The Pulpit Commentary — Revelation — Section 271

h• and it is. written of old, " Ye are my witnesses, sai,th the -Lord." Hence in Christ and Ohurch we ma:, find theae- witnesses, and in what is here recorded of them we may see the mutual fellowship tha.t exists between them. See this- , I. 1N MINISTRY. For both tha.t of Christ and his Church was a ministry : 1. OJ J1f'01)MCY, Not in the sense of predicting the future, but in uttering forth the will of God.:...preaching and proclaiming God's message to mankind. In both there were works of Divine power, signs and wonders; but these were of but subordinate importance as compared to their ministry of the Word. Our Lord was the great Teacher, and he bade his disciples "preach the gospel.'' 2. Of bri.ef durati011,. _· Who knows what precisely is meant by these mysterious twelve hundred a.nd sixty days? It is the same period of three years and a. half whether told of as days here or as month, in ver. 2. It is the half of seven, the number denoting oompleteness and perfection. There may be allusion to the time of our Lord's ministry on earth, or to that of th6 Investment of Jerusalem by the Romans, or, taking the year-day theory, to some twelve hundred and sixty years during which this ministry is to be carried on. We prefer to take the numbers as telling of a time limited and brief. Such was our Lord's ministry; such the duration of the Church in Jerusalem ere it fled away to Pella; such, in comparison with the eternal ages in whicp, the blessed results of their ministry shall be realized, is the ministry of the Church of to-day and all past and future days. 3. Characterized by much of sternness and sorrow. "Clothed in sackcloth "-so is it described. Was it not so with our Lord? He was " the Man of sorrows." And has it not been so with his Church oftentimes, just in proportion as they have been faithful to their Lord? See the life of Paul, of Peter, of the martyr Church in many 11'.enerations, under both pagan and papal Rome. How can it be otherwise when we think of the ends that are to be secured-so momentous-and of the tremendous hindranoes in the way of securing these ? Such ministry is no holiday pastime, no decorous profession merely, but one that for our Lord and his apostles, for his martyrs and for all his faithful, seems often times to be " clothed in sackcloth." 4. But it is of tesistl6SB f orr,e, Like as was the ministry of Elijah and Moses. Elijah literally called down fire from heaven, and Moses did that which is here said of these witnesses.· 'And in a real, though not literal sense, vers. 5 and 6 are true. Was not our Lord's word as a fire to his enemies? How it scathed and tormented them I And were not his words fulfilled wheu. Jerusalem· was overthrown? And so of the other witness, the Church. What has become of her persecutors-Rome, Spain, and many more? Has it been well with those who have hurt the Church of God? "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eve "-so bath God said, and historic fa.et vindicates that word. And so of the withho1ding of the rain. Elijah did this literally ; but was not the righteous and universal judgment on the hardened ones whereby, as our Lord said, " seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand "-was not this a yet mora·reat and terrible withholding of the rain and shutting of heaven against them? Christ was" set for the fall" as well as" the rise" of ma!ly in Israel; they would have it IO. And the words of the other witness have had like eff, cts. "Whose sins ye retain, they are retained," said the Lord to his Church. "Wh:it thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," he also said. And was not this word fulfilled when such as Paul turne,\ from the Jews who had rejected him and went unto the heathen? What would become of a nation, a oommunity, if the good all went away? What became of Sodom when Lot left it; of Jerusalem, when the Church of Christ left it? Parodies of this power of the Church were seen in the-interdicts which proud popes and prelates would at times lay on the lands that believed in them. 'The threat of such interdict seemed like shutting heaven against them, and they dreaded it with a great dread. And the plagues Moses inflicted on Egypt have their counterpart in the sorrows that have come on men in all ages who have sought to hnrt the Lord's anointed ones, and to do his witnesses harm. Yes; this ministry of the witnesses has had resistless force accompanying it, before whith its foes have fallen a.gain and again. Let none of us be found fighting against God. : IL IN BUFFERING. We seem in vers. 7-13 to have a piece of the gospel history, of the life of our 1Lord, given to us. For he was met with the hostile rsge of hell, The "beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit" did make war aga.inst him. And for a time hell seemed to have vanquished the Christ. For ,he waa betrayed. cm. XL 1-19.] THB REVELATION OJ' st. JOHN 'l'!HE DIVINE. 803