3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. 6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. 7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit[a] will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically[b] is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. 9 For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, 10 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. 11 But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. 13 And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
14 The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.
It is against such a situation (yesterday's Note) that the real relevance of the two witnesses is seen. For they stand as the representatives of the true Church of Christ in the world. They are raised up to protest against the deadness and the worldliness of all around them. We take them to refer to the testimony of the living Church of Christ in every generation during the whole dispensation of grace. There is thus a link between what we read here and the latter part of chapter 10, which refers to the eating of the little book and the consequent 'bittersweet' experience. What the two witnesses underwent is meant to illustrate this. That we are not meant to take the vision literally, but symbolically, is surely clear from the reference to the candlesticks and olive trees in 4. The image of the candlesticks has already been used in the opening chapters of Revelation as referring to the whole Church of God in the world. The olive trees are almost certainly a reference to Zechariah 4 where the vision was given to encourage the dispirited exiles back from captivity in their work of rebuilding the Temple. They were shown, weak as they were, that there was a hidden strength, a sacred stream of oil, which could make them triumph over all their difficulties. 'Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord'. John is shown on the one hand - and this is but one half of the vision - the witness of the Church prospering in the face of all opposition, as if to say, 'However great the persecution may be, however great the testing and the trial, one thing is sure, Christ is building His Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it'. It is a vision of the work of the Church throughout the whole dispensation, an assurance that in spite of all difficulties, all pressures, God will continue His work, and fulfil His purposes, establishing the work of His hand.