There is the witness, and there is the testimony carried by the witness. Jesus Christ works in those of us who believe, to make us witnesses who bear true testimony to Him. It is not that we hold a truth, or many truths, but we have the truth in a living way within us. He is Life and He is Truth. We have the life of the truth. So, what we say rings true to others who hear it because the testimony matches up with our life. It resonates because we are expressing our share of His life.
The apostle Paul visited the Christians in Corinth. When he did so he was determined to know nothing among them except Christ, and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). He desired that their faith “might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” In the previous chapter he had equated the power of God with the testimony of the cross of Christ. He did not resort to conventional rhetoric, intended to convince on an intellectual or emotional level. He was there, he says, “in weakness and in fear and much trembling.” Paul did not frame his message in “plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power…” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). The witness with the crucified life carried the testimony of the cross. That life and its testimony expressed the love of God, the wisdom of God and the power of God.
What was the power of Paul’s gospel? We have an insight from Acts 13. “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:26-33).
Paul directed his message to both Jews and God-fearing Gentiles. “Those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers” were people who held the God-given truth. They did not, however, receive the testimony of Jesus. Neither were they willing to apply the Old Testament prophecies to his life. Therefore, they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
During his ministry, Jesus sent out his followers to testify about him and his Kingdom. He was training them to prepare the way for him to visit local villages. It wasn’t until his ascension that Jesus first provided his followers with the indwelling life of the truth. “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The outpouring of God’s Spirit on Pentecost gave each of them a deposit of divine life. It came from Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father, as though—so to speak—on permanent loan. That is, the gift of the life of Christ did not make its recipients divine; they nevertheless had a share of the divine life.
Paul himself became a witness, even though he began as one of those who held the truth without possessing the life of it. The Paul we see in this passage was a true servant of God. He had abandoned his own program. He fully committed himself to God’s project. And the conduct of his life supported the content of his message.
The work of transformation begins with our receiving a deposit the life of Jesus Christ. It continues as that life spreads in all directions from the center toward the circumference of our being. That work brings us to the place where we are witnesses. Others can detect in us the life of the truth. Then He teaches us what to say, so as to testify to the truth whose life we have. In this way He engages us in faithful service to the living God.
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