“Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified.”
- Revelation 11:7-8 -

These figures (two witnesses) seem to represent the church called to a prophetic witness in a hostile world, and they are therefore liable to experience suffering and martyrdom in ways that mirror the crucifixion, humiliation, and ultimate triumph of their Lord. As Pablo Richard puts it, verses 7–13 reveal, ‘the Passover of the prophetic community: its passion, death, resurrection, and ascension’.

It is, however, that costly witness which will eventually overcome the world. A few verses later we read of people who ‘gave glory to the God of heaven’ (v 13) and this triggers the joyful announcement that the kingdom of this world ‘has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah’ (v 15). The message of Revelation is that the people from all nations who rejected the witnesses and gloated over their unburied bodies will come to recognize the truth of their testimony and transfer their allegiance from the beast to the Lord God Almighty. Thus, this chapter contains a clear indication of ‘the way in which the church’s witness secures the repentance and faith of the nations’ (Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 1993, p84).

Prayer: Father God, I want to be a signpost for you, pointing those around me to you as Savior and Lord. Strengthen and empower my witness.

(A summary from Encounter with God)