Alan Dunn
III. John’s Call to Witness as Martyrs
John’s Apocalypse provides us with a hermeneutic of history as perceived from the vantage point of men (Rev 1-11) and of angels (Rev 12-22). Revelation 12 is the transitional chapter which depicts the history of our world from the Fall in Genesis 3 to the present New Covenant era. The narrative of Genesis 3 is still determinative of history of this spiritual warfare. The Serpent and the two seeds are yet in enmity. However the Dragon, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan (Rev 12:9) has now suffered legal defeat at the hands of the son of the woman who is now enthroned (Rev 12:5; cf. Dan 7:13; Rev 5). Legally defeated, the Dragon is now relegated to the realm of earth, raging mad, knowing that he has only a short time (Rev 12:12) in which to deceive the whole world along with his angels [who] were thrown down with him (cf. Lk 10:18). The Dragon also persecutes the seed of the woman who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. God protects the woman’s seed during her wilderness journey (Rev 12:13-17; cf. Heb 3:7-4:11) until He judges the Dragon in the lake of fire (Rev 20:10) and welcomes His people to their Edenic Sabbath rest in the promised land of the renewed cosmos (Rev 21-22).
During this epic war the people of God are called to be the Lord’s witnesses (Isa 43:10-12; 44:8; Acts 1:8). A witness (μάρτυς) gives legal testimony (mαρτυρe,w) and, as transliterated, is a “martyr” for Christ. Making testimony/witness for Christ is a form of martyrdom and can include actual martyrdom. In Acts 22:20, we read of the blood of Thy μάρτυς Stephen. μάρτυς is translated as “witness” in the ASV and NASB, but as “martyr” in the KJV. Which is it? Both. To bear witness for Christ is to be a martyr. In Revelation 6:9 we see the souls of those who had been slain now beneath the altar praying. Why were they slain? Because of the testimony (marturi,an) which they had maintained. The woman’s seed testifies and is therefore persecuted by the Dragon and beheaded (Rev 12:11,17; 20:4). Revelation 17:6 parallels the blood of the saints with the blood of the witnesses (martu,rwn) indicating that every true saint is a witness who, in that sense, is a martyr.1
IV. Revelation 11
It is in Revelation 11 that we learn what lies in store for Christ’s witnesses.2 The church, the temple, will be protected but called to suffer (vs. 1-2). The inner court of the temple is measured3 while the outer court is not measured but is given to the nations and subjected to the trampling of the Gentiles. What is depicted is intense persecution in which a sizable portion of the professing church will apostatize leaving only a purified faithful remnant. The church will have then completed her task given in the Great Commission (vs. 3-7a). The two witnesses behave like OT prophets, reminiscent of Jonah, Elijah, Moses and John the Baptist. They issue calls to repentance in view of impending judgment. They are the two olive trees and the two lampstands: depictions of God’s people in Zechariah 4 and Revelation 1. During the present church age (1,260 days), they give a legally valid witness complying with Deuteronomy 19:15’s requirement: by the mouth of two witnesses, or by the mouth of three witnesses, shall every word be established. The church will be faithful and effective in its witness until the time when they [will] have finished their testimony (v. 7b). Then the church will suffer martyrdom: the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them (v. 7b). The beast, mentioned here for the first time is further described in Rev 13 and does the work of the Dragon who persecutes the seed of the woman.
The death of the witnesses does not necessarily mean actual physical death of all Christians and the eradication of every church, but depicts the silencing of the church’s testimony which has come about both because of the apostasy (2 Thes 2:3) and because of extensive persecution. The ascendency of the Anti-Christ, the man of lawlessness, ensues as the two beasts of civil and religions powers (Rev 13) combine in their demonic designs to destroy the seed of the woman (Rev 12). With the two witnesses silenced, the world will celebrate its apparent victory (vs. 8-10). The bodies of the two witnesses now lie in the street of the great city, that is Babylon, the city of man4 characterized by Sodom’s decadence and Egypt’s persecution of God’s people. The church’s voice (its witness) is silenced.5 The two dead bodies lie in the street of the world’s marketplace of commerce and ideas. That the bodies lie unburied is a statement of the world’s abuse and contempt for the church as they gloat with glee, instituting a new holiday, perversely celebrating the passing of the Christian religion.6 The carcass of Christianity lies dead for three and a half days – a short time7 relative to the three and a half years used in Revelation to speak of the entire church age. After that brief time, the church will be resurrected in triumph by Jesus at His return (vs. 11-12). Like the dead bones in Ezekiel’s vision (Eze 37), the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet and then they imitate their Lord, and ascend into the clouds of heaven.8 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thes 4:17). The enemies of the church see this event and behold the return of Christ now come to judge mankind. In v. 13, we read of a great earthquake, a metaphor used in Revelation to describe the cosmic cataclysm that occurs in conjunction with Final Judgment.9
When the church will have completed its mission and preached the gospel in the whole world for a witness (Mat 24:13-14), the restraining influence of preaching will be taken away.10 Satan will once again deceive the nations as he did before the enthronement of the risen Jesus (Rev 20:8) and the church will enter into “a little season,” a short time of intensified persecution. During this time its witness will largely take the form of martyrdom and the people of God will be called to persevere to the end in the midst of the apostasy and the oppression of the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction (2 Thes 2:3) who will only be slain by the breath of the Lord at the appearing of His coming (2 Thes 2:8).
V. Evangelism and the Eschaton
Jesus would have us understand eschatology as analogous to the contractions of a woman in labor (Mat 24:8; Mar 13:8; Jn 16:20-21; cf. Rom 8:22; 1 Thes 5:3). Eschatological contractions characterize this present age. There is a repetitive character to these “labor pains” which erupt and relax in limited ways while at the same time, progressively intensifying until the occurrence of that climatic contraction which will grip the entire world in a final hour of testing11 (Rev 3:10; Lk 21:34-36). Revelation 11:1-1312 describes the arrival of that short time, that hour of testing which immediately precedes Christ’s coming. That will be a time when the tribulation of this age (Jn 16:33) will be unprecedentedly intense and persecution extensively acute. During this time the church will witness by persevering through suffering and martyrdom. “In the final days, it is not mission, but ‘holding to the testimony of Jesus’ that is needed, for ‘the one who overcomes’ and ‘endures’ is the one who will be rewarded eternally.”13
The climatic birth pang of the Eschaton will be preceded by a demonically induced deception, and a divine abandonment to delusion (2 Thes 2:9-12). In a time of gospel rejection the church must witness as martyrs. We can experience that same phenomenon in preliminary, lesser eschatological contractions. Such times of rejection can come in our dealings with individuals who like swine, trample the pearls of truth and turn like dogs to tear us to pieces (Mat 7:6). That time can come in our ministries to communities when we must shake the dust off our feet, if they, like Chorazin and Bethsaida refuse to receive the gospel and repent (Lk 12:10-16). It will happen (is it happening?) globally, when Satan, released from his imprisoned millennial restriction, goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth (Rev 20:7-8) and we enter that climatic time when the witness of the church will take the form of martyrdom and the Bride of Christ will overcome as slaughtered lambs (Rom 8:36-37; Rev 5:5-7). Now is the time to cultivate our capacity to persevere in affliction while we, in the West, have continued opportunity to make verbal witness. We must begin to exercise our martyrdom muscles and learn how to endure hardship (2 Tim 2:3) and, if need be, to suffer for righteousness. We must be ready to be martyr-witnesses in an intensifying hostile environment as we draw near to the Eschaton.14
VI. Overcoming With Fang-Pierced Heels
As we near the time of our Lord’s return, Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 define the issues. Our theology of missions is a theology of warfare. But we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses (2 Cor 10:3-4). Our strategy is primeval and paradoxical: the strategy of slaughtered lambs (Rom 8:36-37). That strategy was articulated by the God of grace on the occasion of mankind’s fall into death through sin when Adam believed the lie of Satan to whom God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel (Gen 3:15). As Jesus died on the cross, He experienced the bruising fangs of the Serpent who had entered Judas, permeated the Roman and Jewish powers, and perverted the values of the populace. But Jesus was obedient unto death, even death on the cross (Phil 2:8). No one took His life from Him. He willingly went to the cross (Jn 10:17-18) as the Lamb of God by whose sacrifice He propitiated the wrath of God for His people (1 Jn 4:10). Therefore also God highly exalted Him (Phil 2:9). As He obeyed His Father, His heel pressed upon the head of the Serpent and in spite of the fangs that pierced Him, He obediently pressed down the more until the skull of His enemy cracked with a mortal wound as Christ rose from the dead. The Serpent is now defeated. His crushed cranium drives him insane with rage against us who are, in Christ, the seed of the woman, knowing he has only a short time (Rev 12:12).
What is our tactic in this war? Gen 3:15. The cross. The strategy of slaughtered lambs. Heels stepping out in obedient faith and landing down upon the head of the Serpent. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet (Rom 16:20). Our God will triumph through us as we fight like slaughtered lambs, knowing that in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us (Rom 8:37). Christ will not stop loving us. He will come for us from heaven and transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself (Phil 3:20-21).
Our conformity to Christ begins now as we take up our cross daily and follow Him (Lk 9:23). In learning to be like Jesus, we will overcome – we must overcome!15 As we learn to fight like slaughtered lambs, to triumph in the way of the cross, we demonstrate our royal sonship and defeat the fallen powers and principalities.
“As in John’s gospel, so in John’s Apocalypse, the death and defeat of Christ are, in reality, his victory over Satan. The Lamb’s followers are to recapitulate the model of his ironic victory in their own lives; by enduring through tribulation they reign in the invisible kingdom of the Messiah. They exercise kingship in the midst of their suffering just as Christ did from the cross: Christians are called to be conquerors by emulating in their own lives the archetypal triumph of Jesus. Though the Christian’s outer body is vulnerable to persecution and suffering, God has promised to protect the regenerated inner spirits of true saints. And, at the end of the sojourn of Christ’s body (the church) on earth, its presence, like his, will be completely removed, and then it will be resurrected.”16
The church, like her Husband/Lord, will complete the work given to her and finish her testimony (Rev 11:7). And then like her Lord, she will be publically crucified and the powers and principalities will rejoice. But the demonic celebration will be short-lived, for like her Lord, the church will triumph in the resurrection effected by Jesus at His return. We will be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren (Rom 8:29). The Son bore witness in word and deed, through death and resurrection, and so must His church. It is the only way to overcome.
We must overcome by self-denying, sacrificial obedience to our Father as we walk the narrow way of the cross and press our heels down through the fang-piercing pain on the head of demonic lies which are generated in our culture by social institutions, infused into the zeitgeist and often embodied in actual people who will hate us, oppose us, and even kill us. Nevertheless we are to be witnesses in every culture. We do not pursue conflict or martyrdom.17 We are peacemakers who are called to love our enemies, to do good to those who persecute us, to turn the other cheek and do what is right in the sight of all men (Lk 6:27ff; Rom 12:17). There will be varying levels of social opposition, depending on the presence of God’s common grace in any given culture at any given time in history.18 There will be times of gospel gain and times of apparent loss. Whether we are called to live in times of gain or loss, we must endure by faith,19 knowing that we are victorious in Christ as the seed of the woman, in spite of our bruised and bloody heels.
What might be in store for us American Christians who manage to escape Vanity Fair? The prospect of the two witnesses of Rev 11 looms before us. We, and especially the upcoming generation, may face preliminary eschatological contractions limited to our specific culture. Or we may face that universal climatic contraction, that final short time immediately preceding the coming of Christ. Regardless of what path we are called to trod, we must be faithful witnesses, martyrs, willing if need be to suffer in the way of obedience to Jesus. It will hurt. At some level we will feel the pangs of Satan’s fangs formed by some measure of opposition that will pierce our heels. But we must press on (Phil 3:14) and press down (Rom 16:20). This, then, is a theology of missions: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. We will overcome. And he who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son (Rev 21:7).
Read the first part of this document:
A Theology for Missions: The Witness of the Martyrs I
Notes:
1. Likewise Rev 16:6 speaks of the blood of the saints and prophets, and Rev 18:24 informs us that in Babylon was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain(slaughtered) on the earth.
2. Likewise Rev 16:6 speaks of the blood of the saints and prophets, and Rev 18:24 informs us that in Babylon was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain (slaughtered) on the earth.
3. “Measuring the temple of God symbolizes the knowledge and care of God for His people.” Simon J. Kistemaker and William Hendriksen. Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 325. Measuring is “a sign of the ultimate invincibility of Christ’s church.” Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb: a Commentary on Revelation (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001), 166. The measuring parallels the sealing of the 144 thousand from the twelve tribes in Rev 7 whereby they are divinely protected and preserved as God’s holy nation of royal priestly sons. Cf. Andreas J.
4. In Revelation, there are only two cities: the city of God and Babylon. Jerusalem, where also their Lord was crucified, is here seen to be spiritually equivalent to Sodom and Egypt and liable to God’s wrath due to its rejection of Christ.
5. “The witness of the church has been completed; God has withdrawn His word and testimony, and the world now views the lifeless frame of the Christian religion.” Kistemaker, Exposition of the Book of Revelation, 334.
6. The world that previously refused to identify with the presence of Christianity, now defines itself in terms of the absence of Christianity.
7. Cf. Rev 12:12; 20:3,8
8. “Cloud” language is reminiscent of the Son of Man imagery which recalls Daniel 13 and speaks of resurrected rule.
9. “It seems most consistent therefore, to see the witness’s resurrection as portraying the bodily resurrection of all who belong to Christ’ true church by faith at His return, accompanied by the great earthquake of judgment that will compel fear-filled praise even from God’s enemies – cf. Phil 2:9-11.” Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb: a Commentary on Revelation (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001), 176. Rev 20:7-10 describes Gog and Magog surrounding the camp of the saints, when suddenly fire came down from heaven and devoured them. At His return, the Lord will slay [the lawless one] with the breath of His mouth and bring an end [to him] by the appearance of His coming (2 Thes 2:8).
10. Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History(Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1964), 164-166, suggests that what restrains the arrival of the Antichrist and now restrains until he is taken away (2 Thes 2:6-7) is “the missionary preaching as a sign pointing to the end.”
11. See the hermeneutic of “progressive parallelism” or “recapitulation” characteristic of Revelation. Cf. William Hendriksen, More than Conquerors: an Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1982), 34-36.
G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: a Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), 121ff.
12. Cf. 2 Thes 2:1-12; Rev 12:12; 20:3,7-8
13. Köstenberger, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, 246.
14. I am not “pessimistic” in my expectation for evangelism. We may see times of gospel victories and ingathering. To speak of the witness of the martyrs is not to deny God’s sovereign prerogative in which He could bring the church in the West into yet more times of reformation and revival. Certainly there are many encouragements on many fronts in the West as well as other areas of the world (South America, Africa, Asia) where evangelical churches are growing. The wheat and tares will grow together until the harvest (Mat 13:24-30). But when the church encounters intensified opposition, we are called in a peculiar way to bear witness as martyrs. When the church enters that short time during the climatic eschatological contraction, her witness will be extensively that of her martyrdom. I make no claims that we are now in that short time, but we are to know the time, that it is already the hour for [us] to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand (Rom 13:11-12a).
15. Cr. Rev 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21.
16. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 171.
17. “Paul never says that Christians should actively seek suffering. Christians are, however, to welcome persecution if the alternative is being ashamed of the gospel (2 Tim 1:8).” Plummer, Paul’s Understanding of the Church’s Mission, 137. Cf. Lk 12:1-12.
18. D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2008) demonstrates that the Christian’s engagement with and response to his culture cannot be monolithic because cultures will vary in their respective states of fallenness as conditioned by varied degrees of common grace often determined by the quality of the church’s light and salt influence. But there are Brethren who live in cultures convulsing with the eschatological contractions of combined state and religious opposition and Scripture speaks of a day when those institutions will merge and globally rage against the church like two rapine beasts (Rev 13). The time of the final contraction and the birthing of the age to come will be severe, but we must endure to the end (Cf. Rev 1:9; 2:2,3,19; 3:10; 14:12; Heb 10:32,36; 12:1-7 ; 1 Pt 2:20).
19. It is instructive to consider that some among that great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1) catalogued in Heb 11 experienced evident victory (vss32-35a) and some apparent defeat (vss35b-38), but all lived and triumphed by faith.