(7) And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. (8) And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. (9) And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. (10) And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. (11) And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. (12) And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. (13) And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. (14) The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
A vast subject of divine truths is included within the compass of these verses. But I must use shortness. And indeed, the subject itself is so enveloped in mystery, that our greatest searches go but a little way, in the unfolding. When the witnesses shall have finished their testimony, probably meaning, when the elect Church of God shall have been fully instructed in the truth as it is in Jesus, and all that are to be gathered from the varieties of the earth, shall have been brought home; those witnesses, whether persons, or things, shall have the last, and most violent persecution raised against them; from the Beast, whose doctrine first came from hell; for it is after the working of Satan: 2 Thessalonians 2:9, and shall make such open attack upon them, as to overcome them, and slay them. And, such shall be manifested the bitterness against them by their enemies, that their bodies shall lay unburied, in the street of the great city Rome; called Sodom, from its filth and uncleanness, and Egypt, from its tyranny and oppression.
We learn here, that the truth as it is in Jesus, is to undergo a most violent attack, towards the close of all things. The last bite of the Beast, will be the most dreadful. The laying unburied in the street of the city, cannot mean literally, for the city itself is spiritually considered. So that this is no objection to the two witnesses being the two Testaments, on account of their being said to be killed. For the totally suppressing their truths, is virtually silencing them; and therefore may be said to be killing them. And, their being publicly exposed as dead, may well apply to the publicity through the earth that the Beast had put them to silence, and to contempt.
The triumph of the ungodly, and their sending gifts to one another upon the occasion of the death of the witnesses, are finely expressed, to show the bitterness of the heart against the ways of God, Oh! what delight is it now, with bad men, to behold anything of supposed evil happening to the godly A ha! say they, so would we have it! And with what joy do the graceless behold the afflictions of the Lord's Israel!
The resurrection of the witnesses, is the opening of the subject, to the final overthrow of both the Beast and the False Prophet. Their ascension to heaven in a cloud, is not literally to be accepted in this sense, but rather of their being publicly owned, in the more glorious state of the Church, now hastening to be established, in the thousand years reign of Christ upon earth. And the wonderful change, wrought the same hour upon mystical Babylon, by the fall of a third part, and the slaughter of seven thousand, are intended to convey, the beginning of the ruin of both antichristian powers, which are now falling, to rise no more. And hence, the subject is brought to the end of the sixth trumpet's dispensation: the second woe is past, and behold the third woe cometh quickly!
But while we pause over the relation, what are the particular improvements we gather from it? No man alive can venture to describe the nature of the calamities the Church will then sustain, just at the close of this sixth trumpet. Nay, the very method of the Lord's dealing is hid in mystery; and the death and resurrection of the witnesses, more than of the facts themselves, the Lord hath not revealed. That the time is hastening. That the present state of the Church, and of the world, is under the sixth trumpet. That in some recent events, we have seen, and do see, a ripening. These are tokens, in a certain measure and degree, that things are hastening towards the accomplishment. But further we cannot advance. Everything speaks to the Church of God now, as the Angel did to Daniel of old: But go thy way, till the end be, for thou shalt rest; and stand in thy lot at the end of thy days, Daniel 12:13.