The Interlude and the Seventh Trumpet (5): The Ministry of the Two Witnesses (Revelation 11:3-4) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. Their Time
II. Their Identity
III. Their Prophesying
Dennis E. Johnson: “The one text (Rev. 12:14) in which the wording from Daniel 7 appears (‘a time, times, half a time’) is a commentary on the protection of the woman (Rev. 12:6). Thus the texts in which these time markers appear characterize the era that they symbolize in two ways:
1. Enemies assault the church 42 months: The ‘holy city’ is trampled by Gentiles (11:1-2).
2. The church is protected by God 1,260 days: The two witnesses prophesy, and their opponents cannot harm them (11:3).
2~ The church is protected by God 1,260 days: The mother of the Messiah is nourished in the wilderness, and the dragon cannot destroy her (12:6, cf. the expansion in 12:14-17).
1~ Enemies assault the church 42 months: The beast wields his authority in blasphemy against God and warfare against his saints (13:5-7).
The common threads that run through these descriptions are opposition and preservation: opposition from the ‘Gentiles,’ from the beast, from the ‘great city’ and its international alliance of coconspirators, and from the dragon; but also preservation by God, who will not allow his holy place to be defiled, his witnesses to be silenced, his new Israel to be swept away by the dragon’s flood of lies (12:15-16). This mixed situation—this unstable amalgam of deadly danger and divine defense—sounds strangely familiar. It sounds like John’s day, and like ours” (Triumph of the Lamb, p. 172).