A Futurist View Of The Two Witnesses In Revelation 11 -- By: Christine Joy Tan

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 171:684 (Oct 2014)
Article: A Futurist View Of The Two Witnesses In Revelation 11
Author: Christine Joy Tan


A Futurist View Of The Two Witnesses In Revelation 11

Christine Joy Tan

This is the fourth article in a four-part series “A Defense of a Futurist View of the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11:3-13.”

Christine Joy Tan, Bible prophecy teacher and Christian educator, serves in Asia, America, and Europe.

The first and second articles in this series critiqued three preterist views on the identity of the two witnesses in Revelation 11, and the third article critiqued idealist and historicist views. Each was found to be problematic and unsustainable. This article presents a futurist view of the two witnesses and gives evidence in defense of that position.

Futurist Approach To The Book Of Revelation

A futurist approach to Revelation views chapters 4-22 as subject to future fulfillment.1 This approach understands “eschatological passages [as] being fulfilled during a future time, primarily during the seventieth week of Daniel, at the second coming of Christ, and during the millennium.”2 Futurists “insist that the principle of plain [i.e., literal, normal] interpretation be followed consistently throughout the book,” while also acknowledging the presence of symbols and other figures of speech.3

Support for the futurist approach to Revelation is found first in Revelation 1:1. “The book as a whole is concerned with ‘the things which must shortly come to pass,’ and which are thus identified as belonging to the future as far as the seer is concerned.”4 Second, verse 19 segments the book into three chronological divisions: “the things which you have seen,” “the things which are,” and “the things which will take place after these things.”5 Third, 4:1 identifies the visions of the future as starting from that point of time.6

Historically the early church “held to a futurist, premillennial interpretation of prophecy in a primitive and non-systematized form.”7 Researching the writings of early chur...

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