Fr. Stephen De Young: Okay, we’ll go ahead and get started. When we get started in just a moment, we’ll be picking up in the revelation of St. John, chapter 11, verse one. So we’re sort of smack in the middle of the Apocalypse. I know it feels that way lately, but actually in this case I’m talking about the book, the Apocalypse of St. John. [Laughter] And it’s been a while, here in real time, since we got together and had a Bible study, so to kind of catch us up… As we’ve mentioned, all of St. John’s writings—but this is very visible in the book of Revelation—are written in this sort of cyclical pattern, where he’ll sort of introduce ideas and then return to them and expand on them and then move to another idea. They sort of spiral forward; it’s not a complete circle, but sort of a spiral.

This is very visible, as I said, in the book of Revelation, because we have these sets of sevens. We already had the seven seals, and then we had— We’re sort of toward the end of the seven trumpets. We had six of the seven trumpets, and then we sort of had this break, and we’ve had some other things going on in the last chapter, in chapter ten, it sort of broke that pattern, but we’ll get back to it. The seventh trumpet is coming up. We didn’t forget.

But we sort of see these patterns that make it kind of obvious what he’s doing, that he’s sort of doing these recurring cycles. That’s important to remember in terms of the structure of the book so we don’t make the mistake that people sometimes make of thinking this is describing a series of events in the future, like in order. As we’ve talked about, part of the reason for that is any apocalyptic literature, including St. John’s Apocalypse, is not a bunch of predictions about the end of the world, even though that’s how we use the word “apocalypse,” to talk about the zombie apocalypse or the nuclear apocalypse or post-apocalyptic whatever.

But that what it is is that a person is taken into heaven, taken into the presence of God, and so they see the world, events in the world, and its history from a different perspective than the way they saw it before. Very frequently in apocalyptic literature you get a perspective on things in the past, you get a perspective on things in the present, and you get a perspective on things in the future. We can’t take the book of Revelation and read it as all future, because, as we saw at the beginning of the book, St. John attached these cover letters: he’s speaking to actual people who are alive at the time he had this vision and wrote it down. There are things in here that are relevant to them. He didn’t say, “Hey, protect this and keep it safe, because they’re going to need it 2,000 years from now when China invades Israel,” or whatever. But this is written— It’s already relevant to them, and then it remains relevant all the way through to us today.

We’ve been seeing that, in these cycles, St. John has been talking about patterns, and doing that to help us understanding—“us” being Christians at any point in this age, since Pentecost—to understand what’s going on in the world around us, the difficulties we face, the sufferings we face, the persecutions we face, in light of what God has already done in Christ, what he is doing in the world now, and where this is all leading: to give us that perspective, so that we don’t sort of— the perspective that St. John was given, so we don’t get sort of mired down in our present circumstances and fall into despair, as if God isn’t paying attention to what’s going on, etc.

We’ve also been seeing that St. John has been pulling elements—imagery and other elements—from the Old Testament prophets. This isn’t that—I’m not saying that St. John didn’t really have this vision—he did really have this vision—but St. John was so immersed in what we call the Old Testament Scriptures—that was his sort of world and where his worldview came from—so that when he receives a vision, he’s interpreting it and he’s understanding it in those ways. He’s connecting it to those things as he understands it.

When we left off last time in chapter ten, there was one of those elements that he had picked up from Ezekiel, where he was given this book to eat. [Laughter] We talked about that last time. Remember we mentioned, since I was a kid when I heard this story, I thought they handed him a book like this and he had to eat it somehow. And when you’re a little kid especially, you’re imagining him putting salt and pepper on it or something, trying to find some way to eat a book. But we’re really talking about a scroll; we’re talking about a rolled-up piece of papyrus or parchment. Eating it is still an odd image—not quite as odd—a little more feasible.

So as we pick up here in chapter 11, we’re going to see another piece of imagery that’s an extension of part of Ezekiel’s visions that St. John is going to apply in a little different way, and that different way is important. We’ve seen that with some of the other elements that he’s picked up, where he’ll take these prophetic images from the Old Testament, many of which were pointing to Christ, and then now when St. John sees them they’re a little different because of who Christ is and what he’s done. And so there’s been this change, and that change is sort of part of what’s important in St. John’s vision: he’s reflecting that reality. I’ll leave that be for catch-up explanation, because I think if I go further than that, I’ll have to go through chapter ten again. But unless anybody has any leftover questions, comments—I mean, it’s been over a month, but somebody might have been saving them up, or anything else, we’ll go ahead and get started in St. John’s Revelation, chapter 11, verse one.

“Then I was given a reed, like a measuring rod, and the angel stood, saying, ‘Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar and those who worship there.’ ” This is part of the imagery that’s getting picked up from Ezekiel. Ezekiel—a huge chunk of the book of Ezekiel, the last portion, is Ezekiel’s vision of a temple, of a new temple that’s going to come into existence. Ezekiel is a prophet during the period when Judah is in exile in Babylon, in the sixth century BC, for about 75 years. Solomon’s temple had been destroyed, they had all been taken into exile, and so he sees the vision of this future temple that not only includes this physical temple, but also that temple’s consecration, some of the services in that temple, and these kind of things.

That vision has been, especially in, let’s say, 20th-century America, the subject of a lot of literal interpretation. Amongst our Protestant friends, our dispensationalists, they want to take that literally and they want to say: that exact temple as a physical object, as a physical building, because it wasn’t built in the past, that is going to be built at some point in the future, in Jerusalem. And if you go with the old Scofield Reference Bible, when Jesus returns, they’re going to offer animal sacrifices to him there. That confuses me, too, but… [Laughter] But that’s the idea. The idea is that this is—because that temple was never built, it has to be physically built some time in the future for the prophecy to come true.

The major difficulty with that is that there’s another way to read that that I would argue makes a little bit more sense, because after 75 years, Cyrus let the Judahites—who became the Judeans, because it became a Persian province, under Cyrus, of Judea—let them go back, and when they went back, they rebuilt Jerusalem, they rebuilt the temple. When they rebuilt the temple, they didn’t build Ezekiel’s temple, in terms of the measurements and the directions and everything. That implies that either they weren’t familiar with the book of Ezekiel—which we know they were—or they weren’t taking it literally. Now, you can say, “Well, maybe they didn’t have the resources to make a temple that big.” Well, then I would point you to Herod, who did have the resources. He spent decades pouring those resources into building out that rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and did not pay any attention to the dimensions of Ezekiel’s temple, as if that was the way you should build the true temple.

That is even more stark when you look at the fact that one of the things that Ezekiel says about that temple is that the true priesthood is going to serve there, and the true priesthood, they’re the descendants of Zadok. When the Sadducees wanted to prop themselves up—they controlled the temple; they controlled the high priesthood—they wanted to propagandize and present themselves as the true priests. That’s where “Sadducee” comes from: it’s actually Sadukee; it means Zadokite. So they played off the book of Ezekiel, even though they were not descended from Zadok, to present themselves as the true priesthood. But they didn’t do that with the temple itself, the temple building, which again strongly implies they were not taking it to refer to a literal building.

And the place where we’ve probably heard it, the place where part of Ezekiel’s vision is read most often in the Orthodox Church, is on feasts of the Theotokos. At vespers for the Dormition of the Theotokos, at vespers for the Nativity of the Theotokos, and, frankly, all of the other feasts of the Theotokos, part of Ezekiel’s description of the temple is one of the three Old Testament readings, and it’s specifically the part that refers to the gate of the temple that faces east, because that gate that faces east, its door is shut, yet that is the gate through which the prince enters into the temple, and that it remains shut: no one else can enter or leave. That’s because the Church has interpreted this vision of Ezekiel’s temple to refer to Christ himself. So the gate through which specifically Christ’s body—  And this is language that St. John uses in his gospel. When Christ says, “Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days,” and everybody kind of scoffs at him, St. John helpfully gives us a little parenthetical note, where he says, “He was speaking of the temple which is his body,” just in case you didn’t get it. So this is how St. John was already thinking about it. The place where Christ enters into our human nature is the Theotokos. That’s why she was connected symbolically to this east-facing gate.

So I go through all that to say: at the beginning of that vision, Ezekiel is given a reed like a measuring rod, and told to measure the temple. That’s where he gets the dimensions. So now St. John, in this vision, has been told to do the same thing. What we’re reading now is going to tell us—we’re going to see here how the book of Revelation and how St. John interprets that vision. Spoilers: it’s not going to be about a literal building.

So he’s told to “rise, measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there.” So the interior. Verse two: “But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles, and they will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months.” Unlike Ezekiel, who measures the whole thing, St. John is only told to measure the temple proper, and leave out the outer courts, because the outer courts are controlled by outsiders.

Notice the use of the word… We’ve said before the problem with the translation “Gentile” is that we think of it in ethnic terms, and that’s not actually what the word is. The word there in Greek is “the nations.” All the way back in Genesis 10, it lays out the 70 nations, and then there’s Israel and there’s the nations. So this is saying it’s been given to the nations, not to people of a certain ethnicity, but to people who are outside of God’s people.

Now, the 42 months—42 is six sevens. This is a common sort of numerological pattern in the New Testament. Remember in St. Matthew’s gospel he kind of rearranges the genealogy of Jesus. He leaves out a few generations, if you compare it to the Old Testament genealogies—because he wants to have 14 generations, then 14 generations, then 14 generations, which is— 14, 14, 14, that’s 42: six sevens. And so that means that when Christ is born, he starts sort of the seventh seven. Seven, as we said when we were talking about the lampstands, the seven lampstands earlier on in Revelation—seven represents completion, like the whole thing. If we have six sevens, that’s a way of saying: This is all leading up to something. This is leading up to something that’s about to happen. We’re building to something. That emphasizes not just that it’s for a limited time. I mean, the fact that it’s for a limited time means that something’s going to happen after that time ends, but this is the idea that it’s leading up to something that’s going to sort of bring the whole thing to completion.

I’ll continue. Why does he only measure the inner part, unlike Ezekiel? If we say that in keeping with what St. John says in his gospel, that Ezekiel is talking about Christ and that the temple in particular is Christ’s body, then this temple also would be Christ’s body. But what is Christ’s body in the world now?

C1: The Church.

Fr. Joseph: Right. When we get into chapter 12, this will be even clearer. Right now, Christ’s body in the world, the way in which Christ is working in the world, the place where Christ is found in the world, is in his body, the Church. So if the temple here is Christ’s body, the Church, then we have part of Christ’s body, which is sort of worshiping him in truth, sort of unbothered, untroubled, and then we have part of Christ’s body which is being trampled underfoot by the nations. So Christ’s body, the Church, is not sort of defeated; they’re not in exile. It’s not like either Israel or Judah in the Old Testament. But they’re sort of ringed by enemies and oppressed and harried.

So when St. John uses this imagery to people who— Remember, he’s in exile himself, on Patmos. Christians are experiencing persecution from the Romans, the Roman authorities. He’s at once acknowledging: Yes, we’re suffering. Yes, it looks like they have the upper hand. It looks like they’re in control. But at the same time, the body of Christ, the temple of God remains unconquered, number one, and then, number two, the fact that we’re currently suffering this oppression, this persecution, this is not just temporary, but is leading to something. Why is that important? Well, it’s one thing to tell somebody that their suffering is temporary, and it’s another thing to tell somebody that their suffering is meaningful, that it has a purpose, that it’s leading to something greater; it’s doing something that’s ultimately going to be positive, even though it’s negative now. This is leading somewhere. And so now, as we move on, St. John is going to be pushing toward: Where is this leading and what is the purpose? That’s what we need to have in mind.

In verse three: “I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” Okay, so these two witnesses are not going to be named for us here in the book of Revelation. There’s an assumption that would have been made by most of the original readers, and at the same time that that’s true, I also think there’s a reason why St. John doesn’t name them the way a lot of the original readers would have been expecting. Let me be more specific. If you read a lot of Jewish literature from this time period, other apocalyptic literature that’s not in the Scripture, you find piles and piles of traditions and different versions of this tradition that the two people in the Old Testament who didn’t die, those being Enoch and the Prophet Elijah—Enoch is in the genealogy of Seth, the seventh one: he walks with God and is no more; and of course St. Elias, the Prophet Elijah, gets taken up to heaven in a chariot. So there are all these traditions that the two of them are at some point in the future going to come back; they’re going to come back.

We see this in the gospels a little bit, when Christ says, “Who do people say that I am?” and one of the first answers that you get is Elijah. Or “Are you the Elijah who was to come? Is St. John the Elijah who was to come?” [Laughter] They’re drawing on those. That’s why they’re asking those questions. They have that in their head, that this is something that’s going to happen. And so the natural assumption from a lot of the original readers when they say, “Oh, these two witnesses are going to show up”: that must be Enoch and Elijah. That must be who it is.

That said, while St. John is sort of courting that assumption, he also doesn’t give those names. He also doesn’t say this is who they are. I think he’s deliberately bringing those to bear, but also again not wanting to posit this sort of literally, as in those two historical people are going to reappear upon earth. Yes, sir.

C2: So he’s saying this in the same way Jesus was talking about John the Baptist being Elijah?

Fr. Joseph: Right.

C2: Now, how are we supposed to understand that? Because clearly it’s not reincarnation.

Fr. Joseph: In the case of St. John?

C2: Yes.

Fr. Joseph: Yeah. So in the case of St. John, because at another point, St. John denies being Elijah, and in another place Christ says he is—so it’s not reincarnation, because he’s not literally, because we read about, in another point in St. John’s gospel, his birth, so he’s not literally Elijah come down from heaven. But what we read is that he comes in the spirit and power of Elijah.

I think the key to what’s going on there lies in some of the other traditions surrounding St. John the Forerunner and his life. There’s actually a lot about St. John the Forerunner in Orthodox tradition. It’s not as well known as, for example, the Christian tradition surrounding the Theotokos. But one of the really important ones—and if you look at any Renaissance art, you’ll see how important it used to be, at least—is that after his father was murdered, St. John fled into the desert, and there’s a thousand depictions of St. John and his mother, sometimes just St. John and the angels in the desert. And then he was essentially raised by, after his mother died, raised by angels in the wilderness.

C3: Why was his father murdered? I forget this

Fr. Joseph: This is… His father, Zachariah, was killed when Herod sent his men out to kill the children, and that’s why St. Zacharias was murdered. The idea here is that, sort of like Elisha— Remember the story of Elisha and his servant, Gehazi, in the Old Testament, where they’re surrounded, and Gehazi is super scared? He’s like: “We’re in a bad spot now!” And Elisha prays and Gehazi’s eyes are opened and he sees all the angels. Sort of the implication there is that Elisha saw that all the time as the prophet. That was just the world he lived in. [Laughter] That’s how we’re presented with St. John the Forerunner. That, yeah, he’s out there in the desert, eating locusts and wild honey and wearing camel hair, but that he was raised from childhood by these angelic beings. These are the people he knows. These are sort of his peer group as he grows up. [Laughter]

I would suggest that that includes St. Elias, the Prophet Elijah, and that the “spirit and power” language is sort of talking about him as his heavenly patron, whom he clearly modeled himself after. He shows up dressed. You look at the description of his clothes: he’s dressed like him. This is the sort of person he’s patterned himself after.

C1: He’s imaging him.

Fr. Joseph: Yeah. And there’s even this kind of interesting reference in St. John’s gospel where… In St. John’s gospel, when he identifies Christ as the Christ, as the Messiah, he says, “The one who sent me to baptize told me that the person whom you see the Holy Spirit descend and remain upon, that’s the one.” And it doesn’t say who it was. It just said someone sent him to go baptize, so it’s interesting to think if that might have been the Prophet Elijah, if that might have been an angel. It could, of course, have been God directly, but if it was God directly, it probably would have been Christ, which would have been interesting. So I think that’s what’s going on with…

C1: [Inaudible]

Fr. Joseph: Well, with the connection between Elijah and St. John the Forerunner. But we’re going to see a little more as this plays out. So as it plays out, I’ll get more into that. But for now I think St. John is deliberately sort of invoking those traditions, but not endorsing them. He’s getting that into people’s heads without saying, “Yes, that’s true! That’s it! That’s what’s going to happen.”

1,260 days. [Laughter] It’s a figure that you find in the book of Daniel a lot. That’s three-and-a-half years, on their calendar, on the Jewish calendar. So that’s half of seven. We have 42 months setting up for the seventh seven, so we have the first half of the seventh seven; then we’re going to have the second half of the seventh seven. So that’s sort of divided into two pieces. The first piece of what this is leading up to is these two witnesses coming and prophesying. Notice they’re prophesying clothed in sackcloth, which means they’re preaching repentance. They’re not out there saying everything’s great; they’re calling people to repentance.

C1: In the ancient world, what exactly does the word “sackcloth” refer to?

Fr. Joseph: Well, it’s literally the kind of cloth they didn’t use for clothing, that they used for making sacks to haul around grain. So it’s rough, cheap…

C1: That’s what it would be today.

Fr. Joseph: Right. It’s an accurate translation, but it’s talking about low-quality, rough burlap kind of thing. The idea is you’re making yourself uncomfortable, supremely uncomfortable, and it’s also humble, because it’s not showy looking. It’s an image of repentance.

But so now notice the two witnesses are not prophesying inside the temple; they’re outside the temple, because that’s where the six sevens were, was out here. So these two witnesses were here prophesying repentance to the nations who are doing the oppressing and the trampling.