Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

11:11-14
climax with the murder of Christ; this was the ultimate
crime that brought on Jerusalem’s destruction. Moses
had instructed the people of Israel about the coming
Prophet, warning them that they would be cursed if
they refused to listen to Him (Deut. 18:15-19); the
martyr Stephen quoted this prophecy (Acts 7:37), and
concluded:
You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in
heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are
doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets
did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who
had previously announced the coming of the Righteous
One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become!
(Acts 7:51-52)
For now, the persecutors are victorious, and rejoice for
three and a half days. This is no more a literal period
than the previous figures of 42 months and 1,260 days.
As we have noted, “three and a half” represents a
broken seven, a period of sadness and oppression. In
each section of Revelation, St. John’s figures harmonize
with each other: The Seal-judgments are in fourths, the
Trumpet-judgments are in thirds, and the numbers in
chapters 11-13 correspond to three and a half (42
months and 1,260 days both equal three and a half
years). St. John’s poetic symmetry continues this
symbolism: The days during which the righteous are
oppressed, their bodies abused, are a three-and-a-half, a
time of grief when the wicked are triumphant. Yet the
evil time is brief, being limited to a mere three and a
half days. Thus several lines of imagery converge here;
and St. John has kept the period in general agreement
with the three days of Christ’s descent into hell. In His
death, the entire Covenant community and its
Testimony lie dead in the streets of Jerusalem, under
the Curse.
11-12 After the three and a half days, the Witnesses
are resurrected: The breath of life from God entered
into them in the New Creation (cf. Gen. 2:7; Ezek.
37:1-14; John 20:22) and they stood on their feet (cf.
Acts 7:55), causing terror and consternation to their
enemies. Great fear came upon those who were
beholding them (cf. Acts 2:43; 5:5; 19:17; contrast
John 7:13; 12:42; 19:38; 20:19), and with good reason:
Through the resurrection of Christ, the Church and
her Testimony became unstoppable. In union with
Christ in His Ascension to glory (Eph. 2:6), they
went up to heaven in the Cloud, and their enemies
beheld them. 15 The Witnesses did not survive the
persecutions; they died. But in Christ’s resurrection
they rose to power and dominion that existed not by
might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit, the very
breath of life from God. “We are not the lords of history
and do not control its outcome, but we have assurance
that there is a lord of history and he controls its
outcome. We need a theological interpretation of
disaster, one that recognizes that God acts in such
events as captivities, defeats, and crucifixions. The
Bible can be interpreted as a string of God’s triumphs
disguised as disasters.” 16
St. John draws an important parallel here that should
not be missed, for it is close to the heart of the passage’s
meaning. The ascension of the Witnesses is described
in the same language as that of St. John’s own
ascension:
4:1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door
standing open in heaven, and the first Voice which I had
heard, like a trumpet speaking with me, saying: Come up
here. . . .
11:11-12 And after the three and a half days . . . . they
heard a loud Voice from heaven saying to them: Come up
here. . . .
The story of the Two Witnesses is therefore the story of
the witnessing Church, which has received the divine
command to Come up here and has ascended with
Christ into the Cloud of heaven, to the Throne (Eph.
1:20-22; 2:6; Heb. 12:22-24): She now possesses an
imperial grant to exercise rule over the ends of the
earth, discipling the nations to the obedience of faith
(Matt. 28:18-20; Rom. 1:5).
13-14 One of the results of Christ’s ascension, as He
foretold, would be the crack of doom for apostate Israel,
the shaking of heaven and earth. Scripture connects as
one theological Event – the Advent – Christ’s birth,
life, death, resurrection, ascension, the outpouring of
His Spirit upon the Church in A.D. 30, and the
outpouring of His wrath upon Israel in the Holocaust of
A.D. 66-70: Thus in that Day there was a great earthquake
(cf. Rev. 6:12; Ezek. 38:19-20; Hag. 2:6-7; Zech.
14:5; Matt. 27:51-53; Heb. 12:26-28). Because the
triumph of Christ meant the defeat of His enemies, a
tenth of the City fell. Actually, the whole City of
Jerusalem fell in A.D. 70; but, as we have seen, the
Trumpet-judgments do not yet reach the final end of
Jerusalem, but (apparently) go only as far as the first
siege of Jerusalem, under Cestius. In conformity to the
nature of the Trumpet as an alarm, God’s taking a
“tithe” of Jerusalem in the first siege was a warning to
the City.
For clearly symbolic, Biblical-theological reasons, St.
John tells us that seven thousand people were killed in
the earthquake. Ultimately, the Earth-and-Heavenquake
brought by the New Covenant killed many more
than seven thousand. But the number represents the
exact reverse of the situation in Elijah’s day. In 1 Kings
19:18, God told Elijah that 7,000 in Israel remained
faithful to the covenant. Even then, it was most likely
a symbolic number, indicating completeness (seven)
multiplied by many (one thousand). In other words,
Elijah should not be discouraged, for he was not alone.
God’s righteous elect were numerous, and the whole
number was present and accounted for. On the other
hand, however, they were in the minority. But now, in
the New Covenant, the situation is reversed. The
15. This bears some similarity to Elijah’s experience, with the major difference
that it was his friend, and not his enemies, who saw his ascension (2 Kings
2:9-14).
16. Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and Its
Confrontation with American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers,
1983), p. 304.
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