Twice over, this feature is inscribed on the record of the Revelation. Near the end of the great controversy the Lord calls forth a people to lift up again the standard of His holy law, which the great falling away had "thought" to change (Daniel 7:25).

Satan's Warfare Against the Movement

The vision on Patmos further pictures the wrath of Satan against this movement to call men and women back to loyalty to God's commandments. In the twelfth chapter of Revelation, the church through all the ages is symbolized by the woman clothed with the sun, against whom Satan has fought, first through pagan Rome in the first centuries, then through papal Rome during all the long prophetic period of the 1260 years, reaching to "the time of the end." And now, as the last, of "remnant," church bears the special closing message of the gospel, the enemy of truth is moved to special opposition: "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 12:17). In Revelation 19 the angel specifically defines this term--"The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (verse 10).

Here is another distinguishing feature. The remnant church, the people of the prophecy, were to keep the commandments, as did the New Testament church, and they were to have the gift of prophecy, one of those gifts bestowed upon the New Testament church.

The Spirit of prophecy is the gift by which the prophets spoke in old time. "The prophets," says Peter, "enquired and searched diligently" to know "what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow (1 Peter 1:10, 11).

The Spirit of Christ "testified" through the prophets. It was the "testimony of Jesus" through the prophets to the church of old. It is the "spirit of prophecy" which Christ gave as a gift to the New Testament church--"some, apostles; and some, prophets." And here it is set forth in the vision of Revelation 12 as a gift restored to the remnant church. This last-day church was to be brought out, organized, and led of God into a special worldwide work.

When God led His church forth anciently in that special movement from Egypt to Canaan, He placed the gift of prophecy in the movement. It was one agency through which the movement was organized, instructed, and guided in the way. "By a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved" (Hosea 12:13).

It has ever been God's way. But here we may note that this very movement of old is set forth as a type of the final gospel movement: "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples ["types," margin]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" (1 Corinthians 10:11).

In that first movement the Lord put the gift of prophecy in His "church in the wilderness." In the fullness of prophetic time the last movement was to come. The Lord was to "set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people ... from the four corners of the earth" (Isaiah 11:11, 12). And as this final movement should rise, the Lord again was to give to His church the gift of prophecy.

Opponents of any idea of the reappearance of that gift have urged that the word "prophesy" sometimes meant a mere bearing witness, as of testifying for Christ before men. But there is no place here for that interpretation. The prophecy is speaking here of two distinguishing marks of the last church. It "keeps" something, and it "has," or possesses, something. It keeps "the commandments of God," and it has "the testimony of Jesus." The latter is not something the church does, in addition to keeping the commandments; it is something it "has" in its possession. It was to have in it the gift of prophecy. It is a possession to have and to hold. When John was about to fall at the feet of the angel, in his visions, to show reverence, the angel restrained him, saying, "See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10, R.V.).

Again, a second time, the angel defined the term, as though to meet the attacks which were to be made upon this gift in the remnant church of the prophecy. Note the repetition of the caution restraining John's impulse to do the angel reverence: "See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 19:10, R.V.). "See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren the prophets" (chapter 22:9, R.V.). "The testimony of Jesus," as the term is used specifically here, "is the spirit of prophecy," and this is the Spirit that moved in john's brethren, "the prophets."

The picture of the whole prophecy is clear. In the last days, as the closing judgment work began in heaven above, a special movement was to arise on earth, through which the great threefold message of Revelation 14 was to be borne to every nation, and tongue, and people.

The Two Distinguishing Features Go Together

Two special features, we have seen, were to distinguish this "remnant" church of the movement. Like the New Testament church, they were to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus," and also, like the New Testament church, they were to have among them "the spirit of prophecy."

It is fitting that to the church to whom is committed anew the work of lifting up the downtrodden law of God, there should also come the restoration of the prophetic gift. The holy law and the gift of prophecy are associated in the Scriptures: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" (Proverbs 29:18). "The law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord" (Lamentations 2:9).

In the great "falling away" after the apostolic days, the law of God and the truth of God were trampled underfoot. With the restoration of the full message of the commandments of God the prophecy associates the restoration of the prophetic vision.

The pioneers of the Adventist Church well set forth this restoration of the gift in the introduction to the second part of Early Writings, one of the earliest volumes of the Advent Movement:

"The gift of prophecy was manifested in the church during the Jewish dispensation. If it disappeared for a few centuries, on account of the corrupt state of the church toward the close of that dispensation, it reappeared at its close to usher in the Messiah. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, 'was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied.' Simeon, a just and devout man who was 'waiting for the consolation of Israel,' came by the Spirit into the temple, and prophesied of Jesus as 'a light to tighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel'; and Anna, a prophetess, 'spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.' And there was no greater prophet than John the Baptist, who was chosen of God to introduce to Israel 'the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'

"The Christian age commenced with the outpouring of the Spirit, and a great variety of spiritual gifts was manifested among the believers. . . . Since the great apostasy, these gifts have rarely been manifested; and this is probably the reason why professed Christians generally believe that they were limited to the period of the primitive church. But is it not on account of the errors and unbelief of the church that the gifts have ceased? ... And since a special work of the Spirit was necessary to prepare a people for the first advent of Christ, how much more so for the second. . . . The apostles' commission belonged to the Christian age, and embraced the whole of it. Consequently the gifts were lost only through apostasy, and will be revived with the revival of primitive faith and practice."--Pages 133-135.

And with the reviving of the primitive faith--"the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus"--the revival of the gift of prophecy appeared, as foretold in the visions of John on the Isle of Patmos.

In olden time the prophet on Patmos wrote of the glory of the second coming of the Lord, as he had seen it in vision. He told about the New Jerusalem. "I John saw the holy city," he wrote. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth." He saw the worldwide gospel movement rise, as the hour of God's judgment came. He saw the people come in 1844, keeping God's commandments. With the rise of the movement he saw the gift of prophecy restored in the remnant church. The aged apostle and prophet wrote it on the page, and laid down the pen of the revelation.

Nineteen centuries later, in 1844, a youthful agent took up the pen of prophecy, and began to write to tell of visions of the glories of Christ's coming and of the New Jerusalem and the heavenly land--the same themes that the prophet on Patmos had written of, but now presented as glories soon to be revealed.

There had been no failure in the prophecies of the Revelation. The time had come, the people of the prophecy appeared, and they had the gift which had been foretold.