes which are only afterwards described in full. The Beast who makes war with these Witnesses, and slays them, is not seen coming up till we reach the thirteenth chapter. Their career accordingly reaches into subsequent visions, and overspans scenes and events which remain to be afterwards narrated. And the fact that the whole story of these Witnesses is presented separately from everything else, in a different manner, and somewhat in advance of some of its connections, conclusively argues a peculiarity, conspicuity, and extraordinariness in the matter, which cannot well be exaggerated.

These Witnesses are two in number—δυσίν μάρτυσὶν. This duality is three times repeated, and is an essential part of the record. As stated by Alford, "no interpretation can be right which does not retain and bring out this dualism." Why two, we do not fully know. Both the law and the Gospel calls for two witnesses to establish important truth. (Deut. 17:6; Matt. 18:16.)

God generally sets his heralds and witnesses in pairs, as Moses and Aaron, Caleb and Joshua, Zerubbabel and Jeshua, Peter and John, the twelve and the seventy, "two by two." And in the trying circumstances here described, two could better uphold and console each other than one, without companionship.

These witnesses are persons. Primasius says, though somewhat equivocally, "The Two Witnesses represent the Two Testaments preached by the Christian Church to the world," and Bede, and Bishop Andrews, and Melchior, and Affelman, and Croly, and Wordsworth, and some others, have taken this view. But it is altogether a mistaken view, necessitated by the embarrassment occasioned by wrong conceptions of the Apocalypse, rejected by the overwhelming majority of interpreters ancient and modern, and utterly irreconcilable with the text. It is not true that the Old and New Testaments are preached to the world only 1260 days, or years, and then end their testimony;—that they are arrayed in sackcloth all the days they are preached;—that fire issues out of their mouths and kills those who will to injure them;—that there is no rain upon the earth during the days of their prophesying;—that they have power over waters to convert them into blood, or at will to smite the earth with plagues;—that they are capable of being killed by man;—or that indignity can be offered them, being dead, by refusing to allow them to be put into a sepulchre. Yet all these things are affirmed of these Witnesses. Nor is either the Old or the New Testament ever called a μαρτυρ. Ten times do we find this word in the New Testament, and in every other place but this, no one questions that it denotes persons. In more than fifty places in the Old Testament, the corresponding Hebrew word denotes persons only. These Witnesses prophesy. This is the work of a person. More than one hundred times does this word (προψητευω) occur in the Bible, and never, except once by metonymy, but of persons. These Witnesses wear clothing of sackcloth, of which we read much in the Scriptures, but always of persons. They work miracles and execute judgments, but nothing of the sort is ever predicted of anything but personal agents. Not without the greatest violence to language and fact, therefore, can we regard these Witnesses as other than real persons. The conclusion may be very damaging to some men's cherished theories, but the integrity of God's word requires it, and it is impossible to escape it with any just regard to the laws of language and the nature of things.

These witnesses are individuals. No reader of the account, having no preconceived theory to defend, would ever think of taking them for bodies, or successions of people. All the early fathers, from whom we have any testimony on the subject, regarded them as two individual men. Two distinct and conspicuous bodies of witnesses for Christ, all prophesying in sackcloth through 1260 years, or even days, and all dying martyrs, as here represented, expositors have searched in vain to find in the history of the Christian ages. Such bodies of men, with such powers, and with such a history, have never existed. Modern writers have flattered themselves that they have found successions of people scattered through the middle ages, whom they would have us accept as The Two Witnesses of the text; but they have been obliged to purchase their conclusions at the expense of explaining away every distinct feature of the record, doing violence to the facts of history, and super-exalting almost every species of obscure and even heretical sects and sectarists as God's only acknowledged prophets. This is by far too great a cost at which to accept a theory, which, even if true, would be totally unworthy of a place in so solemn and momentous a book as this Apocalypse. Good and able men have satisfied themselves with it; but, on the same principles of interpretation, there is not a chapter in the Bible, nor a doctrine of our holy religion, which could not be totally explained away. By a happy inconsistency they do not so treat other portions of Scripture, or they would transmute the whole Revelation of God into uncertainty and emptiness. And whilst we give them credit for their learning, industry, and good intentions, and admit that a dim and imperfect correspondence to these Two Witnesses may perhaps be traced in the past history of the Church, yet, as we value the literal truth and certainty of the Divine Word, we cannot accept their expositions as exhaustive, or even as approximative to the revelation here given us.

WHO, THEN, ARE THESE TWO WITNESSES?

The connection in which the account of them is given, may serve to put us somewhat on the track of the right answer. These Witnesses come upon us suddenly, in the midst of the scenes of the judgment. The glorious Angel, which is Christ, is in the act of taking possession of the earth. New commissions have gone forth, which introduce the saints in heaven to new activities relating to the earth. In the person of John they are commanded to measure the temple, its altar, and the worshippers in it. And in connection with this command, and as part of the same address of the glorious Angel, the word is:

"And I will give to my Two Witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days. These are the two olive-trees and the two lamps which stand before the Lord of the earth."

Now, as saints from heaven are to do the measuring, and the Two Witnesses are promised, in part at least, to accompany the measuring, would it not be natural to suppose them also to be some noted saints from heaven? Saints from heaven are in the field. These Witnesses fulfil their office in connection with a work assigned to those saints, and in some sort by way of co-operation or supplement of the same. Why should we then think of their being any other than also saints from heaven? Hence, with the whole body of the early Church, I take them to be none other than two such saints from heaven.

But a very marked and wide distinction is made between these Witnesses and the saints represented by John. Those are measures, these are witnesses. There is nothing said to show that the measures are known or visible to the people on the earth; but these Witnesses prophesy and preach to men, and are seen, and heard, and known, and handled by them. There is no intimation that the measurers are the objects of persecution, affliction, or death; but the Witnesses are hated, resisted, and finally killed. This difference indicates not only a difference of office and sphere, but also a difference in the form and susceptibility of being. The saints who have once died, and been resurrected and glorified, have put on immortality, and are no longer capable of death. "Once to die" is the lot appointed unto men; and having paid that debt, bodily death hath no more power over them. And as these Two Witnesses die subsequent to their prophesying, we are driven to search for some saints in heaven, who never have died.

Nor will our search be a fruitless one. The Scriptures tell of two noted prophets, who have now been thousands of years in heaven, and who, for aught we know to the contrary, are just as capable of death and resurrection as ever; especially if God has so arranged and intended. Need I say more plainly to whom I allude? They are so marvellously distinguished in the Scriptures from all others of the race, that it is at once suggested to the Christian mind who they are. They were, and still are, God's preeminent witnesses. They were God's most noted prophets while they sojourned upon earth, and, in the manner of their removal from among men, they are the only witnesses of the kind that God ever gave. One of them lived on the other side of the flood, "and was not, for God took him." The other was a Jew, of the degenerate times of Ahab and Jezebel, who "went up by a whirlwind into heaven." The one is Enoch, the seventh from Adam; the other is Elijah, the Tishbite.

It may strike the modern ear with some surprise to hear of these saints, or any saints, returning again to earth here to suffer and be killed. We live in a very materialistic and sceptical age;—one slow to believe, and very unwilling to receive anything outside of the common round of human observation. People see things running on in one channel, and call it Nature, and will not hear of the possibility of any variation from it, though what they reject may really be no more unnatural than what they admit. They are so impressed with the uniformity and stability of things around them, though knowing almost nothing about them, that they give out with great confidence:

"Since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (2 Pet. 3:4), and ridicule the credulity of those who can listen to anything else. They forget how the Scriptures pronounce against such a temper, and foretell it as one of the marked symptoms of the last days, and warn us to beware of it as unspeakably dangerous with regard to the predicted wonders of the judgment time. We must, therefore, make due allowance for the sceptical spirit of our modern atmosphere, and not reject extraordinary truth simply because it strikes us as too extraordinary.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Neither is it so unheard of and improbable a thing after all, that beings from heaven should come to the earth, and suffer, and die, and rise again. An infinitely longer time than since the rapture of Enoch, had the blessed and adorable Son of God been in heaven; yet he came to earth, suffered, died, and rose again. Even after His incarnation, on the mount with Peter, James, and John, he was as much arrayed in heavenly glory as Elijah who there appeared in converse with him; yet, from that holy mount, and glory, and sublime transfiguration, he came down, and suffered, and died. Paul was once in heaven, caught up, he knew not how, and saw and heard things he dared not tell; and yet, he came back, and preached, and suffered, and died. John was called up to heaven, to behold the wonders that are described in this Book; yet he also returned, and suffered, and died. And if the eternal Son of God from the very throne of Deity, and the Son of Mary from the mount with Moses and Elijah in glory, and Paul in the third heaven, and John amid the wonders of the scenes he writes of in the Apocalypse, could and did come from thence to preach, and suffer, and die, what laws of things, or word of Revelation, can be produced to preclude the possibility of a like return, suffering and death on the part of Enoch and Elijah? There are no such laws, and there is no such word.

But so marvellous a truth is not to be rested on mere likelihoods and probabilities. We must have something positive and decided for it, or dismiss it as a fancy. Something positive and decisive, however, we have.

Turning back to the ancient prophets, we find this word: "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you in judgment.... For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.... Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet [the Septuagint, Arabic, and old Latin versions read 'Elijah the Tishbite'] before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." (Mal. 3, 4.)

This is God's own word—the closing word of the Old Testament. It names Elijah the prophet, even Elijah the Tishbite, and says that God will send him again upon earth, to minister among men as the forerunner of the great and terrible day of the Lord—the day of the final overthrow of all the hosts of the wicked.

Here, then, we would seem to come upon solid Scriptural ground. If Elijah means Elijah, and the great and terrible day of the Lord is the day of Christ's final coming in judicial majesty to crush out Satan and his seed, there is no alternative left to believers in God's word, but to receive the doctrine that Elijah is to come again to prophesy and execute works of judgment upon earth, and just in that period of time to which the Apocalypse assigns these Two Witnesses. Whatever else may be compassed by the prediction, and in whatever narrower circles it may have been fulfilled, if words are not utterly deceitful, and certainty can at all be predicated of God's very specific promises, this prophecy cannot be considered fulfilled or accomplished in the past, nor until Elijah the Tishbite, in propria persona, returns again to the earth.

We accordingly find that the book of Ecclesiasticus (which the Roman Catholic Church receives as inspired, which the fathers and Reformers highly honoured, and which Protestants often have bound in their Bibles between the Old and New Testament), eulogizes Elijah and says, that he is anointed by God's order to appear again in the world, to rebuke evil, declare the impending judgment, reconcile the children of Jacob, rescue many, and make the way for the great and terrible day then about to break. (Chap. 48:1-11.) Hence also the ancient Jewish believers up to the time of Christ, as all strict Jews since, looked for the reappearance of Elijah in the flesh as the herald of the victorious Messiah. Arnold (in Ecclesiasticus 48:10) says: "It was the unanimous sense of the Jews, that Elias should first come himself in person before the Messiah, and restore all things." Their old Litany of the Hosannas celebrates this anticipation. Their most honoured writers constantly refer to it. Hence, too, the deputation to John the Baptist with the question: "Art thou Elias?" (John 1:19, 20.) And hence the remark of the disciples to Christ: "The Scribes say that Elias must first come." (Matt. 17:10.)

Some teach that this was a mistake—a mere Jewish notion. If so, it was a most extraordinary mistake. What was so devoutly accepted, taught, and believed by the holiest saints from Malachi to Christ, the theme of so many holy prayers and songs, and given out for the truth of God by the most eminent Christian fathers down to and inclusive of Jerome and Augustine, cannot safely be set down as a groundless conceit. We also have the highest Scriptural reasons for believing that it was not an empty notion, but a part of the true and abiding Revelation of God. Jesus Himself has affixed His own infallible authentication to it, and in such explicit terms that we can only wonder how people can speak so contemptuously of it as some writers who call themselves Christians.

On the mount of Christ's glorious Transfiguration Elijah appeared. The disciples saw him and knew him. And, as they were coming down from the mount, they asked the Master about this very point, alleging the doctrine of the scribes that "Elias must first come." And He answered and said unto them: "Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things." (Matt. 17:11.) This passage is decisive. "The great Interpreter of prophecy gives right to that interpretation of the prophetic word which the scribes maintained," says Trench. It cannot refer to John the Baptist, for John was then dead, while every part of it specifically relates to the future. "Elias truly shall come, and shall restore all things." Besides, the restoration or "restitution of all things" (ἀποκαταστασις παντων), in the which it is affirmed that the coming Elias is to take part, is specifically referred by the Apostle Peter to the time of Christ's second coming. (Acts 3:19.) In all its terms and relations, therefore, we are compelled to accept this solemn declaration of the Saviour as looking to the future, and meant to set forth what yet awaited fulfilment. John the Baptist is here out of the question, unless indeed he is to come again. Dr. Stier has rightly said: "Whoever, in this answer of Christ, would explain away the manifest and striking confirmation of the fact that a coming of Elias was yet to take place, must do great violence to the words, and will never be able to restrain the future of their form and import so as to be applicable to John the Baptist."

But, it may be asked, Did not Christ say in the same connection, that Elias had come already, leaving it to be understood that He spoke of John the Baptist? The answer is, Yes; but in a way entirely distinct from the declaration we have just been considering. Elsewhere also he says of John: "If ye will receive [it, him, or something else] this is Elias, which was for to come." (Matt. 11:14.) This proves that there is a sense in which John the Baptist was Elias, but certainly not such a sense as that in which the Jews were expecting Elias, nor yet such a sense as that in which He declared, after John was dead: "Elias truly shall first come and restore all things." John was not the literal Elias. This we are compelled to admit, or else he did not tell the truth; for when the priests and Levites asked him, "Art thou Elias?" he answered, "I am not." (John 1:21.) And this clear and positive denial is further sustained by the facts (1) that he did not restore all things as was predicted of Elias, and (2) that the great and terrible day, which was to be ushered in immediately upon the finishing of the Elijah ministry, did not succeed the ministry of John, but is even yet future. Whilst, therefore, there is a sense of much importance in which John was Elias, there is another, more literal, and equally important sense, in which he was not Elias, and in which Elias is still to be expected, according to the Saviour's own word.

There was a twofold ministry embraced in the ancient promise to send Elijah, just as there was a twofold advent in the predictions concerning the Messiah. In neither case did the Old Testament clearly distinguish between these two, but viewed them both as if they were but one. And as the two Messiah-comings are widely separated in time, though belonging to one and the same work; so there are two Elijah-comings, equally separated in time, and equally comprehended in the predictions. Hence, John, as the forerunner of Christ in the first advent, was Elias; that is, he filled the Elijah place, operated in the Elijah spirit and energy, did for that occasion the Elijah work, and so far fulfilled the Elijah promise. As the angel said of him before he was born, he went before Christ "in the spirit and power of Elias" (Luke 1:15-17); which implies that he was not Elias himself. The Saviour could, therefore, truly say of him while living, "If ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come;" and so likewise after he was dead, "Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed." John the Baptist operated in the spirit and energy of Elias, and performed the Elijah mission for the first advent, and so far "was Elias," but, according to the word of the angel, only the virtual, and not the literal Elias. He could accordingly answer the Jews, who had in mind the literal Elias, that he was not Elias, while yet, in another respect, he was Elias. In him the prediction in Malachi concerning the sending of Elijah had a true and real fulfilment, but only a partial, germinant, preliminary fulfilment, whilst the highest and ultimate fulfilment respects another advent of the Messiah, and the coming of the literal Elijah as the herald of it.

Such also is the view which the fathers took of the matter; and so they held and taught on the subject with great unanimity.

Justin Martyr says, "If Scripture compels you to admit two advents, shall we not allow that the word of God has proclaimed that Elijah shall be the precursor of the great and terrible day, that is, of His second advent? Accordingly our Lord in His teachings proclaimed that this very thing would take place, saying, that Elijah would also come. And we know that this shall take place when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come in glory from heaven; whose first manifestation the Spirit of God who was in Elijah preceded as herald in John."

Hippolytus says, "As two advents of our Lord are indicated in the Scriptures, also two forerunners are indicated, the first was John, the son of Zacharias. He first fulfilled the course of forerunner. But since the Saviour is to be manifested again at the end of the world, it is matter of course that His forerunners must appear first, as He says by Malachi, I will send to you Elias the Tishbite before the day of the Lord, who shall come and proclaim the manifestation of Christ that is to be from heaven, and perform signs and wonders."

So too Origen: "The vision upon the mountain in which Elias was seen, did not appear to agree with what the scribes had said: for it seemed Elias came not before Jesus, but after Him. They asked the question, therefore, supposing that the scribes had misled them. But to this the Saviour answers, not contradicting the tradition about Elias, but declaring that there was another coming of Elias before Christ, which had been unknown to the scribes."

Victorinus, Methodius, Cyprian, and Lactantius express the same belief and expectation that Elijah is yet to come in person.

Chrysostom says, "As John was the forerunner of the first coming, so will Elias be the forerunner of the second coming"—"Christ called John Elias on account of his performing the same office."

Theophylact says, "By saying that Elias cometh, He shows that he was not yet come; he will come as a forerunner of the second advent, and will restore to the faith of Christ all the Jews who are open to persuasion." "If we will receive it, that is, if ye will understand it wisely (if we will not take it too literally), this [John] is he of whom the prophet Malachi spoke as the coming Elias; for the forerunner and Elias perform the same service."

Jerome writes, "Elias himself, who will truly come in the body at the second coming of Christ, has now come in the spirit through the medium of John the Baptist."

And so the great Augustine: "It is a familiar theme in the conversation and heart of the faithful, that in the last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the true Christ by means of this great and admirable prophet Elias, who shall expound the law to them. For not without reason do we hope that before the coming of our Judge and Saviour Elias shall come."

And so profoundly and universally was this belief rooted and grounded in the early Christian heart and teaching, that De la Cerda says, "All the ancient fathers have delivered it;" and Huetius testifies, "It is the constant and most received opinion of the Church, and all the fathers;" and Maldonatus declares, "It was always the most constant opinion of Christians that Elias was to come before the day of judgment;" and Bellarmine gives it as his belief that to reject this doctrine is, vel haeresis vel haeresi proximus error—either heresy, or error next thing to heresy.

And so likewise it was expected and believed, by both Jews and Christians, that the returned Elijah would be accompanied by some other great prophet of the olden time, who was almost uniformly believed to be Enoch. Hence the book of Ecclesiasticus (according to the rendering of Bossuet, who regarded it as inspired and canonical) sets forth that Enoch is to come again, turn the hearts of the disobedient, and give repentance to the generations then living (Ecclesiasticus. 44:16), after the same manner that it speaks of Elijah. Hence, when John the Baptist told the messengers of the Jews that he was not Elias, they immediately asked him the further question: "Art thou that prophet?" and wondered who he could be if "not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet." (John 1:19-25.)

The apocryphal Gospels, Acts, &c, which, though we go not to them for doctrine, belong to the early literature of the Church, and hence are competent witnesses as to the opinions current among Christians at the time they were written, are also very positive and clear in the assertion, that Enoch, with Elijah, is to witness again upon earth. In the history of Joseph the carpenter, Jesus is represented as saying: "Enoch and Elias must, toward the end of time, return into the world and die, namely, in the day of commotion, terror, perplexity, and affliction; for Antichrist will slay them." (Chap. 31.) So in the Gospel of Nicodemus, two old men are found living in their bodies in paradise, one of whom says: "I am Enoch, who was well-pleasing to God, and who was translated hither by Him; and this is Elias the Tishbite; and we are also to live until the end of the world; and then we are to be sent by God to withstand Antichrist, and to be slain by him, and after three days to rise again, and to be snatched up in clouds to meet the Lord." (Chap. 9 alias 25.) So also in Revelation of John, a voice from heaven is represented as saying: "Three years shall those times be.... And then I shall send forth Enoch and Elias to convict him [Antichrist]; and they shall show him to be a liar and deceiver; and he shall kill them at the altar, as said the prophet." So also Tertullian (De Ania, 50); "Enoch was translated, and so was Elijah; nor did they experience death; it was deferred; they are reserved for the suffering of death, that by their blood they may extinguish Antichrist." Arethas (on Rev. 11:13) declares the two Witnesses to be Enoch and Elijah, and claims that this was held with one accord in his day—concorditer affirmatur. Ephraem the Syrian, in quite another section of the Church, speaking of the Antichrist and the great day of judgment, says, "But, before these things, the merciful Lord will send Elijah the Tishbite, and with him Enoch, to teach religion to the human race: and they shall preach boldly to all men the knowledge of God, exhorting them not to believe in the tyrant through fear. They shall cry out and say, 'This is a deceiver, O ye men. Let none of you in any way believe him: for in a little while he will be utterly abolished. Behold, the Lord, the Holy One, cometh from heaven!' " So also Ambrose, who reproves Victorinus for substituting the name of Jeremiah in the place of Enoch as the companion of Elijah in the last years of this present world. And scarcely, until after the first half of the Christian ages, do we hear of any other testimony on the subject. Whenever we hear of the last great Antichrist and the Witnesses who withstand him unto death, Elijah and Enoch, Enoch and Elijah are the names we hear from the lips of the most eminent teachers, bishops, apologists, and martyrs, from the time of the Apostles onward. Modern Christendom has wellnigh dropped these names from all such connections, as it has also wellnigh dropped most of the characteristics of primitive Christianity itself; but nothing that it has substituted in place of these names can claim even a moiety either of the Scriptural or the traditional evidences, which still, in spite of everything, continue to proclaim Enoch and Elijah The Two Witnesses.

It is also to be observed that these Witnesses are described as specially Christ's witnesses. He styles them by emphasis "My two Witnesses"—not so much witnesses for Christ in general as the Mediator and Redeemer of men, but the witnesses of Christ in the particular character and relations in which He was then speaking, namely, as the Mighty Judgment-Angel coming down from heaven, robed in clouds, His face like the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire, about to execute vengeance on His foes and Himself take possession of the earth. And of all men that have ever lived, Enoch and Elijah are the judgment prophets. This particular impress was upon their ministry from the very beginning.

As to Enoch, this characteristic is particularly emphasized. Milton sings of him, that he

—"spake much of right and wrong,

Of Justice, of Religion, Truth, and Peace,

And Judgment from above;"

but from a higher inspiration than that of Milton we learn, that the grand substance of his faith, and preaching, and prophesying, was the last named. We do not know of a single other word that he ever uttered save on this theme of "Judgment from above." There is no evidence that he ever preached on any other subject. The all-absorbing, all-comprehending, as all-characterizing topic of his entire ministry, as attested by the New Testament, was this, that he prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." (Jude 14, 15.) He was, therefore, the great prophet of judgment before the flood, and hence one special witness of Christ in the specific character of the strong Angel coming down from heaven in the clouds to execute vengeance upon the guilty.

As to Elijah, he was also pre-eminently a messenger and prophet of judgment. The Book of Ecclesiasticus says of him, that he stood up as fire, and his word burned like a lamp; he brought sore famine upon the guilty, and by his zeal he diminished their number, and brought kings to destruction, and anointed kings to take revenge. (Ecclesiasticus 48:1-8.) Words and works of death and portent to the wicked constituted the great outstanding characteristic of his whole prophetic career, interspersed with the power of resurrection, His spirit was not the evangelic, but the judgment spirit. That wild figure, that stern voice, those deeds of blood, that vehemence of judicial administration, which stand out in such startling relief from the pages of the old records concerning him, have become somewhat silvered over in the Christian's thoughts with the light of the Mount of Transfiguration; but the fiery zeal, and destructive wrath, and rugged outline of the old prophet of woe and death to Ahab and Jezebel, Baal and Ashtaroth, is still the true and characteristic picture of Elijah, identifying him, of all others since his time, as a peculiar Witness and Messenger of the Judgment-Angel. We search in vain for any other two prophets so peculiarly, intensely, and characteristically Judgment-prophets, or that so specially take on the features of heralds and representatives of the coming of the mighty Judgment-Angel.

They are further said to be "clothed with sackcloth." This also is significant. It shows that they are individuals, and not bodies of men extending through a dozen centuries. "It is hard to conceive how whole bodies of men and churches could thus be described. The principal symbolic interpreters have left out, or passed very slightly, this important particular. One does not see how bodies of men who lived like other men can be said to have prophesied in sackcloth." It also shows that we here have to do with another order of things, and not with the present Gospel dispensation. Neither the prophets, nor the children of the New Testament, come thus arrayed in the garb of judgment-times, calamity, and burdens of woe. When we put on Christ, it is not sackcloth we put on, nor is it the spirit of heaviness we enter into; but a wedding garment has clothed us, a garment of praise has arrayed our Spirit. The wearing of sackcloth, and the sort of life which it betokens, befit not these years of grace and jubilee, and relate to other times and another ritual. The mention of it here is a distinct indication that the dispensation has changed. Assuming, however, that Elijah and Enoch are to be these witnesses, the description fits entirely to what is written concerning them in the past, and is just what we would expect in case of their return as heralds of the judgment.

Elijah, that prince of Hebrew prophets, with all his holy zeal, was a solitary and savage man, rough and shaggy as a lion, dwelling in the hills and caves and unfrequented ravines of Palestine, when not confronting thrones or hewing false prophets to pieces. The Bible tells of the girdle of skin he wore around his loins, and the hairy cloak in which he wrapped himself, to which it gives a name never applied to any garment but his, and shows at every point of reference to him what wild and ascetic austerity and severity marked his whole style of life, as he traced and trod the footprints of Jehovah, and surged hither and thither by the mighty inspiration of God, insulted and outraged by the idolatries of Israel, and the abominations of its kings.

Nor was it different with Enoch. The nature of the times in which he lived necessarily made him a man much like Elijah. Whatever else is couched in that pregnant statement that he "walked with God," it tells of a life sequestered from that of other men, rugged, isolated, and singular. Walking with God, he did not walk with men. If we may at all credit the Book which bears his name, "he was wholly engaged with the holy ones, and with the watchers in his days;" only coming forth betimes to reprove the wicked world, and to sound forth upon unwilling ears the herald voice and midnight cry of coming judgment. And these two great prophets returned to earth again as they were of old, to reprove still greater sins and declare the forthcoming of still greater judgment, would give the exact outline of these Two Witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, and tormenting them that dwell upon the earth.

These Witnesses are furthermore "the two olive trees and the two lamps which stand before the Lord of the earth." Who are the two olive-trees? All agree that the allusion is to Zechariah's vision. (Zech. 4.) He saw "a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are on the top of it; and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof." He asked, "What are these two olive-trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left thereof?" and again, "What be these two olive-branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?" The answer was, "These are the two anointed ones [oil-children] that stand before the Lord of the whole earth."

What was the meaning of this vision? The Angel gave it: "This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts." That is to say, it was a material image of the mysterious organism through which the heavenly potencies were coming forth to give success unto completion to the work in which Zerubbabel was then engaged. That work was the restoration of Jerusalem, its temple, its worship, and its system of ordinances—the type of the building of the spiritual temple of the Christian Church, and the pattern and prophecy of that final rebuilding and restoration when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. That candlestick of gold stands for the national Church of the Jews, and thence also for the Christian Church (see Rev. 1:20), whilst the two olive-trees—the anointed ones—standing between God and the people, were Zerubbabel the prince, and Jeshua the high priest. Hence, when Christ declares these apocalyptic Witnesses "the two olive-trees," the meaning is, that they are the Zerubbabel and Jeshua of the final restitution;—great ministers of God corresponding to Zerubbabel and Jeshua of old, and occupying a similar position as the organs of heavenly potencies put forth for the occasion. The two olive-trees in the vision are two individual persons; so then these two Witnesses are likewise two individual persons, for they are "the two olive trees" for their day, as Zerubbabel and Jeshua were in a former day.

But whilst they are "the two olive-trees" of their time, as viewed through the medium of Zechariah's vision, the whole order of things is changed from what it was in Zechariah's day, or what it is in the present Church-period. The golden candlestick, with its many conduits and multitudinous burners, is missing. All of that arrangement has disappeared. The Church-period has ended. Gospel ministers are stars; but these Witnesses are not stars. There are neither "stars" nor candlestick left in the time of these Witnesses. As the more direct and special messengers of God, like Zerubbabel and Jeshua, who gave out the golden oil into the golden bowl and candlestick, the two olive-trees remain; but they are alone, with no golden organism of lightbearers to feed and supply. They are themselves the only lightbearers now for they are at once "the two olive-trees and the two lamps." This clearly demonstrates that the economy is a new one, whilst it at the same time singularly agrees with the two characters whom we take it to describe. Such a lone and self-supplying lamp was Enoch—the sole lightbearer to the old world, then on the eve of submersion in the great waters of judgment; and such a lone and self-supplying lamp was Elijah to the nation of Israel, then in great darkness, and drawing near its great captivity. Many distinguished individual lightbearers have graced the several ages of time, but none of them so marked and conspicuous in self-standing loneness as these two. Never but once did the human race depend for a knowledge of God's purposes upon one mere man as it depended upon Enoch; and never but once did the Hebrew faith hang upon one mere man, as it hung upon Elijah and his ministrations. He was himself "the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." (2 Kings 2:12.) Looking through the world for two men preeminently entitled to the name of "the two lamps," we must inevitably settle upon Enoch and Elijah, who, as "the two lamps," are mysteriously preserved to come again for the illumination of still darker times, after the same style as of old.

"Which stand before the Lord of the earth." This is peculiar language, but exactly fitted to the same conclusions. "Lord of the earth" is not the Christian title of God; for the Church, like Abraham in Canaan, is only a pilgrim and a sojourner here, and Satan is now the god of this world. The characteristic name of our God in the Gospel is, "The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Yet, when Israel was about to cross the Jordan, and to possess the promised land as a divine nation, God was called "Lord of all the earth." (Josh. 3:11-13.) When Jerusalem was conquered and its people carried away captive to Babylon, the Most High took the name of "the God of heaven." (Dan. 2:18, 28, 37, 44, &c.) When they came back to rebuild the temple, and repossess their land, and re-establish their holy state, God was again called "the Lord of the whole earth." (Zech. 4:14.) But when He is styled Lord of the earth, the word is Adon, Master, and not Jehovah. It would, therefore, seem to be a theocratic title, having relation to a divine nationality and government upon the earth. If so, the occurrence of it here, again bespeaks the Jew in his own land, and Jerusalem and the temple rebuilt; and proves that this part of the Apocalypse relates, not to the middle centuries of Christendom, as so many think, but to that time when the glorious Christ is taking forcible mastery of the earth, and setting up upon it His own visible supremacy and kingdom.

These two Witnesses "stand before the Lord of the earth." This standing before or in the presence of the Lord, or the king, ordinarily signifies the enjoyment of a near relation, acceptableness and authority, as the servants or officers of the Lord or king. But this is otherwise so clearly expressed and implied with regard to these Witnesses, that we are prompted to look for something more peculiar and characteristic in the phrase as here employed. If we keep to the strict reading of the text, this standing of the Witnesses before the Lord of the earth was already a matter of fact when the statement was given to John. It is not said that they will stand before the Lord in the time and office of their prophesying, but that they were then, while the Angel was speaking, standing before the Lord of the earth. To keep rigidly to the words then, these Witnesses were persons already living in the time of John, and hence not churches and bodies of men born centuries afterwards;—living also a true bodily life, for still capable of bodily death, as shown from the killing of them by the Beast. But John's earthly contemporaries have all been dead for ages, and were all dead long before the time at which any one has located these two Witnesses. Being alive then in the time of John, and still living a bodily life susceptible of bodily death, and thus surviving all John's earthly contemporaries, they must have been living in heaven, having been taken thither without dying. This would also seem to be the more particular sense of the phrase "standing before the Lord." When the Saviour exhorts to watchfulness and prayer, that we may be accounted worthy to escape the judgment sorrows, "and to stand before the Son of man," what is it that He most of all proposes to us, but transference to the presence of Jesus in the heavenly spaces without the intervention of death? And if so, why may not this standing of the two Witnesses before the Lord of the earth in the time of John, be taken as specially descriptive of a corresponding transfer and continuity of bodily existence bestowed upon them? Dying is falling—ceasing to stand—becoming prostrate; and, by just antithesis, standing is living—continuity of bodily life uninterrupted by death. And in this sense, to stand before the Lord must involve transfer to where the Lord is, without the suffering of death. If then these two Witnesses, destined to be murdered by the Beast, were standing before the Lord in uninterrupted bodily life at the time these words concerning them were spoken to John, who could they be but Enoch and Elijah? Of all men that have lived in heaven or on earth, these lone two answer to the description. They were still standing in the time of John, never having fallen under the power of death; and they were standing before the Lord of the earth, having been miraculously conveyed away from among men into the mysterious heavens, where they still stand in waiting readiness to fulfil any commands of their Lord, even though it should be to return to the earth, here to repeat in increased intensity their great deeds of old, and have added to their crowns that of martyrdom also.

Thus, then, it would seem to me, that we have sufficiently identified these mysterious Witnesses, and also in strict accord with all the terms and surroundings of the record, without straining language or forcing history, as in every other interpretation that has been given. Other arguments lie couched in what further is revealed concerning them, which will be brought out when we reach the places. But I must close for the present, which I do in the words of Paul, written not without some relation to this very subject: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." (Rom. 11:33.)

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