Revelation 11
11:1-2. It is evident that the sacred things measured here are not physical, but spiritual (cf. Ezek. 40:1-3; Ps. 48:12-13; Eph. 3:18-19). “The prophetic function of the church is here presented as the application of a divinely furnished rule to certain specified sacred objects” (Ramsey, p. 437). That rule is, of course, “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), and which has been given to us in God’s word written. It is our rule (measuring rod) for faith and life. “And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16; cf. Phip. 3:16-17).
Measure the temple of God. This is God’s dwelling place among his people. In the NT, it is the body of Christ (John 2:19,21). The church is the body of Christ, in that he dwells in their hearts and minds by faith, thus we are God’s temple on earth. “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are” (1 Cor. 3:16-17; cf. Eph. 2:21-22; 1 Pet. 2:4-5). If we measure up, it is a true witness to the world. False witness, anything that does not measure to the rule of Christ, destroys the temple. Particularly is this true in the church’s worship. We do not worship according to man, but according to the rule given, or else we come by another Christ, and worship a vain idol.
Measure the altar. Is the true doctrine of sin and atonement, and the once for all sacrifice of Christ, clearly preached and lived? If not, the holiness of God will destroy those who come by another way than the cross, and who teach others to do so. (See Lev. 10:1-3).
Measure those who worship in God’s temple. One of the marks of a true church is discipline. Is the body administered and ruled well? Do our lives as well as our worship and words exhibit Christ? (See 1 Cor. 5:11-13; 2 Cor. 7:1).
“And leave out (Lit., throw out, margin) the court… and do not measure it” (2). Only the inner sanctuary, the actual temple itself, is to be measured. The church is salt and light in the world, but the world has no part in the body of Christ (2 Cor. 6:14-16). The leaven of the world is to be cast out (cf. Mark 8:15; 1 Cor. 5-8).
But these outer courts are attached to the temple. The whole city, because of God’s temple in the midst of it, is called the holy city. Yet it is profane and is filled with those who have no real respect for Christ or holy things. They may pay lip service to the body of Christ, but reject him in their hearts and in their walk. Their lives are not measured by the divine measuring rod, but by a false and deceitful ruler. They are like the tares allowed to grow in the wheat until harvest. That duration is here limited by the symbolic forty-two months. The external church, even in the best of churches, is always polluted and trampled by the world. It is part of the world. The external courts may be necessary for a time, just as the present body of this death clings to each individual believer for a time, a necessary but limited time. We all enter the sanctuary, the kingdom, through the outer courts. Yet there can be no compromise between the true Israel of God and the Gentile world, nor between the inner man of faith and the flesh (cf. 1 John 2:15-17). But all these external courts, the whole city and world, belong to the Lord, and this trampling of them will only be tolerated until the appointed time expires.
Observe that the quotation of the Lord speaking through his angel should not properly close until the end of verse ten. The grammar indicates that the seer, John, at that point stopped recording what was said would happen, and began to write what he saw.
11:3-4. The Lord’s two witnesses; (cf. “the two anointed ones” or “two sons of fresh oil” in Zech. 4) these two witnesses represent the true light bearing testimony of the church, sustained by the oil of the Holy Spirit, “in circumstances of trial and sorrow, of deep mourning [clothed in sackcloth], because of the prevalence of the worldly power, corrupting the church, and perverting her ordinances and influence” (Ramsey, p. 471).
The days of their witness, twelve hundred and sixty days, corresponds exactly to the forty-two months that the nations trample the outer courts. (Without getting into the complicated subject of ancient calendars, calculate twelve months of thirty days each, and a year of 360 days.) The importance of these differently expressed time periods was that they were not a complete seven years, but cut in half. That is, they were only a three and one half, a time cut short (compare the period of days in 9, 11). Of course these symbols must not be taken literally. “These revelations…cover the same period that the visions of the six trumpets do, up to the end of the tenth chapter, unfolding the conditions of the true church during that period, while these judgments were progressing” (Ramsey, p. 470). The symbol comes from “the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months” (Luke 4:25; cf. 1 Kings 17:1; 18:1; James 5:17). It is a symbol used in Daniel, and often expressed as “a time, times, and half a time” (cf. Dan. 7:25; 12:7; Rev. 12:14; see also Mt. 24:22 and Mark 13:20, where the Lord cut short the days for the sake of the elect).
11:5. As long as the testimony in both words and walk of the true church are shaped and ordered by the cross and crown of Jesus, they will have the power of heaven in them. To the extent that the worship and discipline of God’s people measures to the standard of his word, their affliction brings judgment upon those who persecute them. Their seemingly feeble weapons to defend the truth about sin, and righteousness, and judgment, and their pleading prayers and confessions, bring indestructible life to their souls. The world will mock their weakness, but by these divinely powerful weapons, the enemies of Christ’s witnesses are consumed by the fire proceeding out of their mouths (cf. 2 Kings 1:10-12; Jer. 5:14; 2 Cor. 10:3-6).
11:6. Though not in the outward typical way of the OT, these prophets have the power of Elijah and Moses to smite the earth. The gospel is a savor of life to life among those who are being saved, but of death to death among those who are perishing (2 Cor. 2:15-16). Those who try to hurt or destroy the true gospel witness, and believe only in the temporal good of this world, will see all their joys dry up, and their hopes putrefy.
11:7. The beast that comes up out of the abyss; what power is this that overcomes and kills the faithful testimony of the church’s two witnesses? Who kills the pure worship and discipline of the church, by which she testifies to the cross and crown of Jesus? It is the same power that was already far advanced in Sardis and Laodicea. It is the worldly spirit that causes the church to modify her worship, and lower her discipline, “to make her more acceptable to the earthly-minded” (Ramsey, p. 483). The beast is the locust king, who led his hoards of deceitful errors out of the bottomless pit (9:1-2, 11). We shall meet the beast again in greater detail in chapters thirteen and seventeen. The beast is the worldly power wielded by the god of this world. Whenever the atonement of Christ’s cross is not the focus of the church’s message and worship, and when his righteous law and government are not taught and lived, the two witnesses have been killed.
11:8. As later chapters reveal, the great city is Babylon the Great, the harlot that rides the beast. She has prostituted herself to ride worldly power. That is what happened when the religious leaders in Jerusalem rejected their true God and King, and used Rome to crucify their Lord. Spiritually they were no longer the Lord’s covenant bride, but the great harlot riding worldly power, committing lewd acts. They had the morals of Sodom, and enslaved and persecuted God’s people like Egypt. The two witnesses lay dead in her outer courts and streets. This has happened to the church’s witness many times since.
11:9-10. See Ps. 79:1-3. When the offending testimony falls silent, the world rejoices. The stinking corpse of the church in its corruption has yielded to the spirit of the world, and is no longer a torment to those who are perishing. ” A dead church is a favourite with worldly people, especially if it be rich, and fashionable, and powerful. Forms in which there is no spiritual life, and a government in which there is no Christ, just suit them” (Ramsey, p. 482).
11:11-14. But just as the physical body of Christ came to life again, so does the church, his mystical body, to the consternation and fear of the enemy. As at Pentecost, God breaths new life into his church just when the enemy thinks there will be no more trouble from that quarter. At every great reforming revival, the dead witnesses rise again. Before the eyes of the watching world, God’s Spirit enters the dead, and they hear Christ’s command from heaven, and rise up and come to him. The triumph of the beast is always hollow and brief. It is never a complete seven, but symbolically a cut short three and a half days (not years, as in 2, 3). The celebrating is premature, and terror soon takes its place. God’s witnesses share an indestructible life, and the Lord will not delay long over them (Luke 18:7-8; Heb. 10:37; Rev. 6:9-11). The spiritual power now seen by all is a church no longer in sackcloth (3), but raised into heaven in glory (12). At the same time, all the utopian dreams of earthly promise are shaken to their foundations, the symbol of which is the great earthquake (13). The rest who were terrified and gave glory to God when the seven thousand were killed should not be seen as coming to a saving faith. They are a glory to God’s justice, and honor him as Pharaoh did (see Ex. 14:17-18). Every rebellious knee shall bow, and every blasphemous tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (cf. Php. 2:10-11). The faithful witnesses having been taken out of the way, there is no more delay (cf. 10:6-7). The tenth part of the city (the tithe) that is the first to perish is probably the institutions and forms of the apostate church. The seven thousand “names of men” (Lit., margin) that are killed probably represent symbolically the complete number of the great multitude of deceitful prophets of all sorts destined to perish in the earth shaking events that precede the final judgment, which follows quickly (14).
11:15-19. The judgment itself is not described as it happens, but is described (15-18) in the past tense by the redeemed as they praise God and his victorious Christ for it. (Note 17; see past tense margin, Lit., didst reign. His conquest and mediatorial work of redemption has been completed). All things have been made subject to God (15; cf. 1 Cor. 15:24-28). The third woe for the worldly is their eternal destruction, which John sees in his vision, pictured in v. 19 by these great symbols of God’s righteous wrath being poured out upon those doomed to destruction. They see their judge, the glorified Christ whom they have rejected, pictured here in the symbol of the true Ark of the Covenant standing in the opened sanctuary in heaven.
This judgment began to take place as Jesus died upon the cross. The darkness, the earthquake, the torn apart curtain in the sanctuary, the torn open graves as some were resurrected (cf. Mt. 28:51 ff.), were a precursor of this final judgment. So was the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (cf. Mt. 24:30; 26:64). Over and over the warning trumpets sound, and signs of the great judgment begin to follow, but for the sake of the elect, the days are cut short (cf. Mt. 24:22; 2 Pet. 3:9). But this time, the days are not a cut short three and a half, but a complete seven. Woe, woe, woe, for the seventh angel has sounded (14-15; cf. 1 Thess. 4:16-17).