God’s
Two Witnesses
(Revelation 11)
In the eleventh chapter of Revelation we encounter one of the most extraordinary events and one of the most fascinating chapters in the book. The chapter division is arbitrary, since the scene is a continuation of that in Chapter 10. The second woe (the plague of demonic horselike creatures) is just finishing its thirteen-month course, and the Lord Jesus Christ, appearing as the angel with the rainbow over his head, is still speaking to John.
The New Temple
At the time of John’s experience on
Patmos, the magnificent temple that had once been the beauty of Jerusalem was
merely a twenty-five year old memory.
John, in fact, had been present on the Mount of Olives when Christ had
prophesied its destruction, saying: “There shall not be left here one stone
upon another that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). The prophecy had been fulfilled by the
Roman armies in A.D. 70.
And yet the old prophets had often written
of the holy temple as it would be in the last days (Ezekiel 40-48; Amos 9:11;
Micah 4:1; Haggai 2:9; and Zechariah 6:12,13). Somehow the temple must therefore some day be built again.
Though John could not know this when he
wrote, over nineteen centuries would come and go after his death, before the
temple would reappear. The holy
city would be “trodden down of the Gentiles,” even seeing a Moslem mosque
erected where the temple should be, for year after long year.
But one day it would be built again, and this is the temple in the Book of Revelation that John was allowed to see.
Revelation 11:1. And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.
The
angel, as shown before, is Christ, and he is ultimately the one who has allowed
the new temple to be constructed.
However, on earth, it will apparently be authorized by a treaty made by
the Israeli government with the head of a confederation of European
nations. As noted in Chapter 6
(see page 41), this coming king will make a seven-year covenant with the Jewish
leaders (Daniel 9:27), allowing them to rebuild the temple and reinstitute
their ancient worship, including the sacrificial offerings.
Orthodox Jews have long dreamed of this
day and have been making plans for decades to rebuild the temple when
opportunity allows. The miraculous
defeat of Russia and her Moslem allies (Ezekiel 38) will provide the
opportunity and they will make the most of it. Construction crews will quickly raze the Islamic “Dome of
the Rock” which now stands on the temple site and then erect a magnificent new
temple edifice as rapidly as possible.
When it is completed and dedicated, the Levitical rituals and offerings
will be restored, and many of the faithful orthodox Jews will begin to take
part.
But this will all seem like a strange
anachronism to many, not only to the Gentile world at large but no doubt even
to many of their Jewish brethren.
That sophisticated modern men and women would actually start offering
the blood of bulls and goats on a sacrificial altar once again will be too much
for many to take. Even though the
period will have begun with Israel held in worldwide awe because of her
miraculous deliverance from the Russian hosts, the old prejudices and
resentments will soon surface again.
It is questionable whether all, or even
most, of the Jews will actually practice the ancient worship. Although even the most atheistic of the
Zionist Jews had been profoundly impressed by God’s intervention on their
behalf, many will be unwilling to participate in the animal sacrifices that
will be instituted by the ultraorthodox.
There are many who will, however, and it
is these to whom the angel directs John’s attention. By the time the temple is built, and the sacrificial
offerings activated, much of the first three-and-a-half-year period of the
tribulation will have been completed, and it is at this point that John is sent
to the scene.
He had just been told that he would have
to prophesy again of peoples and kings – this time of those who would be
prominent in the last half of the tribulation, during the time of the sounding
of the last trumpet. And the first
of the nations of whom he must prophesy is Israel.
The instruction is somewhat cryptic:
“Measure the temple, and the altar, and the worshipers.” The measuring “reed” with which he was
to do this (Greek kalamos) was commonly
grown in the Jordan valley, and had many uses, one of which was as a measuring
rod. In smaller lengths it was
used as a “pen,” and the word is so translated in 3 John 13. In the Septuagint, it was used to
translate the Hebrew kaneh,
meaning “rule.”
There is obviously more to this measuring
process than merely determining the size of the temple. The latter is not given at all. Furthermore, the worshipers were to be
measured as well as the temple.
But how does one measure a worshiper? Evidently this type of measurement has
to do with spiritual standards rather than physical. The temple and its altar and its worshipers are to be
evaluated in terms of their conformity to God’s spiritual criteria, and John is
to be the one who measures (or judges)
them.
This responsibility is evidently given
because, as a joint-heir with Christ, John is (along with all the redeemed) to
participate in the work of judgment (see the discussion in the preceding
chapter). Just as Israel is the
first nation of whom John is to “prophesy again,” so Israel is the first to be
judged. “For the time is come that
judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).
This is always the order. God judges His own people first to
cleanse and purify them. Then He
judges His enemies to punish and banish them. The judgment seat of Christ, where Christians are purged and
prepared for eternal service in the kingdom of God, takes place a thousand
years before the judgment of the great white throne, where unbelievers are
separated from God forever in the lake of fire.
The reconstructed temple in Jerusalem is
based on a covenant made by Israel with a godless dictator. The new altar is an insult to the Lamb
of God, who had offered one sacrifice for sins forever; and the worshipers in
the temple, though professing to honor God, have rejected Christ. Therefore, all come short, when the
measuring rod of God’s standard is applied.
Israel is, therefore, about to enter the time of her greatest suffering. God will use the heavy hand of wicked Gentile nations to chastise His people, but the process will purify them. It will be the “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7), the “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation” (Daniel 12:1), the “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world” (Matthew 24:21). This final great judgment on Israel is initiated in Revelation 11:13, but most of the rest of the book is devoted to God’s judgments on the Gentiles. The details of Israel’s judgment had already been outlined in the prophets (Zechariah 14:1) and by Christ Himself (Mark 13:14-20).
Revelation 11:2. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
Traditionally, Gentiles were allowed to enter
the outer courtyard surrounding the temple but never into the temple
itself. This area, therefore, was
not to be included in John’s measurement.
That is, it was the judgment of Israel, not that of the Gentiles, with
which he was to be concerned at this point. Jerusalem first, Babylon later, would feel God’s wrath. Purification of His people first, then
punishment of His enemies.
Gentiles, furthermore, would retake
Jerusalem and would still “tread it under foot” for three and a half
years. All the time the sounding
of the seventh trumpet continued to echo across the world. The Jews had finally possessed the
temple site and much of the city itself but now the Gentiles would wrest it all
back once more.
This temple, in fact, is the fourth temple
built in Jerusalem – the first by Solomon, the second under Zerubabbel, the
third by Herod. Each in turn had
been destroyed by invading Gentiles, with the third temple (the one in which
John himself had worshiped) having been leveled to the ground by the Roman
armies commanded by Titus in A.D. 70.
Ever since that time, the temple and Jerusalem itself had been under
Gentile domination.
Christ had prophesied of the Jews’ long
exile in the following words: “And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). Israel had finally been reestablished
as a nation in 1948 and had regained most of the city of Jerusalem itself in
the Six Day War in 1967. However, the temple site, the most vital part of
Jerusalem, remained under Moslem control.
Then, finally, it had seemed that the
great prophecy was fulfilled when the Western Prince made a seven-year covenant
with the Israeli government allowing them to build their temple and reinstitute
their ancient worship. By the time
of Revelation 11, the pact had been in operation for three and a half years,
and the Jews no doubt were feeling happy and secure.
Nevertheless, the city and the temple were
theirs only by sufferance of the great Prince who was rapidly gaining control
of the world’s nations.
Furthermore, he was becoming increasingly irritated with them; their
worship of their Creator (even though they still had not identified Him as
Christ) was inimical to the humanistic worship promoted by the dictator, and
their bloody sacrifices were an offense.
Furthermore 144,000 of these Israelites had actually accepted Christ and
were preaching the gospel everywhere, seemingly immune to all the plagues and
persecution that were afflicting the world.