THE TESTIMONY
Andrew Martin
John 5: 19, 30, 36; 12: 49-50; 16: 7-15
The impression I have to speak about in this occasion, beloved brethren, is the testimony. It is a word we often use: it is a word you do not often hear amongst men in the context in which we use it, the testimony. The testimony for the believer is the light of God revealed and how it is revealed and where it is revealed. I suppose most of us have heard the statement of one great servant of the Lord Jesus who said ‘the testimony is Christ’ (FER vol 18 p90): the testimony is Christ.
God had His testimonies before that; there were many individuals in the Old Testament who bore testimony to God and His requirements from man. I suppose Abel is one. There is a testimony from Abel that he has died: that testimony stands, a righteous man who through faith offered a sacrifice to God that involved the shedding of blood, Gen 3: 4. What an expression of his faith that was; and there are others. There was a testimony from the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who lived in a land that was not theirs. They were strangers and sojourners: they lived in the light of a promise, a promise that was yet to come. These testimonies are gathered up. That is something which would be true of a believer today. He is a stranger and a sojourner here: he belongs to another world, another blessed world, like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Of course, they could see the land, and I suppose they tasted of the fruit of the land and that is what we do, do we not? We taste of the fruit:
But, my soul, hast thou not tasted
Of that Tree of Life on high?
As through desert lands thou’st hasted
(The Tree of Life - J N Darby).
That was written by one who fed upon those fruits: he was nourished by them but he was still here as a stranger and a sojourner in the land. I suppose, as to tasting those fruits, it is like what somebody spoke of, being like a son away from home but still enjoying something of home comforts, JBS vol 11 p169. That is what the fruit of the land is, home comforts. We get them, do we not, we get them regularly in our gatherings, especially Lord’s day morning? Did you receive some of these home comforts on Lord’s day morning? Something of the portion that belongs to you that you have in Christ in His own realm where He is ascended up on high? They are the home comforts for the believer, greater comforts by far than what we might surround ourselves with down here, comforts of another world, beloved; and if we enjoy such comforts there is a testimony goes out that we do not belong here but our resources are elsewhere.
Then there were those who passed through the wilderness. They had their own testimony, did they not? They were heading for another land, and in Joshua and Caleb and those following it was a question of taking possession of the land. How do you take possession of the land? We have every divine resource available in the Earnest of our inheritance, Eph 1: 14. What a wonderful thing, is it not, that all these things are gathered up? Israel’s history went on; there was a throne established: the place where God had set His Name in the city, the house of God. These things were established; these were the testimonies to Israel; testimonies to us too, are they not? We know the throne of God, the throne of grace; we know the temple: we have just experienced it, have we not? We know the city of the great King: yes, it is still here, it is still to be experienced. Wonderful these testimonies! All went through right from the beginning onwards.
And then came a change, a complete change, because there appeared upon the face of this earth, One who was Himself the Vessel of the testimony; He was the Vessel of the testimony. The whole testimony was embodied in one blessed holy Man here upon the earth, our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the Vessel of the testimony. It was not a question of various individuals: it was focused upon Him, who He was and how perfect He was, a testimony for God. We think of all that was seen in Him, the very expression of God Himself. One said to Him, “shew us the Father and it suffices us” (John 14: 8), and He said (how those words must have pained Him), “Am I so long a time with you, and thou hast not known me … He that has seen me has seen the Father”, v 9. They had seen the Father in Christ; there was nothing you could learn of God that was not expressed in Christ. Everything was set out in Him; He was the embodiment of every divine thought, and everything that God could possibly reveal to man was set out in that one blessed Man.
We have read about Him here and He speaks about Himself. Wonderful thing, these words that come in John’s gospel. I wonder about that sometimes. John gives us the greatness, the glory of the Man. If you want to see the Vessel of the testimony in activity you go to Mark’s gospel. Mark’s gospel presents the Vessel of the testimony: “Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God” (chap 1: 1), and He goes straight into the testimony, the Lord Jesus, there operating amongst men. That is the Vessel of the testimony in Mark’s gospel, and there you get the feelings of God coming out. How many times in Mark’s gospel we find His very feelings being expressed: Hebrew words are given because such feelings cannot be translated into common language. There we find the Lord Jesus Himself as the expression of every divine thought, and every divine feeling was expressed in Him there, and it all comes out and we see it in that gospel.
But in his gospel John presents the greatness of the Person. The glory of the Son of God shines out in his gospel, and in chapter 5 the Lord actually speaks about His power, the glory which is His. But first He says, “The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever He sees the Father doing”: whatever He sees the Father doing. His actions were just what the Father would have done had He been here upon earth in corporeal form. He relied entirely upon God and, whatever the action of the Lord Jesus, it was an expression of God Himself. You think of the actions of the Lord Jesus when He healed the sick, He raised the dead, He gave sight to the blind - and nobody had ever done that before. He touched the leper, Matt 8: 3. You think of Him reaching out; that man had never been touched like that before. I love to think of that scene; that leper was there, and men would have avoided him. They would have crossed the road because he was unclean, just to pass him by; they would not draw near him; they would have turned away. I often think that mothers would have told their children, ‘Come this way’ because there was a leper there. The Lord Jesus came: the prophet says, He was “like one from whom men hide their faces”, Isa 53: 3. The leper literally was that: the leper in his need was one from whom men hid their faces. The Lord Jesus in His grace took that place, He went as low as that, in order to express the heart of God in His actions, and He reached out and He touched that leper. God would not have a man to be unclean, to be eaten up by a disease which speaks so much of sin. God would not have a man like that: it is as if He said, ‘I want you to be functioning; I want you to take your place’. The leper acknowledged his need. The Lord Jesus, in wonderful grace went down to his level even, and restored the man.
What a blessed thing: think of His actions, “The Son can do nothing … save whatever he sees the Father doing”. Think of the Name of the Father, a wonderful Name; it is God in grace. The Father is always connected with that, and the Lord Jesus says, “The Son can do nothing … save whatever he sees the Father doing”. And then He goes on “for whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner.” Think of the importance of those words, “in like manner”. It is not only what He did, but the way He did it: perfect in every respect as representing the Father, the way He did things as important as what He did. Never was a day spent when somebody could have said, ‘Well, the Lord could have done that better’, never. He was perfect. I was impressed a little while ago with the word of Abraham, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”, Gen 18: 25. Now, that was right: that is a matter of righteousness. When the Lord Jesus came, they went further. They said, “He does all things well”, Mark 7: 37. It is not only what He did but the way He did it: He did all things well. “Whatever He sees the Father doing: for whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner”.
When He goes on He speaks of what He hears. The first verse we read speaks of what He saw the Father doing, now it is a question of what He hears. “I cannot do anything of myself; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my will”. There was no self-interest in the Lord Jesus. Men speak of having a hidden agenda - nothing like that was seen in Him: no self-interest, no secret motives which would have conduced to His own benefit - never! His will was entirely subjected to the will of His Father: a precious thing to take account of that. He had a will. You could not say He did not have a will; He had a will. If He had exercised that will, it would have been perfectly in keeping with the will of His Father, but He did not. He did not exercise it because for man there is only one will to govern Him and that is the will of God; approaching the cross He recoiled from what God’s will required, and what does He say then? He says, “not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22: 42): “Thy will, not mine”. It was absolutely right that He should recoil from what was before Him. He said, “My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me”, Matt 26: 39. He did not say, ‘Father, let me turn aside from this cup’. No, He was bound to the Father’s will. He said, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me”, but immediately, without any hesitation He says, “but not as I will, but as thou wilt”. Oh the perfection we see in the Lord Jesus, the great expression there of a Man who was wholly subject to the will of God; and He was going forward, going forward from that point in power. He accepted what was before Him from the Father. He did not accept it from anyone else. Satan had come to deflect Him from that pathway, had he not? Somebody said, Satan offered Him a choice in the garden. There was all the riches and kingdoms and wealth of the world on one hand or there was death and judgment on the other. Which would He choose? As that wonderful hymn says,
Thou chosest still, blest Saviour, to obey.
(Hymn 318)
He went forward; Satan was powerless. All that took place after that was not under Satan’s control. The matter certainly was not under man’s control, it was not under the control of the chief priests, it was not under the control of Judas, it was not under the control of Pilate: they were merely instruments along the way. John tells us, “Jesus … went forth”, chap 19: 5. There He went in the dignity and power that belonged to Him alone, as the ark moving towards the Jordan. Before it had even reached the banks of the Jordan, there on the flood plain, the water was over all the banks; and as the priests’ feet touched the flood water the whole river fled. It went back, right back to the city Adam; it rose up in a heap, Josh 3: 14-16. You think of the greatness of what took place - that is a figure of Jesus as He went to death. He moved forward in glorious triumph in victory into death and there, beloved, He entered a realm of the one who had held men in terror for so long. He entered into his realm and broke his power, absolutely shattered it for the believer. You think of what death is - man’s weakness – yes, it is that; God’s judgment – yes, He bore that; Satan’s power - He broke that. No wonder the believer can go into death with a sense of confidence, can he not? Even to the point of looking for it, a believer can go forward because One has gone forward in absolute power and victory, entering into the very realms of death itself, breaking the power of it for the believer forever.
In chapter 12 the Lord Jesus goes on to say, “I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what I should say and what I should speak.” We had His actions, we have what He sees the Father doing, we have what He hears from the Father; and now we have what He speaks, what He says: “I have not spoken from myself”. The Vessel of testimony: His words came from the Father. Those who rejected Him rejected God; they rejected the Father. The leaders of the day thought that they were rejecting a man; that is what they thought. They were rejecting God; they were rejecting God’s testimony here. All that was displayed in fulness in the Lord Jesus, and all His words, was what God was.
You remember how very early on in His service He went to Nazareth where He was brought up, Luke 4: 16-22. I suppose for most that would be the most testing place to preach, where they were brought up. They knew Him. Of course, for the Lord Jesus there was not the test that there might be for us, because the One they knew was perfect in every respect. He went to Nazareth where He was brought up. He opened that book, Isaiah, went through it, found the place, went through fifty nine chapters as we have them before He found that place, and they all spoke of Him, and then He said this is the scripture for today: “and all wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of His mouth”. The Father told Him what to say. “I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what I should say and what I should speak”. He says, “To-day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”, and they wondered at the words of grace that proceeded out of His mouth. The psalmist says, “Loving-kindness and truth are met together”, Ps 85: 10. The words of grace, they loved them.
Then followed the words of truth. He said unto them “Ye will surely say … Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4: 23), “there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian”, v 27. What He was saying was that they could not come into blessing because of their background – and nor can you. This is the truth; it is no good just marvelling at the words of grace: you have to come to the truth. The truth is in Jesus. “They were all filled with rage” (v 28) … “and led him up to the brow of the mountain”, and would have cast Him over the precipice, but He passed through their midst. Grace and truth have met together. He spoke what the Father had given Him to speak and it was evident right then at the beginning of His public service that the words that He spoke would not be accepted by men; but not only would the words be rejected, but He Himself would be rejected. But He went on, the Vessel of the testimony. Anyone who wanted to know who God is had just to come to Jesus and they would see God manifested in flesh. There He was, a full expression of God Himself.
But Jesus died, He went to the cross, He accomplished the great work of redemption and He was buried and then He rose again; the Vessel of the testimony has been taken away from the earth. What happened? Was there to be no testimony now to God? Could God allow His testimony to be extinguished from this earth? Was it a moral possibility that what had been expressed in the Lord Jesus should then cease from the earth altogether, and man have his way and silence the testimony of God? Could that even be possible? Could anyone countenance it? We know it cannot be possible. Your heart recoils from the thought of it, does it not?
And so, before He went the Lord Jesus spoke to His own and prepared them for the time in which He would be gone, and He said there is going to be another One, another Comforter. If you read these chapters attentively you will notice that the Lord Jesus speaks about the Comforter as being sent by the Father, and He speaks about Him as being sent by the Lord Jesus Himself. When He refers to the Father sending Him, it is for the consolation and the encouragement and strengthening of the saints who are here. What a fatherly touch that is; and the Lord, in His care for His own, knew the comfort and strength that they would need when they were here, and so He begged the Father to send them a Comforter, John 14: 16. The Comforter came from the Father in order to sustain the saints down here. But then He speaks about sending the Comforter Himself, and when He speaks about sending the Comforter Himself, He is speaking about sending the Holy Spirit here in testimony, so that the saints should not only be sustained here in their weakness and in their difficulties and sorrows and griefs, but also find the very One who sustains us here is the One who is power for the testimony here.
Is the testimony here in a few scattered individuals? Look at it in the beginning of Acts: there was the vessel of the testimony. There was no preaching in Acts 1. Those disciples met together and they met with the Lord Jesus until He was taken up, and then for ten days, “These gave themselves all with one accord to continual prayer”, v 14. There they were one hundred and twenty of them sustained in that continual prayer. That was private; that did not go out: but when the day of Pentecost came a great change came. “And there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire”, parted because it sat upon each one of them, but it came from one source; and it sat upon each one of them and a testimony went out straight away. There was no delay; the Holy Spirit had come. There was going to be a testimony for as long as the Holy Spirit is here. How long will the Holy Spirit remain here? The Lord Jesus said, “that he may be with you for ever” (John 14: 16) - ever! He will be with us beyond the time when a testimony is needed; the Holy Spirit will still be with us. The hymn speaks to the Holy Spirit and it speaks about that time when we are caught up –
As, rising, changed, and still with Thee,
We reach our home. (Hymn 182)
He will be with us for ever! We will never be without Him, the wonderful faithfulness of a divine Person.
And you ask how He can take up His abode now? Where is He dwelling? Beloved, what was formed at Pentecost remains. There is a vessel of the testimony and there will continue to be a vessel of the testimony right till the end. You might say, ‘I do not see it’: no, the enemy has done his work. How he has; let none of us help him! He does not need any help. Let us be here as those who appreciate that there is something here upon this earth which is precious to Christ, and it is precious to Him because it is the expression of Himself. The whole assembly is the expression of Himself. Everything that delights His heart is expressive of Himself. It may be that publicly the assembly is now to be found broken up, believers found here and there, but the Holy Spirit remains; and the question is: what does the Lord look for, what is He looking for in His testimony here? He is looking for an expression of Himself. He was looking for that which is dependent on heaven for its resource. He is looking for that which expresses Him in that way, where His word can be heard and given expression to, where His mind can be known. He is looking for that. He is looking for that which keeps itself from evil, is not contaminated with sin or iniquity, keeps itself apart from that. He is looking for that which has His judgment about all things; yes, it is not beclouded by man’s judgment. He is looking for that which has no self-interest, just as He had no self-interest. That is part of the testimony that He is looking for which is all contained in the church. He is looking for that which would move here in dignity and order just as He did Himself, where the way He did things was as important as what He did. He is looking for that in His church. That is the testimony; and you say, ‘But it is such a broken day’. Yes, but we have to find our way in it, do we not?
And the Lord ministers to His assembly. He gives light, He gave one man to see the light that he could not find salvation just by resting in the church. The testimony was not to do that. It needed faith in order to be justified. He gave him to see the light as to that. What a step forward that was in the testimony of God. He gave another man to see the light that if we have the Holy Spirit we are united to Christ, and every believer that has the Holy Spirit is united to Christ and therefore He is the Head of the body here upon the earth. What light that was! He gave light afresh as to the way in which that body is to compose itself upon the earth, that every member of the body is responsible to every other member and no one should act independently of the others. What light that was! In the same way, He gave light, did He not, as to Himself? And He gave light as to eternal life; that was what He spoke about: there was such a thing as a quality of life outside of all that is down here and is to be found among those who form part of His testimony. He gave light as to that! This developed. Then He gave light as to Himself as coming into Manhood; He came into a relationship with God here. He came into the relationship of sonship. Precious light that was! And He gave light as to the One who is here maintaining the testimony, that He is a divine Person: He is to be respected, He is to be honoured and worshipped. Precious light! These things - we may have grown up with these things, and we may just take them all for granted, may we not? These are things that many believers do not know, but they are precious things and they are to be treasured. It is the path of the testimony. You might ask how we are going to work it out because things are so broken these days; can we work it out together? Hold to the original thoughts: follow God’s original thoughts; stay with divine thoughts. Do not order your life by the breakdown. Order your life by what has come from God, and that is the only way of safety: that is the only way to be preserved here in the testimony of our Lord.
Now the apostle Paul says to Timothy, “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord”, 2 Tim 1: 8. Somebody said recently that Timothy was the kind of man who would naturally have taken a back seat in the meeting and been quiet. Paul says, “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion”, v 7. “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of me his prisoner”: what is the testimony of our Lord? Is it that I think of what I can do for Him? Because when we are newly converted we all want to do what we can for the Lord, do we not, and we might imagine all sorts of things? The testimony involves His mind, seeking His mind. That gives Him greater pleasure, the greatest pleasure, “Be not … ashamed of the testimony of our Lord”. In Timothy’s day, which was really the day in which we live, the day in which 2 Timothy was written, was a day of breakdown, but there was something there to which the name of “our Lord” could be attached. It carries authority, authority in a broken day: yes, the authority is in “our Lord”. It is maintained here by the Holy Spirit. How are we going to be helped to maintain that? It is in our links with the Holy Spirit. That is the only way - our links with divine Persons. Let us keep our links with the Holy Spirit bright, fresh, clear. We had a brother local until recently who suggested a set of readings on the nine segments of the fruit of the Spirit, one fruit, but nine segments - “love, joy, peace …”, Gal 5: 22. If we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit, we will have our part in the testimony of our Lord; and really no other way.
May the Lord bless the word.
Witney
22nd September 2018