The Revelation of St. John the Divine

by A. H. Ames

Thirdly. The law and the prophets found their special embodiments and representatives in Moses (John i, 17) and Elijah (Malachi iv, 4, 5); one the unequaled statesmen and legislator, the other the most striking and, in many respects, the greatest of the long line of prophets. The miracles ascribed to the two witnesses were actually wrought by these two extraordinary and typical men. To Moses was given power to turn waters to blood and to smite the earth with plagues. It was at the prayer of Elijah that the heaven was shut so that it rained not but according to his word.

Fourthly. Zechariah’s vision of the “two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves,” and which are said to be “the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth,” finds its most appropriate and exact fulfillment in the Holy Scriptures, which testify of Jesus (John v, 39). And it was the representatives of the law and the prophets, or Moses and Elijah, who were chosen to stand by our Lord when he appeared in glory upon the Mount of Transfiguration.

Fifthly. The “testimony” of the law and the prophets is distinctly said by our Lord himself to have been “finished” when his own forerunner, John the Baptist, appeared. “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John” (Matthew xi, 13); “The law and the prophets were until John” (Luke xvi, 16).

Sixthly. Although the Jews professedly acknowledged the law and the prophets to be of divine origin, our Lord emphatically charged against them that they had by their glosses and traditions in effect abrogated them; devitalizing them and making their authority to be a dead letter (Matthew xv, 6; Mark vii, 13; Luke xi, 52).

Seventhly. At no period did this nullification of the power of the Holy Scriptures reach such extremes as during our Lord’s active ministry on earth. The dead bodies of the law and the prophets may be said, without exaggeration, to have lain exposed in the streets of Jerusalem, where our Lord was crucified.

Eighthly. The bodies of the two witnesses are said to have lain “three days and a half.” As the period of our Lord’s active ministry has been computed at three and a half years the number may refer to that. But as three and a half is a symbolical number, designating a half period, it may be used to designate the same here. The ministry of our Lord was such a half period, which was not completed until it had been supplemented by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Ninthly. After the “three days and a half the Spirit of life from God” is said to have “entered into” the two witnesses, “and they stood upon their feet.” This was remarkably fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when, by the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the apostles were moved to draw from the law and the prophets those convincing arguments and promises and appeals which led to the conversion of thousands.

Tenthly. The two witnesses after their resurrection are said to have “ascended up to heaven” in the presence of their enemies. This finds its fulfillment in the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures, with the added life given them by the New Testament, have been accepted by the Christian Church, not as the exclusive property of the Jewish Church or as the archives of the Hebrew nation, but as the common heritage of the world and the canonical word of God to the whole human race.

Lastly. The convulsions of nature which are said to have accompanied the ascent of the witnesses to heaven were exactly fulfilled, as John could testify, in the events that followed Pentecost—the terror and alarm of Christ’s enemies, the fear that came upon all, the shaking as by an earthquake of the place where the disciples were assembled in prayer, and the rapid increase in numbers of those who were slain of the Lord and raised to a new spiritual life.

If this explanation of the episode of the two witnesses is correct the depreciation, or rather, perhaps, under-appreciation of the Old Testament, which exists even among those who do not question its inspiration, is without ground or reason. In the opinion of St. John the addition of the New Testament does not in any wise supersede or render obsolete the older Scriptures. In the education of the human race the Creator did not begin with the more abstruse and highly developed teachings of the New Testament, but with the natural, biographical, historical, and providential facts of the Old. With the exception of the evangelical gospels, which belong really to both dispensations, since the Christ whose life and words and deeds are there recorded is both the consummation of the one dispensation and the seed and promise of the other, no part of holy writ exceeds in interest, attractiveness, and simplicity the law and the prophets, in which John and Peter and Paul were trained.