The Church as Two Witnesses
Contents
Recently, on the 10th freeway, a mother gave birth to a baby. While my sister-in-law was driving and going to the hospital, she stopped her car and gave birth to a baby, when a CHP officer helped the baby. The child's mother went back to the police officer who helped her at the time, as she was one of the two witnesses needed to register the child's birth.
When the New Testament was written, as well as in the Old Testament, the minimum number of witnesses to prove anything was two.
There are two witnesses in the text. I would like to know about the two witnesses of Revelation 11.
1. The identity of the two witnesses
In verse 3, these witnesses are the witnesses who have the authority of the Lord. The two witnesses are also two olive trees and two lampstands, verse 4 says. And in verse 10, the two prophets. In other words, these are the witnesses of the Lord's Gospel, and it refers to the church symbolized by the minimum number of people who are recognized as witnesses. The church is a witness to proclaim the word of God and testify of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The church encompasses the churches that existed in the Old Testament with different forms and names (altar, tabernacle, temple) as well as the church in the New Testament. In other words, the two witnesses refer to the Old and New Testaments and the church of today, the institutions that fulfill God's work of salvation after the fall of Adam until the Second Coming of the Lord.
2. The Power of Two Witnesses
The two witnesses carry out their ministry with authority.
1) The power to prophesy (v. 3). Prophecy is the work of witnessing to the Word of God. God has recorded what will happen in the future in the Bible. It is the prophetic ministry to testify to that word. The period of his ministry is 1,260 days, and it is a special period of time and times and half times or three and a half years. That period is a word that symbolically expresses the period from the first coming of Jesus to the second coming.
2) The power to oppose Satan (verse 5). The mouth emits fire that consumes enemies, and in the name of Jesus Christ, the church has the authority to cast out Satan and bind him.
3) The power of prayer and answers (v. 6). Just as the natural world obeyed the Lord, even today, supernatural answers to prayer appear in the lives of the church and members who work in the name of the Lord. This is another privilege.
3. The fate of the two witnesses
The world hates Two Witnesses (Church and Church Movement). This is because the holy word of God proclaimed through the mouths of witnesses causes remorse in the consciences of the world and exposes their sinful lives. So the world unites with one another to kill the Witnesses and rejoice among them. The Witnesses seemed to be dead, but at the end breath enters them, and they come back to life. And then goes up to the sky. This means that at the time of the Second Coming of Jesus at the end of the day, the members of the church will come back to life in glory, meet the Lord, and enter the kingdom of eternal victory. The world is left to be judged, but the Church of the Lord is lifted up to a place of glory after completing its mission of witnessing.
Saints!
We make up the Church, the body of the Holy Lord.
We are here as saints with a mission. In this age when the Lord's second coming is imminent, it is our mission and the blessing of the Spirit to live the life of a witness who proclaims the Lord's resurrection and His return on earth. I want to live the life of an intact Witness moving toward a guaranteed victory.