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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter

Chapter 11 SECTION 2:2

 

1. "The Light Shining in Darkness"

 


 
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Thus, the history of the ages and the generations of the unmeasured Court is in strict harmony with this prophecy of the witnesses. For a period considerably over a thousand years after Rome renounced its old gods for the ghosts, dry bones, and fables of the catholic superstition, the Spirit had provided himself with Two Witnessing Classes, to whose custody he providentially committed the truth, and its judicial vindication by fire and sword. This was their combined mission in all that long series of centuries. The one witness was the military arm of the other; and both in combination were the two arms of the Spirit, holding the Olive Branch in one hand, and the Flaming Sword, in the other. "These," said the Spirit-Voice to John, "are the Two Olive Trees and two Lightstands, which have stood before the god of the earth." That is, the Two Olive Trees, or Branches, and Two Golden Pipes, about which Zechariah made special inquiry, represent these two classes of anticatholic and antipapal, but not "protestant," though protesting, witnesses. They are represented by two olive trees, because, though generically one, they are distinct species of witnesses. They are both olive trees, in whom light-giving oil was generated, as already explained; but the one class of witnessing prophets is of the wild olive species; while the other is of the good, or cultivated olive.

In the eleventh chapter of Romans, Paul compares all mankind to two olive trees of the wild and cultivated species. The twelve tribes of Israel to whose country the olive is indigenous he likens to "a good olive tree," with a "holy root," representing "the fathers" Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, on whose account the whole nation is beloved. The rest of mankind he compares to "a wild olive tree," which is smaller and inferior in all its parts. Eliphaz in Job xv. 33, compares a wicked man to an olive tree whose flowers fall before their season, and consequently brings no fruit.

Such is the primary import of these two trees, symbols of Israel and the Gentiles. But, the Israelitish Olive Tree, and the Gentile Olive Tree, signified something more than this in the symbols before us. There was a specialty to be represented which had been apostolically elicited. This was the adoption of believing Gentiles into the Israelitish Family, that they might be Israelites in every particular, except the accident of birth according to nature. This adoption, Paul styles "grafting in;" and figuratively represents the process, as a breaking of branches off from the wild Gentile olive, and inserting them into the place of certain sapless branches of the good Israelitish olive, which had also been broken off, and cast away. This teaches allegorically that while the good olive tree represents the Israelitish peoples generally; there is nevertheless a Gentile element in the nation, equally interested in the promises made to their fathers, which are "the fatness of the tree." Thus, the good olive tree represents "the Israel of the Deity," constituted of Israelites and Gentiles, who believe "the promises covenanted to the fathers;" and who, since Pentecost, A.D. 34, have believed "the truth as it is in Jesus," and by immersion into him, have been adopted, or grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel, as it will be in the times of restitution.

This union of Israelites and Gentiles into One Body, or Holy City, was represented to Zechariah, by connecting the two trees by means of two golden pipes with the one golden bowl of the lightstand; the idea of branch-union being set forth in the connection of the pipes with certain branches of the trees.

In the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse, the two olive trees are not united by pipes into one lightstand, as in Zechariah. This is an important item in the premises. In the first chapter, there is only one Lightstand with seven burners; but in the text before us, we have "two lightstands" with a tree to each. Had there been but one class of witnesses, composed of faithful and obedient Israelites and Gentiles, there would, doubtless, have been only one Lightstand, indicative of their union into One Body. We should then have found it impossible to interpret "the prophecy" in harmony with the anti-war principles delivered to it. But we are relieved of this difficulty by the introduction into the vision of two separate and distinct lightstands. A wild olive branch and a lightstand are symbolical of "the Earth" -- the anticatholic and antipapal champion of civil and religious liberty, and the rights of man, standing defiantly "before the god of the earth," and the other branches of the wild olive tree. Fed by the revolutionary principles of wild olive liberalism, the earthy lightstand shone with light amid the deep and universal gloom of "the dark ages."

But, if this "lux lucens in tenebris," or light shining in darkness, had been the only light, it would have been a feeble one indeed. It would have been like the light of "peace democracy" shining in the abolition darkness of the past four years. There was another lightstand and a good olive branch. These symbolized the One Body, witnessing the truth. This lightstand shone with the light of the word, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light to my path" (Psa. cxix. 105). This was "the golden oil" of the good olive, by which the lightstand burners were fed. It was "the unction from the Holy One by which they knew all the things" they witnessed; and by which they were taught, "and is the truth" (1 John ii. 20,27). By the shining of the light from this lightstand, the gross darkness of catholic superstition and idolatry were made tormentingly manifest. The god of the earth, his cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, monks, and such like, were exhibited to the peoples of the Court, as profane mountebanks, and blasphemous impostors. The light showed them to be, what they are to this day, unrepentant hypocrites, and a generation of poisonous serpents. Multitudes were enlightened to discern this; and caused thereby to desert the temples of the god. They recruited the ranks of the witnesses, and greatly increased their power; until the issue was formed, that either these lightstands must be extinguished; or the spirituals of the wickedness of the Court would find their occupation gone.
 

 

 


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