As with all prophecies about the End Times recorded in the Book of Revelation, there is disagreement over who the Two Witness of Revelation 11 are as the descriptions given in the chapter are, like the rest of the book, written in symbolic code (Revelation 1: 1). Thus, their true meaning must be interpreted by the reader. This study looks at the two witnesses to God's dealings with mankind - The Old and New Testaments - and explores the possibility that they are the Book of Revelation's two witnesses.
The two sections of our present day Bible - the Old and New Testaments - are known among Christians as the Word of God. As this title suggests, they bear witness to God and His dealings with man, therefore the descriptive name of 'witnesses' is appropriate. Being written in 'type', the occurrences described in it are in allegoric form, therefore there is no surety that the two witnesses are humans, just as 'The Beast' is probably not a reference to an animal. But though the 'witnesses' may not be human, those who proclaim their message and are persecuted for speaking it out most certainly are.
The reference to "the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit" making war on the two witnesses helps us identify the time of their ministry. Revelation 17: 8 tells us that the beast John once saw but at that time was no more (it's first reign was over), was going to come up out of the pit at a later stage, so this positively identifies the Beast referred to in the vision of the two witnesses as The Beast that is the Holy Roman Church. The era of Papal reign, which is the first era of the beast, ended in 1793, so the events of this chapter must have occurred prior to that time. As there are no two human 'witnesses' recorded elsewhere in the Bible or in history, particularly during the period of the Holy Roman Church, that match the description given here, then it is reasonable to assume that the two wintesses may well be the Old and New Testaments.
Revelation 11:2-11 says: "The outside of the temple has been given to the Gentiles ... they shall tread it underfoot forty and two months. And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. . . . And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. . . . And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them."
Concerning the two witnesses the prophet declares: "These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth." "Thy word," said the psalmist, "is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." Revelation 11:4; Psalm 119:105. The scriptures of the Old and the New Testament fit perfectly the descrption of the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation. Both are important testimonies to the origin and perpetuity of the law of God. Both are witnesses also to the plan of salvation. The types, sacrifices, and prophecies of the Old Testament point forward to a Saviour to come. The Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament tell of a Saviour who has come in the exact manner foretold by type and prophecy.
The reference in verse 2 to the temple and the Holy City being given over to the Gentiles and trampled underfoot may refer to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, leaving not one stone upon another. Thus, the Gentiles referred to here must be the Romans who trampled Jerusalem underfoot. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church fits the type of The Beast adds further weight to the Papal system of rule as being the 'Gentile' reference here. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church spent over a century denying lay people the right to read the Bible adds further weight to the Old and New Testaments being the two witnesses of Revelation.
The periods of time mentioned for the Temple is trodden underfoot and for the two witnesses are active but in sackcloth - "forty and two months" or "a thousand two hundred and threescore days" (prophetic time) is the same - 1,260 actual years. 533AD was the year in which the supremacy of Rome in ecclesiastical affairs was recognised by Justinian. At that time, Pope John II became the 56th pope of Rome, and the first to adopt a regnal name upon elevation to the papacy. From that time the christian church came under the authority of Rome, that event being described in the Book as when "the Temple was trampled underfoot by the Gentiles". 538 AD was the year in which the last of the Barbarian tribes were removed from Rome, allowing the Bishop of Rome to exercise his full power over the Roman Empire.
In determining the actual period of "a thousand two hundred and threescore days" when the witnesses would prophesy clothed in sackcloth, we must first understand what "clothed in sackcloth" means as it is not a term used today. Although the modern-day idea of "wearing sackcloth" is often that of someone dressed in a burlap grain bag with head and arm holes cut in it, during Bible History its appearance was quite different. Sackcloth was most often made of coarse, black goat's hair. As its name indicates, it was used for sacks, but was also customarily worn by mourners (in some countries, the ancient custom is echoed today when mourners wear black arm bands at funerals), or as a sign of deep repentance and humility.
Thus, witnessing while "clothed in sackcloth" refers to the witness taking place during a time of sorrow, stress, or under duress and oppression. The control of the Bible - who could and couldn't read it, and what language it could be read in - was passed to the Church by Justinian in 533 AD. The new Pope instntly declared only the church heirarchy could read it, and only then in Latin, a language only they could understand. There is no better way to describe the Bible's visibility and effectiveness in the Church than "being in sackcloth".
So was there an event which took place 1,260 years after 533 AD, ie. in 1793, that resulted in the testimony of the two witnesses being silenced? Yes, there was. When the new constitution of France as presented to the people of France by the National Assembly was adopted in 1793, it included the abolition of the supremacy of the church of Rome over France and the banning of the Bible in France. The constitution ratified a ruling of the National Assembly made in October 1790 supressing all religion in France, thereby ending the period of "a thousand two hundred and threescore days" under which the two witnesses would prophesy clothed in sackcloth, as prophecied in Revelation 11.
During the greater part of the 1,260 years, these two witnesses had remained in a state of obscurity. The papal power sought to hide from the people the word of truth, and set before them false witnesses to contradict its testimony. When those who dared proclaim its sacred truths were hunted, betrayed, tortured, buried in dungeon cells, martyred for their faith, or compelled to flee to the mountains, and to dens and caves of the earth - then the faithful witnesses prophesied in sackcloth. The persecution of those who dared to proclaim the message of the two witnesses had continued throughout the entire period.
The war against the Bible and those who followed its teaching, carried forward for so many centuries in France, culminated in the scenes of the French Revolution. That terrible outbreaking was but the legitimate result of Rome's suppression of the Scriptures. It presented the most striking illustration which the world has ever witnessed of the working out of the papal policy - an illustration of the results to which for more than a thousand years the teaching of the Roman Church had been tending. The suppression of the Scriptures during the period of papal supremacy was foretold by the prophets; but another power - the beast from the bottomless pit - was to arise to make open, avowed war upon the word of God. "When they shall have finished [are finishing] their testimony."
The French Revolution brought about a massive shifting of powers from the Roman Catholic Church to the State. In October 1790 the French National Assembly suppressed all religious orders as part of the reign of terror it had established. Legislation enacted in January 1793 abolished the Church's authority to levy a tax on crops known as the "dîme", cancelled special privileges for the clergy, and confiscated Church property: under the Ancien Regime, the Church had been the largest landowner in the country.
The ensuing years saw violent repression of the Roman Catholic clergy, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests throughout France. The former persecutors were now the persecuted, fulfilling the promise of Revelation 11:5: "And if any man will hurt them (the two witnesses), fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed."
Verse 13 describes the events of the times in which the prophesy of the deaths and subsequence bringing back to life of the two witnesses are fulfilled. In prophesy, God's elect (those chosen to preach His word) are represented by the number 7,000. Verse 13 says that 7,000 mean were killed, a symbolic reference to the silencing of the clergy during the French Revolution. The rest who were afraid is perhaps a reference to the clergy of other European nations, who feared the political unrest in France would spread to other countries. Prayer vigils in all Christian denominations were established to pray against that happening.
Verse 12 speaks of a great earthquake at that time. As the earth in prophesy is a symbol of earthly government, an earthquake is a reference to political upheaval. This 'earthquake' shook and destroyed the religious, political and social infra-structure of France, leaving them in ruins. The number ten is symbolic of earthly authority, rule and order; that a tenth of the city fell is a reference to the fall of authority and order and not the country as a whole.
According to the words of the prophesy regarding a woman and another Beast, around the end of the time of the first Beast, some power of satanic origin and character would arise. And in the land where the testimony of God's two witnesses should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom. This prophecy has received a most exact and striking fulfilment in the history of France during the French Revolution.
That "the great city" in whose streets the witnesses are killed, and where their dead bodies lie, was not the Holy City of Rome, but Paris, though Symbolised here as Egypt. Readers of the Book would have been familiar with this sybol - Egypt was where the Children of Israel were taken captive and turned into slaves; God eventually had to come and rescue them from the hand of the king of Egypt. When challenged by Moses, he had defiantly said, "Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go." Exodus 5:2. The same spirit was alive and running rampant in Paris.
The identification of the locality "where also our Lord was crucified" was fulfilled in France, and Paris in particular. In no land had the spirit of enmity against Christ and the cruxifiction of all He stood for been more strikingly displayed. In no country had the truth encountered more bitter and cruel opposition. In the persecution France had visited upon the confessors of the gospel, she had crucified Christ in the person of His disciples.
Paris of the French Revolution bore all the characteristics that distinguished Sodom, which is also referenced here. During the Revolution there was manifest a state of moral debasement and corruption similar to that which brought destruction upon the cities of the plain. On 17th June 1789, "the world for the first time heard an assembly of men, born and educated in civilisation, and assuming the right to govern one of the finest of the European nations, uplift their united voice to deny the most solemn truth which man's soul receives, and renounce unanimously the belief and worship of a Deity." - Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, vol. 1, ch. 17.
"France is the only nation in the world concerning which the authentic record survives, that as a nation she lifted her hand in open rebellion against the Author of the universe. Plenty of blasphemers, plenty of infidels, there have been, and still continue to be, in England, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere; but France stands apart in the world's history as the single state which, by the decree of her Legislative Assembly, pronounced that there was no God, and of which the entire population of the capital, and a vast majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement." - Blackwood's Magazine, November, 1870.
But the prophesy regarding the two witnesses does not end with their death. After three and a half prophetic days (three and a half actual years), God brings the two witnesses back to life. Amazingly, France did not maintain its edict of October 1790 that banned the reading of the Bible and denied God's existence for long. On 7th May 1794, three and a half years after the ruling was made, Maximilien Robespierre, the dominant force behind the Committee of Public Safety, obtained a decree from the convention, proclaiming "the existence of the Supreme Being"; and another on 8th June, decreeing a national festival to his honour, which was celebrated accordingly in Paris with popular demonstrations of joy.
The great fear falling upon those who saw them is probably a reference to the many Evangelical revivals that took place throughout Europe in the wake of the French Revolution as millions across Europe repented of their sins amid a return to the principles of holiness and fear of the Lord which would sweep through the 19th century Christian church.
Ironically, for a nation that was so anti-God, the shift in power intended to choke the Christian Church to death in France, paved the way to freedom for its Protestants and all those of other countries previously under the thumb of Rome. The Concordat of 1801 between the National Assembly and the Church ended the de-christianisation period and established the rules for a new relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State. Negotiations on the Concordat of 1801, which re-permitted the reading of the Bible and practice of the teachings of Christ across France free from the influence and control of the Vatican, began on 5th November 1800, three years and eight months after Pope Pius VI was stripped of his control over the French people. Laïcité - the name of the nearly sacred principle guarding the separation of church and state in France today - ensured that all religious groups in both France and across Europe are free and the state will not meddle in any of them. The two witness were back, and very much alive!
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