Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “The Two Witnesses”. If you do a “Google” search for “Who are the two witnesses of Revelation?”, you will get a surprising consensus of opinion. Many if not most Christian apologists state it is “Moses and Elijah”. This is based upon what Revelation says the two witnesses will do (see Revelation 11:6… a description that parallels Elijah and Moses actions). I can see how this seems to fit. And it does fit… in a certain way. These acts were done during the 1,260 days (years). How does the 1,260 years affect this understanding?
I first heard of this day/year principle from Adventism (like most of us did). And I supposed it to be a concept that originated from the time of William Miller and “The Great Disappointment”. But not so. This idea was promoted most adamantly by Sir Isaac Newton in the mid-1700’s. His intense Daniel study proved this to be true for the arrival of the Messiah. And therefore, a staple of prophecy interpretation. Alas, modern Christian theologians seem to have forgotten this. By injecting the day/year principle here, the more accurate prediction of the two witnesses in Revelation, is “during the time of Papal domination from A.D. 538 to A.D. 1798. During these 1,260 years, (it was) the Word of God (that were) His two witnesses -- and were clothed in sackcloth. Their truths were hidden under a vast pile of tradition and ritual. (Yet) these two witnesses still prophesied; the Bible still spoke.” (Quarterly for Monday).
Our lesson Quarterly does not deny that the acts of the “two Witnesses” are not foreshadowed by Elijah and Moses. But that “by the Word of God Elijah said no rain would fall on Israel (and that) … Moses, through the Word of God, brought plagues of all kinds on the Egyptians” (Quarterly for Sunday). Making the point that it is trust in God’s Word that enabled these two men to so act. And so it was during the 1,260 years and will be in the future. God’s faithful “witnesses” are but channeling God’s Will. It is God who has the power. God, who is demonstrated in His Written Word and lived-out in His Living Word.
This is really more the point. The lesson quarterly leads us to look to the true source of God’s power… Christ, the Living Word, living-out His life in each of His true witnesses. “In John 5:39, Jesus declares that the Old Testament scriptures testify (bear witness) of Him” (Quarterly for Sunday). This is the true witness. Witnessing of Him by our very lives… as did “the Waldenses, John Huss, Jerome, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, John and Charles Wesley, and a host of other Reformers (who) were faithful to God’s Word as they understood it” (Quarterly for Sunday). They were faithful to a Person… faithful to the Living Word… faithful to God as evidenced in His Son and revealed in His Written Word. Do not forget this. Our faith is in a Person.
Praise God for this. He does not ask us to stand on certain religious doctrines or on certain religious symbols, ordinances, practices, or traditions. He asks us to stand on Him. To stand on our Father, as He is revealed in His Word. And then He sends us His Son, the Living Word, to show us that “we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). To show us how the Father, the Son and all of heaven is on our side… one with us. And if this is not enough, He “also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 5:5). A guarantee that “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18) in the person of His Spirit. This is what gives us, His witnesses, such courage. We are His, and He is ours. We have courage, because of our Father who loves us. “We (actually) love because He first loved us” (1 John 4: 19 NRSV).
This is what we stand on. Love. love for God and love for our brothers and sisters everywhere. Love, the most powerful motive in the world. This is our witness, as we “bear witness of Him” (op. cit.).
With brotherly love,
Jim
