TWO
COMING PROPHETS
By JOSEPH
A. SEISS, D.D.
The career of the Two Witnesses, though crowded miracle from
beginning to end, is very brief. When
their word is finished they become vanquishable and are vanquished. When they shall have completed their testimony, the Beast that
cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and
kill them(Rev. 11: 7). Whether in consequence of a withdrawal of
their power of self-defence and the gradual wasting of their heavenly vigour, like
the fading of the celestial halo from the face of Moses, or by an enlarged
licence to hell to act out its murderous malignity, the potencies of the underworld
eventually seize them and put them to death.
And there, in the broad place of public concourse, the dead
bodies of these Witnesses are exposed. And certain ones from among
the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations behold their corpses three days
and a half, and suffer not their corpses to be put into a sepulchre. This is so intense an outrage upon common
decency and humanity, that it is full of significance here. Even to the worst of criminals the law awarded
burial on the same day as their execution (Deut. 21: 22, 23); but all law and right feeling is set at defiance
with regard to these prophets of God. The
exposure of their dead bodies tells of a most extraordinary malignity and
spite, and attests the extraordinary potency and effectiveness of the objects
of it.
Great joy is experienced over their death.
They that dwell in the land rejoice upon them, and make merry,
and shall send gifts one to another. Now that the two
mighty Witnesses are dead, they dismiss all further fear, consider their
greatest trouble at an end, and send presents and congratulations to each
other, as upon some grand jubilee. Three
days and a half the holy prophets lie in death, their
corpses a public spectacle, their killing celebrated as a general benefaction. The
days are literal days, not years. Corpses
could not endure to be thus exposed for three and a half years. Three years and a half they prophesied, and three days and a half they lie under the power of death. It was long enough to prove the reality of their death, of which the
representatives of the nations were so anxious to be perfectly assured.
But they do not remain dead.
After the
three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they
stood upon their feet. The extraordinariness of the death and
resurrection harmonizes well with the extraordinariness of the history of Enoch
and Elijah throughout. Of old, they left
the world as no other mortal ever did, and here they are resurrected in a band
by themselves, and under circumstances quite differing from all other
resurrections. Whilst their exposed
corpses were being watched and guarded by men overjoyed at their destruction,
those lifeless frames took vitality again. The spirit of life from God re-entered them,
and they arose from their prostration, and stood upright, gazing round upon the
terrified people who beheld them, and flashing a fresh and still deeper alarm
into the guilty souls lately so joyous over their death.
Now that organized and Satanic war,
and veritable killing, and the baseness of the most malignant insults after the
killing, had been perpetrated, what was to be apprehended from this their
sudden resurrection? These holy
messengers had completed their work on earth, and Jesus Himself was now to be
their avenger. No more devouring fire
issues from their mouths, and no further plagues do
they inflict. By the power of God life
is restored to them, even a higher, more glorious, more
indestructible life than that which was given them in their marvellous
translation. They rise and stand upon
their feet. Their enemies behold them. The reality of their resurrection is as
manifest as was the reality of their death. The fiendish joy of the enemy is suddenly
turned into overwhelming terror. Guilty
consciences are now the prophets that torment the people. The Witnesses prophesy no more. They only stand up, and other fires seize
their adversaries souls.
Heaven immediately recalls them. They stood by Christ in their testimony,
faithful unto death; and Christ now rewards their fidelity, receives them to Himself, and crowns them among His heavenly princes. They heard a great voice out of heaven saying to them, Come up
hither. And they went up to the heaven
in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
People who
would not believe in the resurrection and ascension of Christ for their hope
and consolation, are now compelled to witness the resurrection and ascension of His last Witnesses, to their
horror and dismay. The record is
literal. As well might we think to do
away with the literal reality of the death, resurrection, and ascension of
Christ Himself, as with the literal reality of the death, resurrection, and
ascension of these Two Witnesses. Against their wishes and theories, many have
been compelled to admit the inevitable literalness of the first resurrection in chapter 20; but much more clear, circumstantial, and certain is
the literalness of the account of these Witnesses and their marvellous end.
When
Jesus ascended, and His friends stood gazing after Him in tearful wonder and
adoration, holy angels lingered by with words of promise and comfort. Here there is another gazing into heaven, as
His prophets go up. But the gazers now
are His murderous foes. Marvels follow
here also; but they are marvels of judgment.
Not loving angels with words of consolation, but executioners of divine
vengeance with signs of doom show their presence. In that hour there happened a great earthquake.
It is a literal earthquake, for it
overthrows buildings and kills men. The tenth of the city fell,
and there were killed by the earthquake seven thousand names of men.
Earthquakes attended the death and resurrection of Jesus also, but we
read of no deaths occasioned by them. Those
were days of mercy and promise; these are days of judgment. A tenth part of the city is thrown into ruins,
and seven thousand men are enumerated as killed by this earthquake.
We may well suppose that such a cluster of stunning marvels
would not be without effect, even upon the hardened wretches of those evil
times. Amazement, conviction, terror,
strike in upon their guilty souls, and for the moment they acknowledge the hand
of God, and seem ready to repent. The remainder, that is,
those not destroyed with the seven thousand, became terrified and gave glory to God. To see
those dreaded Witnesses come to life again, and go up in triumph to the sky,
and, in the same hour, one house in every ten of the city fallen, seven
thousand men of name killed by the disaster, and the world itself rocking as if
in the throes of dissolution, was more than even their indurated hearts could
bear. Against their will they are forced
to the confession that Gods almighty power is in it.
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