The Power of the Two Witnesses; Zech. 4:1-14

In Revelation 11:3-17 the focuses is on the two witnesses that show up. They are given authority. The terms “witnesses” is interesting. They are typically referred to as two prophets who appear on the scene for that is their function. But they are not called prophets here, they are called witnesses. Why? Because going back to the Mosaic Law and all the way through Scripture there is the principle that God is going to condemn people on the basis of the testimony of two witnesses. The role of an Old Testament prophet wasn’t to foretell the future, which is how most people think of a prophet. The future was only secondary to a prophet’s ministry. He had other purposes. His primary role was to challenge or condemn or indict the nation in light of the nation Israel’s failure to obey the Mosaic Law. He is bringing charges against Israel for their failure to apply the Mosaic Law.

Everything that God does is based on a legal structure. Salvation is loaded with legal terms: justification, forgiveness, redemption, expiation, imputation, etc. It is the justice of God that has to be satisfied at salvation; it was satisfied by Christ’s work on the cross. Everything that God does is grounded in law. Why is that so important? He is setting an example in that He rules in the affairs of men on the basis of His own law which is revealed to man. This is given in these legal contracts which we call covenants. God works with man on the basis of these revealed standards, and within those revealed standards He reveals what the penalties or consequences are for disobedience and what the blessings with be for obedience. It establishes that principle that we are to be ruled by law and not by men. This is often lost because fallen man does not like to operate on the basis of law. When men get too much power it corrupts them because they are already corrupted eternally by a sin nature.

God is going to delegate authority to these two witnesses. They serve a legal, judicial function in the Tribulation period. That is important for understanding some of the allusions that are here, going back to the Old Testament. They will prophecy, which means they are going to announce judgment against the kingdom of the Antichrist for 1260 days clothed in sackcloth. The prophetic year in the Bible is based on a 30-day month, and a twelve-month period is 360 days, so three and a half years come to 1260 days. In 11:2 it is referred to as 42 months. The 42-month designation always refers to the “bad guys” and 1260 days always refers to what the “good guys” are doing.

In Revelation 11:4 we have the introduction of these two witnesses. These are the two olive trees and two lamp stands that stand before the Lord of the earth. Even that terms “Lord of the earth” emphasizes His authority to rule over the earth. This is judicial language. To understand this we have to go back to the Old Testament because this imagery comes right out of Zechariah chapters three and four. The issue of Zechariah is “God remembers,” and God remembers Israel. Prophecy in the Bible was never given to satisfy our curiosity about the future. If we read the Old Testament—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel—what are the circumstances of these statements about the future? They are in the context of statements from God that He is going to bring judgment and discipline on Israel. When the Old Testament canon was completed close to one third of it was unfulfilled prophecy. When Paul wrote 2 Timothy he told Timothy that he had grown up and been trained by his mother and his grandmother who had taught him the Scriptures. He had learned it from his mother’s knee. That is, he was learning it before Christ went to the cross. What is he learning? “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for doctrine,” etc. The “all Scripture” there isn’t talking about the New Testament; it includes all those unfulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament. All of that Old Testament prophecy was just as important for Timothy to know because it all feeds into the understanding of who God is and what He is doing in history.

The first part of Zechariah chapter three is important because it introduces us to two of the key figures that dominated history historically in the period after the return from the Babylonian captivity. That was not a great time. It was roughly 520 BC, they had been back in the land for eighteen years and after the first couple of years of enthusiasm they became terribly discouraged by the people who had taken up residence in their land. Nehemiah tells of the problems they had with them when they tried to stop them building the walls around Jerusalem. They had become very discouraged but had restored sacrifices. Chapters three and four of Zechariah focus on the two leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, and their role in bringing about a cleansing of Israel as they come back to the land and the dedication of the new temple.

Chapter three, verses 1-5 is a picture of the personal cleansing of Joshua the high priest. It is also a picture of imputation of righteousness, v. 4, his legal cleansing before God. Verses 6-10 is a picture of future cleansing. It moves from history to prophecy, the future cleansing that will come to Israel when God finally delivers them. It is directing their attention away from their current situation to a situation that is still in the future.

Zechariah 3:8 ^NASB “Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you—indeed they are men who are a symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch.” The term “My servant the Branch” is a messianic term used for the Messiah indicating that He is a descendant of David. So now we are shifting gears to the future. Cf. Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5.

Zechariah 3:9 ^NASB “‘For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes [reference to the Messiah]. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day’.” One of the trends that we see in the Old Testament is the promise of this future perfect government. That future perfect government is not going to come in until the Messiah comes. No human being can accomplish it. You can’t have perfect government unless there is perfect knowledge. So we have here “seven eyes” which speaks of omniscience. “…and I will remove the iniquity of the land in one day.” Notice how we move from the cleansing of Joshua to the cleansing of the nation eschatologically. This occurs when the Messiah, the son of David, the Branch, is installed upon His throne. So this is the future cleansing of the nation when they are redeemed as a nation in one day, the day that Jesus Christ returns at the second coming. Joshua’s cleansing is used as a type of the nation’s future cleansing under the Messiah.

Chapter four moves to Zerubbabel. Zechariah 4:1-3 ^NASB “Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and roused me, as a man who is awakened from his sleep. He said to me, ‘What do you see?’ And I said, ‘I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it; also two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on its left side’.” The seven spouts or pipes are coming out of the two olive trees. Out of these olives trees comes the oil that feeds the lamps. The lamp stand in Scripture is a picture of the illumination of the truth. Oil is related to the Holy Spirit and to His ministry.

Zechariah 4:4-6 ^NASB “Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me saying, ‘What are these, my lord?’ So the angel who was speaking with me answered and said to me, ‘Do you not know what these are?’ And I said, ‘No, my lord.’ Then he said to me, ‘This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.” He identifies that what this oil is that is coming out to the lamp stands. The Spirit of God and the Word of God is the basis for our power, the power that we have in the Christian life, and God is setting this in the context of the future. This isn’t talking about what was fulfilled historically in Zechariah’s time. Zerubbabel and Joshua as the two key leaders in Israel are a type of this; the ultimate fulfillment is in the Millennial kingdom and what is going to happen when Jesus returns. What is He going to inaugurate? The new covenant. What the does the new covenant involve? He is going to put “My Spirit in your hearts,” and nobody is going to each their neighbor again. There is going to be this radical shift in that Millennial dispensation that is predicated on the power of God the Holy Spirit. The temporary enduement of the Holy Spirit for some of the leaders in the Old Testament is merely a foretaste of the future Millennium. What is happening in the church age today and our relationship with Holy Spirit in terms of the indwelling and the filling of God the Holy Spirit is also merely a foretaste or foreshadowing of that role of the Holy Spirit in the Millennial kingdom. When that unique ministry of the Holy Spirit when the new covenant occurs is going to provide a transformation and a knowledge such as Jeremiah says, that one man is not going to need to teach another. Every regenerate person will know inherently and intuitively the Word of God and understand the revelation of God. So that is what this is describing, the future empowerment by the Holy Spirit as indicated by the oil.

Question: Is there anything here related to the sacrifices? No. One of the views that is going around is that the ministry of Joshua and Zerubbabel was to reinstitute the sacrifices after the nation returned from Babylon. But that is only mentioned in Ezra chapter three. That occurred in 536 BC when Zerubbabel and Joshua brought the first group back from Babylon (about 50,000) and Ezra chapter three describes the feast of the tabernacles which occurs in the fall of the year and when they rebuilt and inaugurated and cleansed the bronze altar and reinstated sacrifices. But that is not what is in Zechariah; he doesn’t even touch on that. Why are we talking about this? Because in Revelation 11:4 there is this connection identifying these two witnesses as the two olive trees and the two lamp stands that stand before the Lord of the earth. So to understand the role and ministry of those two witnesses who are going to appear in the Tribulation period the writer of Revelation identifies them and compares their ministry with these two witnesses of Zechariah. But nothing in Zechariah chapter three says anything about sacrifices; it talks about the Holy Spirit, that which energizes their ministry.

Who are these two witnesses? Ideas usually focus on Elijah and Moses. Revelation 11:6 ^NASB “These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying [Elijah]; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire [Moses].” So what they do is similar to what Elijah did and what Moses did. Their ministry is clearly related to this temple, and to Jerusalem. Their ministry functions out of Jerusalem so obviously they are Jewish, they relate to Jerusalem, their role is as prophets; so they have to be Moses and Elijah Another candidate for this role is Enoch? He was an antediluvian believers in the line of Seth, and he never died. He walked with God and he was not for God took him. He had such a close relationship with God that he never went through physical death. But Enoch wasn’t Jewish and this is clearly a Jewish ministry.

The last chapter in the Old Testament makes a significant prophecy related to Elijah. Mal 4:5-6 ^NASB “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to {their} children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” At its broadest level the term “the day of the LORD” is a term that describes a judgment of God upon man. It is used a couple of times to refer to historic judgments that came upon Israel and it is used mostly to refer to events in the Tribulation period. The “great and terrible” day of the Lord may be the final part of the campaign of Armageddon or the second half of the period of the Tribulation. It is clearly in the second half of the Tribulation. So Elijah the prophet is going to be sent back before that time. He is going to “restore,” the Hebrew word shub which means to turn, to change direction. This is a term that is used again and again through the Mosaic Law, that when people have rejected God and become involved in idolatry the nation will need to turn to God. So it is going to be the function of Elijah to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord and he will “turn the hearts of the fathers to {their} children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”

The term “turn the hearts of the fathers to {their} children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” is terminology that reflects the unique aspect of the regeneration associated with the new covenant; that God is going to put a clean heart in them. Elijah doesn’t do that; the Messiah does that when He inaugurates the new covenant at the second coming. But wait a minute. It says here in Malachi that it is Elijah who does it. There is an element of grammar related to various verbs, not just individual verbs but related to verbs and their various tenses. We know that a present tense is a continuous present and there is a present tense that is a future present, it is referring to an event in the future because it is so certain in its occurrence that it is referred to in the present tense. There is also a way of using the present tense as future tense, an aorist tense, called an inceptive aorist or future. Inceptive is simply a fancy grammatical term for beginning, and an inceptive tense is translated “he began to do something; he will begin to do something.” That is probably how this should be translated. It is that Elijah doesn’t fully restore this but it is the ministry of these witnesses to begin that restoration process that culminates in the national turning of Israel to their Messiah which occurs at the end of the Tribulation period. Elijah is going to show up on the scene and will be instrumental in this before the Messiah literally returns to the earth.

But how are we to understand this Elijah? Is this literal Elijah? Is he going to be brought back to life and given a physical, mortal body again, one that can be killed? Or is this going to be someone who is so similar to Elijah in his make-up that he carries out the same function as Elijah? This is one of the great conundrums we have to try and figure out in Scripture. In Luke chapter one God announces to Zechariah, a priest who is serving in the temple that his wife is going to become pregnant and have a child. There is something unique about this son they are going to have. Gabriel announces in Luke 1:16, 17 ^NASB “And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go {as a forerunner} before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” The word “forerunner” is not in the Greek text. He is going before [proserchomai /proserxomai] “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” In the Greek there is the preposition en [e)n] which often indicates instrumentality, and it does here. It is en plus the dative of pneuma [pneuma], meaning spirit and then [dunamis] dumamij for power. But there is no repetition of the article with “power.” So that is a grammatical construction that is referred to as a hendiadys, when you have a preposition or an article and two nouns that are linked together by a conjunction and the two nouns are closely related. They should be understood as where one is a noun and one functions as an adjective. So he is saying basically, “he will go forth in the spiritual power of Elijah.” Then what did he say? “… to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children.” That is his mission. His mission isn’t to oppose the Antichrist; his mission is to bring about national regeneration in Israel, and it is a quote from Malachi chapter four.

Then he says, “and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Malachi 3:1 ^NASB “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts.” Quoted in Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2, 3; Luke 1:76 describing the role and mission of John the Baptist. [2] “But who can endure the day of His coming? ...” That is second coming terminology, except for the first part, “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me.” That messenger that prepares the way of the Lord is Elijah. John the Baptist is said to be going forth in the spiritual power of Elijah by Gabriel. So if he is Elijah, he is not the literal, physical Elijah, he simply ministers in the same way that Elijah did. In Matthew 11:14 Jesus is talking about this: “And if you are willing to accept {it,} John himself is Elijah who was to come.” The Pharisees came up to John in the wilderness and said, Are you Elijah? John said, No, I’m not Elijah.

Illustrations