I will answer this question responding to Darrin B. who replied to my recent article on the Two Witnesses not representing the resurrection.
Darrin is prewrath. There are some prewrathers who locate the ministry of the Two Witnesses during the first half and not the second half of Daniel’s seventieth week. I locate them during the second half and see them being killed at the completion of the seven year period, not the midpoint. Darrin, nevertheless, has some insightful articles that you can read from his blog here.
The post I am responding to is found in the following facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/prewrathraptureview/permalink/2896104837123435/
“Point #1- I’m not sure why Alan K. is wanting to deny a resurrection here. If someone is lying in a dead body, and the spirit of life from God enters into them, isn’t this resurrection? There is a point to be made concerning Lazarus and others who came back to life but did not receive their resurrection bodies in the same way that Jesus was raised and received His resurrection body. But it seems like such a minor point. Why not concede the point that perhaps they do have their resurrection bodies?”
i. I am not “wanting” to deny a resurrection here of the Two Witnesses. It does not matter one way or the other to me. I am concerned about the meaning of the text.
ii. “Why not concede the point that perhaps they do have their resurrection bodies?” I did. I wrote, “They themselves might be resurrected at that point.” But I don’t think the text is clear, so we don’t know. And my whole point in the first place was to explain that since posttribbers invest a lot of interpretive stock in making the event of the coming to life of the Two Witnesses representative of the resurrection of all the saints, then it is odd that the text does not focus on this reality, let alone indicate it with clarity.
iii. “If someone is lying in a dead body, and the spirit of life from God enters into them, isn’t this resurrection?” No, not necessarily. Moreover, Darrin makes my point concerning the example of Lazarus who was dead but came back to life in his mortal body. Interestingly, both Lazarus and the Two Witnesses came back to life on the fourth day (see also Matt 27:52–53, which may be another example of this).
Point #2- Correct. You cannot point to two different points near the seventh trumpet which are separate and say they both prove a seventh trumpet rapture. The ascension of the two witnesses is not at the seventh trumpet.
Point #3- Disagree. The events surrounding the death of the two witnesses makes more overall sense during the great tribulation. Look at the text. The beast arises out of the bottomless pit (at the midpoint, see Revelation 17:8) and makes war against the saints and the two witnesses simultaneously, see Revelation 11:7. The entire passage (probably beginning in Revelation 10:1) is parenthetical and must be placed elsewhere than between the sixth and seventh trumpets. Where does the parenthesis end? It could end between Revelation 11:13 and 11:14, or between 11:14 and 11:15, with severely different results.
i. Darrin misreads the Greek of Rev 11:7, which states, “When they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war on them and conquer them and kill them.” The participle phrase (to anabainon ek tēs abyssou, “the one who comes up out of the abyss”) is attributive functioning adjectivally modifying the noun “beast” (thērion). The article in to anabainon signals the attributive meaning. It is descriptive of the beast (“the one who . . .”), and thus it is not modifying the verb (“make [war]”) as if to indicate when this event takes place. Darrin then is reading a temporal reference into the text where the Greek does not have this, wrongly linking the time when the beast comes out of the abyss with the time of the death of the Two Witnesses.
ii. Incidentally, those who believe that the Two Witnesses die at the midpoint, and thereby minister during the first half, rely mostly on Rev 11:7. But as just pointed out, the Greek grammar militates against this interpretation with the attributive participle phrase modifying, not the verb, but the noun “beast” (thērion). The temporal question then must be discerned from the broader context, which I will address another day.
