The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

This last, as we shall endeavor to show, seems to be the correct translation; for thereby we
are enabled to see a most wonderful and beautiful harmony of this remarkable vision with
the facts of history. Mr. Elliott's translation of the passage under consideration is: "And
when they shall have perfected their testimony," instead of, "And when they shall have
finished their testimony," as given in the Diaglott. The question to be decided is whether
the Greek verb should be rendered perfected or finished. Concerning this Mr. Elliott says:
"Let it be remembered, then, that to finish, is by no means its only, or only frequent, sense;
but quite as frequently [it has the significance] to complete, or perfect. So in effect our
translators [of the Common Version] render this [same] verb in Rev. 15:1, 'For in them is
filled up the wrath of God.' For 'filled up' is there intended evidently in the sense of
completed. Liddell and Scott thus speak of this verb: 'The strict signification [of this verb]
is not the ending of a departed state, but the arrival of a complete and perfect one';
therefore it signifies most properly to bring [the testimony] to such a state of completion and
perfectness. . . . My conclusion is that much in the same way the two Apocalyptic witnesses'
testimony is viewed in the prophecy as a thing of growth, and that so soon as, having gone
through the preliminary stages, it should have come to embrace all the subjects of protest
[against Papal errors] that it was intended to embrace, and shown forth also all its [the
testimony's] evidence of Divine inspiration--so soon it might be said, according to the
mind of the Spirit, that the testimony was perfected, or had reached its culminating point;
yet not so as to imply that the testifying was to be then at an end; but rather that it was
thenceforth to be continued [after the resurrection of the witnesses] in its complete and
perfected form."
Mr. Elliott next shows what the testimony that was required of the witnesses before their
testimony would be suppressed for three and one half years comprehended. His words
are:
"Obviously a protestation for Christ against each of the successively developed, and
enforced anti-Christian errors of the Apostasy; errors as defined (not by a commentator so
as to suit his own hypothesis of interpretation, but) by the Apocalyptic prophecy itself."
This writer next enumerates the errors of the Apostasy, noting the places in the visions of
the Apocalypse where they are symbolically referred to. It is not the purpose in this
connection to point out the particular places in the Apocalyptic visions in which these
gross errors are referred to as characterizing the anti-Christian Apostasy. It will be
sufficient here to say that they relate to an utter perversion of those vital, fundamental
truths, that all true Christians recognize as entering into, and as constituting that which is
an absolute necessity to a vital, living union with Christ as Savior and Lord. These errors,
as all true Christians know, are:
1. The Sacramental error; in other words, the so-called sacrifice of the Mass, which was
claimed by the great apostate Church to be a continuation of Christ's sacrifice.
2. The Mediatorship of departed saints (so called).