This is the hardest chapter in the entire book of Revelation to interpret. At least that’s what all my commentators say. And that’s about the only thing they can all agree on. So I hope I don’t leave you all more confused than you were before we began.
The first thing to remember is where we are in the whole grand sweep of the book. Remember that we’ve seen Jesus enthroned as the Risen Lamb and recognized as the only one qualified to open the scroll with the seven seals which contains God’s entire plan for human salvation. All seven of the seals have been opened. Famine and plagues and wars and natural disasters - or should I say acts of God? earthquakes and floods and volcanoes - they’ve all been let loose on the earth. We’re nearing the end of the events set in motion by the opening of the seventh seal. Six angels have sounded their trumpets, each one bringing more destruction. The seventh angel tells John to quit writing, to eat the scroll - that is, fill himself with the word of God - and to go back and tell the world what God is doing. And then, as often happens in dreams - and remember this whole book is a dream, a vision - the scene shifts to a new location. So now in chapter 11 we’re still in that intermission between the sixth and seventh trumpets when the action is taking place down at our level rather than in God’s throne room, and John has changed roles. He’s no longer an observer, he’s an actor in God’s heavenly drama.
As the scene opens, John is given a measuring rod, a yardstick, and told "Come and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there.” [v. 1] And now comes the hard part. What is the temple? What is it that John is supposed to measure? And does he mean measure, as in size or number, or measure as in assess and evaluate?
First of all, whether John is to pace out the area or check the condition of the roof, the act of measuring by itself is a claim of ownership by God. It’s the first step you take before you sell or remodel or move into your property. Before the builders - or the movers - show up you have to get an appraisal.
But that still leaves us with the larger problem. What is this temple? It is clear that it’s an earthly one, not the heavenly temple we saw back in chapter 7. But even the heavenly temple - and the copy Moses made of it in the tabernacle in the wilderness - are symbolic. They are attempts to convey the nature of God’s dwelling place. Even Solomon, when he built the first temple in Jerusalem, knew that any building necessarily had to be symbolic, because he says: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! ' [1 Ki 8:27]
Some people do believe that a fourth temple has to be rebuilt in Jerusalem right here the original one stood. But the last one was destroyed in 70 A. D when Titus, the son of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, laid siege to the city. The defenders were absolutely committed to holding their ground; the Jewish historian Josephus reported that some of the people in the city actually ate their own children in order to keep themselves alive and the Romans out just a little while longer, but eventually the Romans broke through and completely demolished the temple, just as Jesus had predicted. He told the disciples, “Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." [Mt 24:2] All that is left today is a bit of the Western Wall, more commonly known as the wailing wall, where observant Jews weep and pray.
On Temple Mount itself there are, instead, two Islamic holy places: the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, built right on the traditional site of Solomon’s Temple. Moreover, the Muslims have complete control. Jews and Christians aren’t even permitted to read the Bible and pray up there, much less build any kind of place for worship. Well, I suppose you could pray if you were pretending to do something else - but pull out a Bible and you’re likely to find a couple of guards in your face. But even if some kind of worship were allowed, the prospect for rebuilding the temple is somewhere on the far side of zero, since Muslims believe that the Dome of the Rock marks the place where Mohammed stood before he was whisked up to heaven. It’s the third most holy site in all of Islam.
But wait! An archaeologist named Asher Kauffman claims that the temple was not built on the spot where the Dome of the Rock stands, but instead just north of the Dome, in an uncovered area occupied only by a small shrine. So this gives the literal interpreters a certain amount of hope, particularly since the Dome of the Rock, still left standing, would be part of the temple that is excluded from John’s measurement because it belongs to the Gentiles. One of the most interesting things about all of this speculation is that there are several Jewish organizations
dedicated to reconstructing the temple on Mount Moriah. They are, among other things, training young men to be priests, teaching them the ancient rituals and preparing priestly garments.
But I can’t buy it. This whole scenario doesn’t make any sense to me at all. And there are two reasons why I don’t think God is speaking of an actual stone building.
In the first place, the whole trajectory of God’s salvation history moves from the specific to the universal and from the physical to the spiritual. God appeared first to Abraham in a one-to-one personal relationship, and then to the Hebrew people in a national covenant, and then finally to the whole world through Jesus Christ and united to one another beyond all bounds of space and time by the Holy Spirit. How are we going to put that whole vast spiritual network back into a box?
The visible was meant to point us to the invisible.! “Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you!”
And second, Jesus told the disciples - and us - that the Jerusalem temple would be replaced by something completely different. “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,” said Jesus, “ and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.'" [Mk 14:58]
So what is this temple that John is taking the measure of?
It’s us! It’s followers of Christ. It’s the church. We are both as individual and as a body the dwelling place of God! Paul says that each of us as an individual is God’s temple in his first letter to the Corinthians. “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? [1 Cor 3:16] and again, in chapter 6, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? [1 Cor 6:19] Later on he expands on this idea, saying “we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [2 Cor 6:16] And to the Ephesians Paul writes, “In [Christ] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” [Eph 2:21] And if you need still another source, Peter says the same thing in different words: “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices. ” [1 Pe 2:5]
We - you and I - are the temple of God. It is we, the church, who are being measured, who are being claimed, and who are being judged.
We could spend the next month trying to explain the outer courtyard, and the 42 months, and the 1,260 days. Doctoral dissertations have been written on the symbolic use of numbers in the Bible. Do you mind if I skip it? I didn’t think so.
And so we come to the witnesses. “And I will grant my two witnesses authority to
prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, wearing sackcloth." These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes; anyone who wants to harm them must be killed in this manner.” [v. 3-5]
If you thought the temple took a long time to explain - ok, okay, I’ll try to keep it short. In Zechariah the olive trees stand for the anointed king and the high priest, who at that time were Joshua and Zerubbabel. The lampstands themselves recall the spirits of the churches which appear in the earlier chapters of Revelation. And since olive oil also provides the fuel for the lamps, it thus hints at the presence of the spirit of God.
Some commentators think the witnesses are Elijah and Moses, since two of the miracles referred to are theirs: Elijah kept the rain from falling, and Moses turned the water to blood. Still others think they refer to the law and the prophets, with “witness” referring to the Word himself, rather than to those who speak the word. Many think they represent Israel and the church. I think the most logical explanation is that they represent the prophetic witness of the church. Because
if the temple - the church - is the house of the Lord, it is logical to extend the image and see the witnesses as the voice of the Lord. And considering that the lampstands as the spirits of the churches are symbols from the same vision, I think that interpretation should be given a certain amount of weight. And the olive trees representing the king and priest - well, Jesus is the first individual since Melchizedek in Genesis who functions as both king and priest, and one of the
hymns the angels and saints sing in Revelation 5 says that “we are a kingdom of priests.” [Rev 5:10] So this vision, in my opinion, represents the fact that spiritual authority now resides in the church.
But why two witnesses? Why not seven, the number of perfection, or twelve, the number of the tribes and the disciples? Well, Jesus always sent his people out two by two. Partly for safety, accountability, and encouragement, of course, but Biblical rules of evidence required two witnesses for any testimony to be considered valid. In journalism it’s known as confirming your sources. Jayson Brandt- you know, the NY Times reporter recently fired for fraud and plagiarism
- should have kept that in mind. So in order to be credible, the absolute minimum number must be two. That tells us - among other things - that we may be few in number, but we will not be alone.
So the two witnesses speak God’s word to a hostile world... for a while. For a while they are protected. For a while no one can touch them. For a while they even perform miracles. But eventually “the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days members of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb; and the inhabitants of the
earth will gloat over them and celebrate and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to the inhabitants of the earth. ” [v. 7-10]
You can hardly count the number of questions that this short passage raises. What is “the beast?” We’ll deal with that later on. What does “Sodom and Egypt” stand for? The evil city is usually Babylon. God destroyed Babylon, God also destroyed Sodom. Egypt is the land of slavery and oppression and stubborn rejection of God. But ... Jesus was killed in Jerusalem , and Jerusalem is the Holy City. Does this mean that the holy city has been corrupted? Maybe. It’s
certainly true that holy things can be and have been defiled.
One of the interesting interpretations that I read while putting all this together is the fact that only the invention of television makes it possible for people all over the world - “peoples and tribes and languages and nations” to gaze upon and gloat over the fallen prophets. Another “sign of the times?” Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why do they lie there in the dirt, to be mocked and reviled?
Real encouraging, isn’t it? Where is the promise of safety Jesus gives us in Luke? “You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls. “ [Lk 21:17-19]
They lie there in the open for three and a half days. Jesus was in the tomb for only three. Is that significant? Maybe. What is more significant is that the church follows in the steps of our Lord. As Jesus was hated and eventually killed for speaking the truth to a hostile world, so will we. As he was raised from the dead, so will we be. What looks like death to others, is to us a gateway into eternal life. And, finally, as he was protected until his time came, so will we. Remember how often people came to stone him and he slipped away? The witnesses aren’t harmed until “they have finished their testimony.” [v. 7]
Remember what I said last time, that many Christians believe that Jesus will not return again until every nation, people, tribe and tongue has heard the gospel? This promise that the witness of the church will not cease until the testimony is complete echoes that idea. We are still in the last act. The witness of the church is not yet complete, and the church will be protected until the job is done. But the church will only be protected as long as it is being the church.
The Western church rarely experiences miracles any more. Yet around the world,
especially where the gospel is being presented for the first time, miracles of healing and`deliverance occur at Biblical levels at the cutting edge of the outward spread of the Gospel, from Thailand to Peru, from Nepal to Madagascar. Miracles and martyrs go together, folks. Just as, individually, we tend to experience God’s presence most strongly when we are most desperate, corporately we see God’s power most vividly when the church is most threatened. Except, of course, when the church is threatened from within, by complacency or compromise, by ignorance or apathy. Do we need to undergo persecution to experience the power of God? I don’t think so, but it certainly does grab one’s attention, doesn’t it. Is the Western church still being the church?
Ask yourself if you are able, as Peter charged to “make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you?” [1 Pe 3:15] This is not a test you can cram for at the last minute; As Jesus told his disciples, “make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance.” The only way you can be ready for this final exam is to be full of God’s word and about the Lord’s business when he arrives. If we are, we will have nothing to worry about, for the Holy Spirit “will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” [Lk 21:14-15]
Testing is much in the news these days. Students and teachers in Florida are protesting against the requirement that all students pass a particular exam before they are allowed to graduate. Mind you, they only need to get 40% right, and they can take it five times. But still, they say, it’s “unfair.” Our final test, the one we have to pass to graduate, is what John is doing with his yardstick. He’s checking us out to see if the church’s witness is measuring up to God’s standards. What are those standards? John Knox said long ago, at the time of the founding of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, that the church of Jesus Christ could be identified by “the true preaching of the Word of God, the right administration of the sacraments, and church discipline uprightly ministered.”
How do we measure up? Are we preaching the gospel not just within these walls but outside it to a hungry world? Are we partaking of the sacraments with the right spirit of commitment and accountability? Are we holding one another accountable to the standards expected of disciples of Jesus Christ?
Is that an unfair test? I don’t think so. And if we pass, our protection is guaranteed.
