Volume 1, Issue 46
8 Jul 2016
 When man’s beastly sin of arrogantly grabbing for autonomous godhood finally reaches its apex and the night falls on a reprobate world, the church will have entered a time of ineffectualness. Its “testimony” will be “finished” (Revelation 11:7). It will be unable to influence or impact an unrepentant, reprobate world seized by the spirit of antichrist, which will be manifested in an immense hostility toward Christ.
At that time, it will appear that the world, which has always been at war with the church, will have “overcome” the church. Yet, just as the world once thought that it had done away with Christ, only for Him to rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven in the clouds, so also, when the world thinks that it has done away with the church of Christ, it too will rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven in the clouds.
One of the most important clues to the identity of who or what the Two Witnesses of Revelation symbolize is found in the fact that the Greek word for “bodies” in Revelation 11:8-9 is actually singular (“body”), not plural. It is translated “body” or “corpse” rather than “bodies” or “corpses” everywhere else it is found in the New Testament.
Obviously, the translators made this mistake honestly, believing that two witnesses require two bodies. However, the clear scriptural truth is: There is only one body, not two. The two witnesses share a single body; they are together in one body!
According to the Apostle Paul, the “eternal purpose” of God has always been to “reconcile” the “two”—God’s two witnesses, His Old Covenant people Israel (Jews) and His New Covenant people the church (Gentiles)—unto Himself in “one body,” which is the church (Ephesians 2:11-3:13). This explains why the two witnesses are together in a single body. They symbolize the church, God’s joining together of His Old Covenant people (Jews) with his New Covenant people (Gentiles) in one body.
Far from being a footnote added to the divine program until God turns His attention back to Old Testament Israel, the church is the “eternal purpose” of God. IT IS AT THE HEART OF THE DIVINE PROGRAM! God has done everything He has ever done to secure for His Son an eternal companion, a bride, which is the church. Don’t forget that the Book of Revelation, not to mention the Bible itself, concludes with the climactic unveiling of the “Lamb’s wife” (Revelation 21-22).
TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS PUBLICATION SEND YOUR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS TO: don@timefortruth.org
Don Walton
|
