REVELATION 11
It is the privilege of faith to take account of what is on the earth for God at any moment. John being called to “Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship in it”, is evidence that even in that day — the very darkest moment of the world’s history, the last half-week of Daniel’s seventy weeks — there will be something on the earth [p. 128] which is of God and for Him, and of which definite account can be taken; it can be measured. The chapters following give us the most terrible time of the great tribulation, but before we enter those dark shadows God allows us to see that He will have something reserved for Himself. It will be like the seven thousand reserved who had not bowed the knee to Baal in the midst of apostasy in Elijah’s day. The great consideration of faith, whether as to the present time or as to any future time, is to take account of what is of God and for God. And there is that today which we can measure as having divine importance and value; it is the privilege of faith to do so.
I do not think “the temple of God and the altar” refers to anything material. John was to measure what was there spiritually for God. He is here a representative man having received figuratively — in eating the little book — the communication of God’s mind, and having gone through the exercise and self-judgment which that involved. He is now prepared to take account of what will be there spiritually for God. The measuring applies to what is internal; the court without is not to be measured “because it has been given up to the nations, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty-two months”.
There is a striking analogy between the conditions in that day and in our own. If we look at the external system of Christianity it is given up to men, and what is holy is trodden under foot. Man’s will predominates there. But there is what is spiritual — the shrine and the altar and the worshippers — and faith takes account of that. The temple is the place where God’s mind is known; “to inquire of him in his temple”(Psalm 27: 4). And the altar speaks of intense holiness “[p. 129] the altar shall be holiness of holinesses: whatever toucheth the altar shall be holy” (Exodus 29: 37). The mind of man is essentially unholy, even in its religiousness. Who would naturally suppose that man in the flesh could never be acceptable to God? That nothing but the sweet odour of Christ can be the ground or measure of divine favour? To speak to the majority in christendom about the setting aside of man in the flesh would be like speaking Hebrew to them; they would not understand; they have not come near the altar. But if persons are not in accord with the altar they will tread what is holy under foot. We have here in John a representative man measuring what is holy, and then an external company marked by treading what is holy under foot. It should be a real exercise with us that God would give us the measuring reed, and enable us rightly to estimate the character of what is for Himself. It would lead to intense separation, for if we appreciate what is holy we cannot go on with what is profane. We read of the enclosure round about the temple, “It had a wall round about, five hundred long, and five hundred broad, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common” (Ezekiel 42: 20). If we wish to maintain what is for God’s pleasure and service we must build a broad wall of separation between what is holy and what is profane.
To take account of what is of God and for God involves much exercise. There are many things in the religious world which will not bear measurement by a divine standard. But if things will not stand measuring, faith cannot recognize them as being of God. In the holy city (chapter 21) all is in full measure and due proportion according to “man’s measure”. Everything there will come up to the measure of Christ.
How blessed to know that in the darkest tribulation days there will be “the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship in it”! It is what will be found spiritually in the remnant, for we are here on Jewish ground. The “holy city” is Jerusalem and it is also “the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified”. All that is outward will be profaned, but there will be a company who will be spiritually intelligent in the mind of God — the “wise” of Daniel 12: 3 — and who will hate the congregation of evil-doers, and will not sit with the wicked; but who will wash their hands in innocency and will encompass Jehovah’s altar (Psalm 26). It is what they come into spiritually before there is any material temple or altar at which they can worship. There will be a material temple, I dare say, at that period, but it will be one where the man of sin, the son of perdition, sits and shews himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2: 3, 4).
Then there will be not only worship, though that comes first, but also testimony. “I will give power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth”. There will be adequate testimony rendered in Jerusalem in deep sorrow, and God takes account of it in days to shew that it will go on day by day. And we are told that “These are the two olive trees and the two lamps which stand before the Lord of the earth”. The witnesses are thus identified with what we read in Zechariah 4. Their testimony will not be in human might or power “but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts”. And they “stand before the Lord of the earth”, for that will be the testimony of the moment. Men in their fear may for a brief time give “glory to the God of the heaven” (verse 13); they are compelled, as it were, to do that. But they will not admit that He is “the Lord of the earth”; they will dispute His title to the earth to the last possible moment. But in face of all the blasphemous pretensions of men, God will sustain through the last half-week a powerful testimony by His Spirit to His rights and title as “the Lord of the earth”. Moses and Elijah maintained what was due to God in the face of a disobedient and gainsaying people — whether in the Egypt world or amongst the apostate people of God — and their testimony was supported by acts of divine power, and thus it will be in the days of the two witnesses.
It will be suited to the time and place and character of their testimony that they should be clothed in sackcloth. Their exercise as to the state of the people of God will have been very deep; they will realize how Israel has departed from all that was in God’s mind for them. And we may learn from their sackcloth clothing something of the suited character of present testimony. We ought never to forget the failure and breakdown of the christian profession. The first effect of learning the truth as to Christ and the assembly must be deep exercise, and a profound sense of how the christian profession has departed from the original thoughts of God. As to spiritual privilege it is open to us, through infinite grace, to arise from the dust and put on our beautiful garments and take our place with God in all the blessedness of our holy and heavenly calling. This would answer to the temple and altar and worshippers. But when we [p. 132] come to testimony we have to remember the complete public failure; we cannot dissociate ourselves from the general ruin; and hence sackcloth is becoming. All true testimony now must be rendered in sorrow as feeling the failure of the public witness; this keeps us lowly and it honours God. But there is light sustained by the golden oil of the Spirit. It is still possible to be vessels “to honour, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work” (2 Timothy 2: 21).
It is part of the testimony rendered by saints of the assembly that the earth is the Lord’s. We claim it in faith for Him all through the time of His rejection, and await His coming to take possession of what is rightly His. One of our poets has said,
“Come, then, and added to Thy many crowns,
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth,
Thou who alone art worthy! It was Thine
By ancient covenant, ere Nature’s birth,
And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since,
And overpaid its value with Thy blood
Thy saints proclaim Thee King; and in their hearts
Thy title is engraven with a pen
Dipp’d in the fountain of eternal love”.
“And when they shall have completed their testimony, the beast who comes up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and shall conquer them, and shall kill them”. Here we see another instance of what we have already noticed in this book, that the power of evil is always under divine control, and limited in its action to what God permits. Not all the power of the beast will be able to kill the two witnesses until they have completed every day of their testimony. It is a great stay to faith to see this.
The “beast” is introduced here without any explanation of who he is. It suffices that we should understand that there will be a terrible power in ascendency here — a power of infernal origin — intensely opposed to God’s testimony, and which will kill His witnesses as soon as it is able to do so. Their bodies will lie unburied for three days and a half on the street of the great city, and “they that dwell upon the earth” will, rejoice and be full of delight. But “after the three days and a half the spirit of life from God came into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell on those beholding them. And I heard a great voice out of the heaven saying to them, Come up here; and they went up to the heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them”. God will give this remarkable testimony even to the adversaries that His kingdom is about to come in the power of resurrection and ascension. This has been demonstrated to faith by the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit’s testimony to Him as risen and ascended. Indeed there is a certain correspondence between the ministry of Christ and that of the two witnesses. He ministered three years and a half and then was killed and raised again and carried up into heaven. And, no doubt, the public resurrection and ascension of the witnesses will lead the faith and hope of the remnant in that closing moment of their trial in a very distinct way to heaven. It is from thence that their deliverance will come. So at the end of this chapter “the temple of God in the heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple”. Everything is secured for faith by the presence of Christ in heaven as risen and ascended. The remnant will know Him as the Ark of God’s covenant there — the security of all their blessing — before He is manifested.
When the seventh angel sounded “there were great voices in the heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world of our Lord and of his Christ is come, and he shall reign to the ages of ages”. The apportioned seventy weeks upon Daniel’s people, and upon Daniel’s holy city, will have run their full course. Nothing will now remain of the prophetic word but “to bring in the righteousness of the ages”, and heaven celebrates this grand climax of the ways of God as accomplished. The elders add their tribute of thanksgiving, and dwell on the kingdom as the time of divine recompense. They have been observant of the wrath of the nations, and of all the sufferings of God’s servants — prophets, saints, and those who have feared His Name, small and great — and they give thanks that their sufferings will all be compensated. I am inclined to think, from the context, that “the time of the dead to be judged” refers to dead saints, perhaps more particularly to those martyred. They will all, be vindicated and recompensed. It is the bringing in of “the righteousness of the ages” (Daniel 9: 24), and making it publicly manifest. The saints from Abel down to the witnesses of this chapter have been killed, persecuted, reproached, ridiculed, and caused to suffer for righteousness’ sake in small ways and in great. But all will be recompensed in the kingdom of God. God’s wrath will come on those who “have been full of wrath” against His people, and He will “destroy those that destroy the earth”.