In 1 John 5, verse 10, the Apostle
John wrote, he that believes on the Son of God has the testimony
in himself. The gospel is a testimony, a
record of historical realities. Paul described the gospel as
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and was buried
and rose again according to the scriptures. Furthermore, the
gospel is made up of historical realities personally witnessed. The apostles were sent out with
a testimony they had personally witnessed. John said, that which
we have seen and heard we declare to you. The gospel is not merely
some elegant theological system. Something happened about 2,000
years ago. Someone did something, and that
person and the work he did constitute the gospel. This is why the gospel
is transmitted by preaching, that is, by speaking intelligible
words. We are not trying to cause men
to feel things. We desire to cause men to know
things, to know the truth. Christ said, you shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free. The gospel is made
up of objective facts and virtually anyone can know those facts.
The gospel is not some ethereal, mystical truth. It is a very
simple truth which can be expressed in simple terms. In fact, one
of the great offenses of the gospel as it spread to the Gentile
world was that it did not have a lofty tone to it. It did not
sound like the message of the philosophers of the day with
lofty words and intricate phrases. It was plain. almost to the point
of being crude. When the Bible says that the
natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God,
it is not saying that the gospel is too difficult for men to believe. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
It is so plain and simple that the natural man refuses to believe
it. He cannot imagine that something
of such great importance could be so easily described. A natural
man can understand the system of the gospel, but he cannot
receive it as truth. Now, this testimony has been
recorded for us in the Scriptures. What a blessed day we live in
that we have access to the Scriptures. It's not always been so. In fact,
a common man's ability to possess a copy of the Holy Scriptures
is a relatively recent thing in history. For at least the
first 2,500 years of human history, there were no scriptures, only
the spoken words of men like Enoch and Noah. Then, for the
next 1,500 years, God inspired chosen men to write down his
truth. But it would be another 1,400
years before technology advanced enough that mass quantities of
the scriptures could be produced. And it would be several hundred
years more before copies of the Bible could be produced cheaply
enough so that the common man could get his own copy. But you
and I live in a day when it can be had for free. Virtually anyone
in the world who wants a Bible can get one. Now, these scriptures
are able to make a person wise into salvation. If you want to
know how a sinner can be saved, get a Bible. There is no other
book with that information. Get a Bible and read it, asking
God to open your mind to understand it and to open your heart to
believe it. But John tells us that this testimony
is also recorded in the heart of every believer. This is the
work of the Holy Spirit, to take the external testimony of the
Scriptures and make it an internal testimony in the heart of God's
elect. Faith is not what puts this testimony
in us. God's Spirit puts this testimony
in His people. Faith is merely the proof that
the testimony has been put in the heart. To the believer, the
gospel is not just a religious program in which he participates.
It's part and parcel of who he is, those whose religion is external
to them, merely a form of worship they practice. Well, they can
easily change their religion to suit the changing fashions
of the world or their own variable desires. But the one who has
God's testimony within him cannot and does not exchange it for
something else. In chapter 2, verse 19 of this
book, John wrote of preachers who left the gospel and they
left it in order to preach something else. He says of such people
that their departure proved they never were truly part of the
church. And what is true of preachers who change what they preach is
also true of hearers who change what they believe. they were
never truly believers. A man in whom God has planted
his testimony is simply incapable of trading that testimony for
something else. Now, what is this testimony within
every believer? In verse 9 of 1 John 5, John
says that it is the testimony of God. Now it's unfortunate
that denominations have arisen over the years. I suppose it
is unavoidable as people feel compelled to withdraw from this
or that church for reasons of conscience. But such divisions
lay a trap for us, for it is easy for us to hold allegiance
to our denomination rather than to our God. Denominations change. God does not. Every denomination's
message changes with time. But God's message never changes. When we formed Grace Community
Church in 1987, we purposely left off any denominational identifier
in our name. But if anyone with some knowledge
of the various denominations were to attend our services,
they would likely identify us as Baptists. But I assure you,
I have never opened a book of Baptist theology to find out
what I'm supposed to believe. The religion of my youth was
lacking in many things, but in this it was absolutely correct
and a great blessing and benefit to me. My childhood religion
taught me that the Bible was the only reliable and authoritative
book of God's truth. The Bible is the inspired testimony
of God, and I must bow to it, and nothing else. I am bound
to the Scriptures. I say I'm bound to the Scriptures.
In truth, I am bound to God's testimony. But the only reliable
record of that testimony is the Scriptures. So in that sense,
I am bound to them. God being gracious, I will never
preach from any source but the Scriptures, nor will I willingly
listen to any message not founded upon the Scriptures. The testimony
we need is the testimony of God, and that testimony is found in
the Scriptures. Give me nothing else. Furthermore,
it is the testimony of God concerning His Son. The entirety of God's
testimony is the truth of His Son. We have said that the Bible
is the only reliable record of God's testimony. But this does
not mean that men do not misuse the scriptures in order to preach
from the Bible, yet preach a message that is not God's testimony.
no matter how biblical a message may seem. If it is not a testimony
concerning God's Son, it is not God's testimony. It was this
very point that Christ made to the religious leaders of His
day. They were diligent students of the Scriptures, but they utterly
failed to grasp the meaning of the Scriptures, for they failed
to see Christ in the Scriptures. They failed to see that the Scriptures
are the testimony of God concerning His Son. And they proved their
failure by their unwillingness to come to Christ for life. So
this testimony of God, which is within every believer, is
God's testimony concerning Jesus Christ, His Son, the testimony
of who He is and what He has done. This testimony is within
every believer. No one believes unless this testimony
is in them. In John's Gospel, chapter 5,
verses 37 and 38, the Lord is quoted as saying to the religious
leaders, The Lord was not saying that God's Word did not dwell
in them because of their unbelief. Rather, their unbelief was the
proof that the Word was not in them. By a miracle of grace,
God puts His Word, His testimony, in every one of His elect. Therefore,
they believe that testimony. The Word of God is a living thing
that has made its home in the heart of all who believe. Because
the testimony of God is within every believer, it enlivens them
and emboldens them. God's testimony is a living word,
and it gives life to those in whom it resides. It is a plain
and bold word, so it makes believers bold in Christ. I find it remarkable
to see how bold the shyest believer becomes in the face of opposition
to the gospel. People who had never so much
as raised their hand to ask a question become bold to defend the truth
in the presence of God's enemies. Men and women who are timid about
everything else have been made bold and courageous even unto
death over this testimony of God concerning His Son. And the
only explanation is that the testimony was in them and could
not be denied. This testimony is simple. We
might think that any testimony given by the all-knowing God
would be beyond our understanding. It's certainly true that parts
of this gospel, this testimony of God, are mysterious. That
is, they are beyond our ability to grasp how they could be. But
none of it is beyond the power of the weakest intellect to know.
I may not understand how Jesus of Nazareth can be God and man
at the same time, but I can easily understand that He is indeed
God and man at the same time. So what is God's testimony? John
is plain to tell us. In verses 11 and 12, John writes,
this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son
of God does not have life. See? There's nothing difficult
in that testimony. The experience of salvation is
the receiving of a new life. When Adam sinned, all men sinned
in him, so all men died in him. Salvation is not the improvement
of the life we now have. It is the impartation of a life
we do not naturally have. Jesus said, I have come that
they might have life, and have it to the full. So it is obvious
that we do not naturally have the life he came to give. Else,
he would not have had to come in order to give it to us. This
life is the gift of God. The wages of sin is death, wrote
Paul, but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord
Jesus Christ. We are dead in sin. Now there's
no way for a dead person to generate his own life or do anything to
earn a new life. He is dead and the dead can do
nothing. But God gives life. He does not
merely offer life to people. To offer a dead person something
is useless. A dead person does not even have
the power to know he is dead, much less does he have the power
to accept the gift of life. So God gives life, He imparts
life through the work called the new birth. And the life He
imparts, He preserves. And this life-giving work, once
begun, will be brought to perfection until the day of Christ, when
the God who has imparted new life to the spirits of His people
will also raise their dead bodies, giving them that same eternal
life. This life is in God's Son. It can be found nowhere else.
It is not in the church, nor is this life in any of the officers
or ministers of the church. It can be found nowhere other
than in Jesus Christ. The idea that the many religions
of this world are simply different paths to the same place is simply
wrong. All religions but one may be
different roads to the same place, and that place is hell. But Christ
is the singular way to the Father. He said so himself. Christ is
the one source of eternal life. All that God has for sinners
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the conclusion is quite simple.
The one who has the Son of God has life. The one who does not
have the Son of God does not have life. A person may have
many good things, things like a moral life, membership in a
good church, and so forth. But if he does not have the Son
of God, he does not have life. Moreover, a person may lack many
things. His life may not have the level
of morality we would expect from a child of God. He may not be
as active in a church as we think he should be, and so forth. But
if he has the Son of God, he has that life which is the gift
of God. How can we know if we have the
Son? In verse 13, John wrote, I write these things to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that
you have eternal life. Faith is the proof that we have
the Son. If we believe the Son, we have
the Son. If we have the Son, we have eternal
life. And that is the testimony of
God. And that is the testimony that
resides in every believer.