The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 – God’s Word and Spirit Testifying in the Last Days
Revelation 11:3–4 – “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.”
In this prophetic vision, God reveals two witnesses sent to testify of His truth during a time of darkness and deception. Their identity has been debated for centuries, but Scripture interprets itself: the olive trees and candlesticks are not individuals, but symbols of the living Word of God and the empowering Spirit of God — His Law and His Gospel shining together as one light before the final conflict.
Zechariah 4:2–6 – “Two olive trees by it… These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth… Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
The imagery ties Revelation 11 to Zechariah’s vision, showing that these witnesses represent the continual flow of divine truth — oil from the olive trees feeding the lamps of light. The Spirit (oil) empowers the Word (lamp), and together they illuminate the darkness of apostasy.
Just as ancient Israel rejected the prophets who testified of God’s law, so the last generation will reject His Word and Spirit. Yet even in persecution, these two witnesses will stand — testifying of righteousness, exposing sin, and preparing the faithful for Christ’s return.
Who Are the Two Witnesses? – The Testimony of the Law and the Gospel
📖 Revelation 11:3–4 – “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.”
🔎 To understand the identity of the witnesses, we must allow Scripture to interpret itself. Revelation’s symbols are not isolated; they are drawn from earlier prophetic writings — especially Zechariah 4, where two olive trees pour oil into a lampstand, symbolizing the Word and Spirit of God working together.
📖 Zechariah 4:6 – “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
🔎 The oil represents the Holy Spirit; the light represents the Word. These two witnesses — the Old and New Testaments — carry the same Spirit of truth, speaking in perfect harmony from Genesis to Revelation. One reveals the Law and the prophets, the other reveals Christ and redemption. Together they testify of the one Author who inspired both.
The Witness of the Law (Old Testament)
📖 John 5:39 – “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
🔎 The Old Testament is not abolished; it is the first witness pointing to Christ. Through types, shadows, sacrifices, and prophecies, it testifies that salvation would come through the promised Messiah. Every law, offering, and prophecy was a voice declaring, “Behold the Lamb of God.”
📖 Romans 3:21 – “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.”
🔎 The Law and the Prophets were not against grace — they testified of it. They stood as the first voice in the courtroom of truth, revealing sin and pointing to the Savior who alone could remove it.
The Witness of the Gospel (New Testament)
📖 Hebrews 2:3–4 – “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness…”
🔎 The New Testament is the second voice, confirming all that was written before. Jesus Himself became the living testimony — the Word made flesh. The apostles continued that witness, filled with the same Spirit that inspired the prophets of old. The Gospel does not erase the Law — it fulfills it through the power of Christ’s righteousness.
📖 Matthew 5:17 – “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
🔎 The New Testament reveals the same character of God seen in the Old — holiness, mercy, justice, and truth. Both Testaments speak with one voice: “The just shall live by faith.”
The Two Witnesses as God’s United Testimony
📖 Psalm 85:10–11 – “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.”
🔎 The Law (truth and righteousness) and the Gospel (mercy and peace) meet perfectly in Christ. The two witnesses stand not in competition, but in complete unity, testifying to both God’s justice and His grace.
🔹 The Law reveals the standard of holiness.
🔹 The Gospel reveals the Savior who meets that standard.
🔹 Together they declare God’s love and justice to a world in rebellion.
📖 John 8:17–18 – “It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.”
🔎 Even Jesus spoke within the divine principle of two witnesses. The Word and the Spirit, the Law and the Gospel, the Old and New Testaments — all testify as one, confirming the truth of God’s character and plan of redemption.
💡 The Two Witnesses are not merely two prophets in the future; they are the entire written testimony of God, standing before all nations as the final standard of truth and judgment. The world may silence preachers and burn Bibles, but it cannot silence the Witnesses of God. Their voice echoes through every age, proclaiming: “Thus saith the Lord.”
The Sackcloth Period – When the Witnesses Were Silenced
📖 Revelation 11:3 – “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.”
🔎 The “sackcloth” represents mourning and humility. For 1,260 prophetic days (symbolic of 1,260 literal years – see Ezekiel 4:6; Numbers 14:34), the Word of God would be suppressed but not destroyed. It would continue to prophesy — not openly in power, but quietly through faithful remnant believers who hid, copied, and preserved the truth under persecution.
📖 Daniel 7:25 – “He shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”
🔎 This same 1,260-year period appears repeatedly in prophecy (Daniel 7:25, Revelation 12:6, Revelation 13:5). It describes the era when a church united with the state would dominate Europe — a time of religious tyranny in which tradition replaced truth and God’s Law was obscured. The Bible was forbidden, translated texts were burned, and countless believers were martyred for preserving its pages.
📖 Amos 8:11–12 – “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”
🔎 During this spiritual famine, the Two Witnesses — the Old and New Testaments — were forced into “sackcloth.” God’s Word still spoke, but it was muffled beneath the power of human tradition. Monasteries chained the Scriptures, priests forbade the people to read them, and salvation was traded for indulgence. It was a dark age indeed — yet the light still flickered.
The 1,260 Years of Suppression
From 538 AD, when papal authority became established through imperial decree, until 1798 AD, when that same power was wounded by the French Revolution, the Word of God remained largely hidden.
🔹 The Waldenses and Albigenses preserved handwritten Scriptures in mountain caves.
🔹 Reformers like John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and William Tyndale risked death to translate and print the Bible.
🔹 Every martyr’s cry became a whisper of the witnesses in sackcloth — truth wrapped in suffering, yet alive.
📖 Psalm 119:89 – “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.”
🔎 Though men buried the Word beneath their traditions, Heaven never let it die. Even in darkness, the witnesses still spoke through conscience, through prophecy, and through the lives of those who would rather die than deny the truth.
The Death of the Witnesses – The French Revolution
📖 Revelation 11:7–8 – “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. 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.”
🔎 The “beast from the bottomless pit” symbolizes atheism — the spirit of open rebellion against God and His Word. This prophecy was strikingly fulfilled during the French Revolution (1793–1797), when the Bible was publicly outlawed, Christianity renounced, and reason enthroned as goddess. France spiritually mirrored Egypt (unbelief) and Sodom (immorality) — defying Heaven’s light.
📖 Exodus 5:2 – “And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?”
📖 Genesis 19:5 – “Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.”
🔎 In rejecting God’s Word and law, revolutionary France fulfilled both symbols — defiance of divine authority and open moral corruption. The Two Witnesses — the Old and New Testaments — were symbolically “killed” as the Bible was banned and God’s name blasphemed in the streets.
📖 Revelation 11:9–10 – “And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half… and they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them.”
🔎 For three and a half prophetic days (three and a half literal years), the Word of God lay publicly despised. In 1793, the French National Assembly decreed the Bible abolished and Christianity outlawed. Churches were closed, and the “Age of Reason” was declared supreme. Yet as Revelation foretold — the world’s celebration was short-lived.
The Resurrection of the Witnesses
📖 Revelation 11:11–12 – “And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet… And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither.”
🔎 Exactly as prophecy declared, in 1797 the ban on the Bible was lifted. Within a few years, a wave of Bible societies emerged across Europe and beyond — the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804), the American Bible Society (1816), and many others. What had been silenced now filled the world with light. The witnesses rose from the ashes of persecution, empowered once more to testify before all nations.
📖 Matthew 24:14 – “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
🔎 The “resurrection” of the Two Witnesses ignited the greatest missionary expansion in history. The very nations that had tried to bury the Word became the launching ground for its global proclamation. The prophecy of Revelation 11 was fulfilled exactly: the Word that men tried to silence became the loudest voice on earth.
💡 History confirms what prophecy proclaimed:
🔹 The sackcloth period — the long age of suppression.
🔹 The death — the temporary triumph of atheism.
🔹 The resurrection — the unstoppable rise of the Bible’s global witness.
No power on earth can extinguish the Word of God.
📖 Isaiah 40:8 – “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
🔎 The Two Witnesses — God’s Law and His Gospel — still speak, still convict, and still stand before the God of the earth. They cannot be silenced, for they carry the Spirit of the One who said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
The Final Testimony – The Witnesses in the Last Days
📖 Revelation 11:11–12 – “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. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither.”
🔎 The resurrection of the Two Witnesses was not the end of their mission — it was the beginning of their final work. God’s Word and Spirit, once suppressed, are now lifted up “to heaven” — a symbol of divine authority and worldwide influence. The Bible that was once outlawed has become the most printed, translated, and read book in history. This rising “to heaven” signifies the restoration of Scripture’s authority before the last conflict of earth’s history.
📖 Revelation 14:6–7 – “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth… saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.”
🔎 The Two Witnesses now speak through the Three Angels’ Messages — a worldwide proclamation of truth based on the harmony of Law and Gospel. The everlasting gospel is the same message spoken by both Testaments: repentance, obedience, and faith in the Lamb of God. The world will once again be confronted with the truth it tried to bury — “Fear God and keep His commandments.”
📖 Revelation 12:17 – “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
🔎 The remnant church in the last days will stand on the same foundation as the Two Witnesses — the commandments of God (the Law) and the faith of Jesus (the Gospel). This is the living continuation of the witnesses’ testimony. While the world follows tradition and deception, the faithful will cling to the unchanging Word and Spirit of God.
📖 John 16:13 – “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.”
🔎 The Holy Spirit, the same oil that fueled the lamps in Zechariah’s vision, will empower the final outpouring of truth. The Two Witnesses — the Word and the Spirit — will unite through God’s end-time people to proclaim the last warning before the plagues fall and Christ returns.
The Message of the Witnesses in the End-Time
💡 Their testimony in the last days will emphasize:
🔹 The authority of Scripture over all human tradition.
🔹 The call to repentance and obedience to God’s commandments.
🔹 The warning against false worship and counterfeit Christianity.
🔹 The proclamation of Christ’s righteousness as the only means of salvation.
🔹 The restoration of the true Sabbath as the seal of loyalty to God.
🔹 The unity of Law and Grace — justice and mercy revealed in the cross.
📖 Malachi 4:4–6 – “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant… Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
🔎 This prophecy mirrors the work of the Two Witnesses — calling the people back to the commandments of God (the Law of Moses) and the power of revival (the Spirit of Elijah). In the last generation, the message of the Two Witnesses will again be both prophetic and reformative — turning hearts back to the God of Scripture.
📖 Matthew 24:14 – “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
🔎 Jesus declared that the gospel would go to all nations “for a witness.” That word — witness — ties directly to Revelation 11. The final global proclamation of truth through Scripture fulfills the purpose of the Two Witnesses: to testify to every people, nation, and tongue before judgment falls.
The World’s Final Rejection
📖 Revelation 11:13 – “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.”
🔎 The “great earthquake” symbolizes the final shaking — when truth divides the world. The “city” (Babylon) begins to fall, just as Revelation 14 and 18 describe. The world’s rejection of the Two Witnesses (the Word and Spirit) leads to final judgment. Yet among the chaos, a remnant will awaken — they will give glory to God and stand firm upon His commandments.
📖 Revelation 22:14 – “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life.”
🔎 Those who honor the witnesses’ message — who love both the Law and the Gospel — will be restored to Eden’s blessings. The Two Witnesses began in the Garden as God’s voice and breath of life; they will end in the New Jerusalem as the eternal Word and Spirit of the Lamb.
💡 In the final hour, the world will once again make war against the Word of God — outlawing truth, silencing conscience, and enforcing false worship. But the witnesses will not fall again. Their message will stand through the remnant, and their light will shine until the King returns.
📖 Matthew 24:35 – “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
🔎 No law, no decree, no darkness can silence God’s truth. The Two Witnesses — the Testaments of Law and Grace — will speak until every soul has chosen light or darkness. And then, the testimony will rest, for the Judge will return.
How to Stand as a Witness Today
The role of the Two Witnesses—whether symbolically as God’s Word or as literal individuals—is a reminder to all believers that we are called to testify of the truth. As the world grows darker, each believer must prepare to stand as a witness for Christ.
Practical Steps for Standing as a Witness Today
✔ Commit to the Word – Just as the Two Witnesses testify for God, we must be rooted in Scripture and speak truth boldly (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
✔ Prepare for Persecution – Jesus warned that His followers would be hated (John 15:18-20)—standing for truth may cost friendships, careers, or even freedom.
✔ Live in Righteousness – The world should see God’s truth in our actions as well as our words (James 1:22).
✔ Expose Deception – The Two Witnesses stand against corruption and falsehood. Are we warning others about false doctrines and deceptive teachings (Ephesians 5:11)?
💡 Final Reflection – Standing with the Witnesses
📖 Revelation 11:3 – “And I will give power unto my two witnesses…”
🔎 The same Spirit that empowered the Two Witnesses is available to every believer today. God still calls His people to stand for His Word and His commandments amid a world that rejects both. The witnesses of Revelation are not silent scrolls of history — they are the living testimony of truth and grace, carried in the hearts of all who love the Word and walk in the Spirit.
📖 John 6:63 – “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
🔎 The Two Witnesses speak as one voice — Word and Spirit united. To follow them is to live in harmony with Heaven. To reject them is to side with the spirit of rebellion that has deceived the nations since Eden. Every soul must decide: will I stand with the testimony of God, or with the traditions of men?
📖 Luke 11:28 – “Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
🔎 Hearing truth is not enough; it must be lived. The witnesses still call: “Repent. Return. Remember.” Their message is not of condemnation, but of restoration — a call to love God enough to obey Him, and to trust His grace enough to be transformed by it.
📖 Hebrews 4:12 – “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword…”
🔎 When you open the Bible, you stand in the presence of the same power that spoke the universe into existence. The world may outlaw the Word, mock the truth, and persecute the faithful, but no power can remove the life it carries. The Two Witnesses may be hated — but they are unstoppable, for they are the voice of the Eternal God.
📖 Romans 1:16 – “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation.”
🔎 To stand with the witnesses is to stand with Christ — unashamed, unmovable, and unafraid. The time is coming when every believer will have to choose between comfort and conviction, approval and obedience. Those who stand with the witnesses now will stand with the Lamb then.
📖 Revelation 14:12 – “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
🔎 The final generation will not be defined by miracles, status, or numbers — but by obedience and faith. They will walk as living witnesses, echoing the testimony of the Law and the Gospel to a dying world. The Word will live in them; the Spirit will speak through them.
📌 Do I treat the Word as optional — or as the breath of God?
📌 Am I living by the Spirit that empowers truth — or by the spirit of the world?
📌 Will I stand with the witnesses when the world turns against them?
📌 Am I preparing now to testify of God’s truth, no matter the cost?
📖 Matthew 10:32–33 – “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.”
💡 The Two Witnesses testify still — through every Bible opened, every truth preached, and every life surrendered to Christ. The world once silenced them in darkness, but they will rise again in glory — and this time, through His people.
📖 Isaiah 8:20 – “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
🕊️ The Law and the Gospel, the Old and New Testaments, the Word and the Spirit — these are the lights that guide the faithful through earth’s final night. Those who walk by their light will never stumble. Those who ignore them will fall into the deception of the last days.
The Two Witnesses are not merely symbols — they are the heartbeat of God’s truth.
🔹 They testify of Christ’s justice and mercy.
🔹 They condemn sin and call to salvation.
🔹 They stand today, waiting for hearts willing to join their testimony.
📖 Psalm 119:105 – “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
💡 The light that guided the prophets, preserved the martyrs, and revived the church now calls to you: Stand with the witnesses. Speak truth in love. Live by the Word. Walk in the Spirit. For soon the Witnesses will rest — and the Word Himself will return.
✅ Final Call: Stand as Witnesses Before the End Comes
The account of the Two Witnesses is both a prophecy and a call to action. Their faithfulness in the face of opposition challenges all believers to stand firm in truth, no matter the cost. Their resurrection confirms that God has the final victory over sin and death.
📖 Final Plea: Prepare your heart. Seek God’s truth. Stand boldly as a witness before it is too late.
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” – Revelation 12:11