I'm going to read in 1 John chapter
5 where we left off last week. I'm going to read verses 6 through
12, and then we're going to continue working through our outline. I'm going to touch a little bit
on some of the things we talked about last week, and then we
will stack that information with some further development of what
John is now discussing for us is the testimony of God, the
testimony of God. And here's what he says over
in verse 6. This is the one that came by
water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water
and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears
witness because the Spirit is true. For there are three that
bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one. And there are three that bear
witness in earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and
these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God
which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the
Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not,
God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that
God gave of his Son. And this is the record that God
has given us eternal life. And this is this life is in his
son. He that hath the son hath life
and he that hath not the son of God does not have life. And John is driving home a critical
truth. He is, as it were, closing out
an argument that he believes is airtight, at least in the
ears and minds of the believer. And that is the testimony of
God, the testimony of God. That's what we are working on
and have been working on for some time. And I'm going to build
this up a bit more tonight. And there are three categories
in your outline of which we have in first John, chapter five,
verses six and following three categories of the testimony of
God that I want to call to your mind. and your remembrance from
last week, the first of which is the heavenly testimony or
heavenly witness. When we use the word testimony,
we are using the word record or witness. Testimony is a record
or witness. Those are all synonymous terms. When you use the word witness,
you are talking about testifying. When you use the word testify,
you are building or establishing a record. So when you read, and
this is the record that God gave of his son, it's the same word
for witness. It's the same word for testify.
Why the translators decided to use them in different ways, I
don't know. I guess they just didn't want to be repetitive,
but I do want to draw this home. What God has done, when he created
the world and began his redemptive plan. And for those of you ladies
who are in biblical theology, what God has done throughout
human history is born testimony to himself through the things
that he has done. He has born testimony to himself
through the things that he has done. Now, this is a very legal
term. This is a very judicial term. But what it implies is
that God has saw fit to make the world to understand who he
is by the things that he has made and who he is by the manner
in which he has providentially worked in the universe so that
mankind is without excuse. I want you to grasp this if you
don't get a whole lot tonight. God has a testimony concerning
himself. of which at some point in human
history, when God sees fit, the whole world will be brought before
the judgment seat of Christ and have to deal with the testimony
that God has rendered to the world. God has borne record of
himself and he has borne record of himself in a particular way.
Another way that you can circumscribe the idea of the testimony of
God, if you want to draw it home a little closer, is this. The
term testimony of God can be circumscribed under the term,
the gospel, the gospel, the gospel is the testimony of God. And
as you and I were working through this language last week, and
we have worked through it before you and I are working through
the concept of witness, witness, the concept of witness. Have
you ever been in court? How many of you have been in
court before? Have you ever been in court? Do you remember the
first time that you found yourself in the courtroom as a, okay,
I didn't ask him specifically enough. Let me get a little more
specific. Have you ever been a juror in a court system? Have you been called a jury?
How many of you have you been shirking your duties for going
to a jury duty? Okay, a few of you, okay. Now,
the one thing that you would discover if you actually went
to court, is the seriousness of the nature of transgressing
the laws of the land. If you ever found yourself in
court, either on the penal side of having committed some transaction
and therefore have to face the judge and maybe a jury of your
peers, what you will discover is that in a courtroom scenario
where oaths are made and people have to swear by the Bible and
testify to what they have seen and testify either for or against
you, what you will discover in a courtroom scenario is the very
serious nature of the testimony against or for you. I remember
early on in my life, maybe about 18, I think once you become 18,
they qualify you to do it either 18 or 21. But as soon as I was
qualified, I was getting letters in the mail. We want you in the
court system, right? Well, that's the way our government
works. We are a country of representative democracy. And so a jury of your
peers are going to be people who deliberate for or against
you in the court of law. One of the things that apprehended
me when I first went through my Uh, initial court case. And it was, uh, for me, I was
a jury, a jury, uh, I had jury duty. So I was on the jury of
a murder trial. And then I was on the jury of
a, um, of a crime as high as theft. I think it was some kind
of robbery or something of that nature. And I was about 18 or
19 years old. I might've been 21, not real
sure now, but what I recall vividly was how sobering it was. to find myself before the judge
as part of the jury, having to deliberate and decide the future
of an individual who had committed a crime. I realized for the first
time in my life how serious transgression of the law was. And I think that
it would be good for every human being to find themselves in the
court systems of mankind at least once to help sober you up to
the reality that there is in the court system at least one
aspect wherein you and I were created in the image of God.
You know what that is? The office of judge. The office
of judge. That's one predicate of God.
God is the judge, is he not? God is the great judge. And I
think as sinners and as human beings who have avoided court
systems or have never found ourselves facing the potential for some
type of judgment over against our deeds, we can play this whole
issue of law and adjudication and testimony down as if it's
not significant. but the whole world operates
on the premise of a judiciary determining right and wrong,
bearing witness for or against certain persons who have committed
crimes or are seeking to relieve themselves of false accusations.
This is the context in which the world is before God. The
whole world is guilty before God, according to God's law,
and God is bearing record against the world up to this hour. He
is keeping up testimony upon testimony upon testimony against
the world and its condition before a God that the world denies exists. And so what the Bible is, is
a testimony. Much like we're learning in biblical
theology, one of the synonyms to the idea of covenant is a
testimony. Like a covenant and a testament
is a will and testimony of someone's desires and objectives and what
have you. I say all that to say that what
John is doing is telling the believer or bringing the believer
to bear upon his conscience That what it means to be a Christian
is to be part of the testimony of God. You are part of the testimony
of God. That actually raises the importance
of our calling and purpose to a level of significance that
sometimes I don't think that we are conscious of. That you
and I will be called upon to be witnesses of God, both in
this life and in the world to come. So tonight I just want
to bear upon your thoughts what John is doing to help the believer
understand both the privilege and the responsibility of being
able to say I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore
bearing record to the testimony that God has given us of his
son of which testimony God says Has the merits of eternal life
for those who believe and the merits of eternal damnation for
those who don't you and I read in mark chapter 16 Go you into
all the world preach the gospel to every creature He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall
be what? Damn, isn't that what the text
says? That's a serious proposition for a message or a testimony
to be rendered to a person whose response to that testimony will
determine whether they go to heaven or hell. And this is where
the issue of the gospel becomes very important. So we're gonna
work through our outline and I'm gonna deal with tonight,
three or four categories. I might get to the fourth one,
I'm not sure. I wanna reiterate the first one. And that is, according
to the gospel of 1 John, we have three that bear record in heaven,
verse seven. Three that bear record in heaven.
Who are they? The Father, the Word, and the
Spirit. The Father, the Word, and the
Spirit. They bear record in heaven. In
your outline, it says the original and natural sphere of God. Heaven in the Bible is the place
where God dwells. It's a term for where God dwells.
but it's also a synonym for the essence of God. When we talk
about the kingdom of heaven, we are talking about the kingdom
of God. We're talking about the realm of God. We're talking about
the domain of God. We're talking about where God
exists, right? And the word heaven is often
an antithetical phrase over against the what? Earth. So heaven and
earth, these are antitheses, aren't they? Heaven and earth.
Heaven is where God dwells. Earth is where who dwells? We
do. So there is a witness in heaven, our testimony in heaven.
And John says it's the father and the word and the spirit.
And these are what we call the what? Trinity. They are the Trinity. This is God in heaven. And then he says there are three
that bear record on the earth. Look at verse six. This is he
that came by water and blood. I'm sorry, verse eight. And there
are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit and the water,
and the blood, and these agree in one. So on the earth, as opposed
to heaven, on the earth is the water and the blood and the what? Spirit. Now, the witness in heaven
and the witness on earth are distinctly different with the
exception of one entity, and that is whom? the spirit of God. So what we know is that the spirit
of God, he possesses or he resides in both testimonies. The spirit
bears record in heaven, being eternal, being omnipresent. He
is in heaven at all times, but he is also down here on earth
bearing record to the water and the blood. And we talked about
this last week, didn't we? The distinctive nature of the
water and the distinctive nature of the blood and how that the
spirit bore record to both. In your outline, we dealt with
this last week, the earthly witness, the earthly witness, the father
in the water, do you guys see that in your outline? The son
in the blood, and then the spirit where? In both. Is that in your
outline? Okay, I'm just trying to make
sure somebody in the house tonight. Is that in your outline under,
okay, I just wanna make sure you guys see it, right? Under
the earthly witness, we have the Father in the water, the
Son in the blood, and the Spirit in both. Do we see that? Okay,
so now the reason... Did somebody say no? Okay. Oh, this is in the newer one?
Oh, the old one has it, right? The old one has it, okay, not
the new one. Okay, I'm sorry. Well, in the old one, what it
says is the Father... Well, it may be... Does yours
say that? Nobody says it Okay, good. I just want to make sure
if you I'm sorry then so you can write that if you want to
under the earthly witness And let me recap what the earthly
witness is. Remember what we meant by the
water. What do we mean by the water? baptism baptism What do
we mean by the blood? Calvary Calvary now when you
go back to the account Matthew's chapter 3 John chapter 19 Luke
chapter 23, Mark 15. When you go back to the account,
what you come to understand is God is bearing record of both
the baptism of Jesus Christ and his suffering on Calvary street.
In Matthew chapter three, the heavens opened up and the father
spoke, didn't he? The father said, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. Here you hear him. This is the
father bearing record to the son at his baptism. The Holy
Ghost descends and remains upon him as a dove, does he not? And so there we have what is
called theologically the annunciation that Jesus Christ has now been
announced by the Godhead as the son of God. There's gonna be
a reason for which we emphasize that here in a moment, and we
can actually give the reason now. Jesus is going to be the
ultimate witness The water baptism into which Jesus entered into
under John's baptism was an opportunity for the father to tell the world
at that time that Jesus was the unique son of God. This is my
son. He has come out as it were, he
has manifested himself as it were. He was obscure from his
birth all the way to his call into ministry with the exception
of one occasion wherein he went to the temple at 12 years old,
according to Luke 2 and 3, and he bore witness to the teachers
in the temple about the truth of God's word. That's where he
received his bar mitzvah. That's where he became a son
of the law. He was obedient in all things
according to God and according to his parents as a Jewish boy,
born of a woman made under the law. So he had to appear in the
temple at that time. What you and I are doing as we
recall these events is we are bearing record to God's son. Water baptism is a testimony
that one has identified with God's son. And then we go from
the water to the blood. And what John says is the spirit
is bearing record to the blood. It was the spirit that bore witness
that Jesus was the son of God. He's bearing record that Jesus
was God incarnate, took on a human nature, lived a real life, Suffered
a real crucifixion died a real death bled real blood and real
water Now those of you and I who are 2,000 years removed from
Calvary this doesn't impact you But that event wherein Christ
was crucified Was absolutely essential to the testimony of
God. It is something for which you
and I ought to also treasure for it was at the death of Jesus
Christ that his incarnation was confirmed. His incarnation was
confirmed by the fact that when he died, he died of his own accord. No one killed him. He laid down
his life. Remember John chapter 10? No
one took it from him. After he had spoken his last
of seven words, he said, father, into thy hands, do I commend
my spirit? And he laid down his head and
he did what? Gave up the ghost. Several hours
later, the scripture says a centurion coming, having been told by the
leaders to take the two men who were still alive and break their
bones. But he did not break Jesus' bones
because as the scriptures stated in Psalm 22 and others, not a
bone of his body was broken, which meant he had already given
up the ghost. But in order for us to know that
Christ actually died physically, the centurion took a sword pierced
his side and out came what? Water and blood. The water and
blood testified to the fact that both, that he had died, but more
importantly, that he was truly a man. One of the battles that
God foresaw would ensue over time was the denial of the actual
incarnation of Jesus Christ, which is critical to our salvation.
So when you and I are talking about the witness of God, we're
talking about the witness of God in the person of Jesus Christ
at his water baptism. We're talking about the witness
of God in the person of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion. When
his side is pierced and the blood drains out, what we are told
later on is that Joseph of Arimathea, And also Nicodemus took our savior
and buried him in Joseph Arimatheus tomb, which he had bought for
him, which means Christ was buried. He was buried and he stayed in
the grave until Sunday morning. He rose again from the dead.
And then as we have both in Luke's account and in John's account,
he enters into the presence of the disciples to affirm the fact
that he had risen bodily from the dead, correct? All this is
critical to the testimony of the God man. All this is critical
to the testimony of the God man. And we'll see how this builds.
And the reason I say that is because part of the premise for
first John is for first John to deal with the heretics who
denied that Jesus came in the what flesh. Now there are those
whose theology is so shallow. not understanding that no truth
of the scripture can be broken, would be willing to give up a
cardinal doctrine that we know is essential to our salvation
called the incarnation. The incarnation is critical to
our salvation because no one can be saved without a mediator. And the mediator must be able
to represent both man and God. If we deny the incarnation of
Christ, we deny the mediator of the new covenant wherein the
blessings of the forgiveness of sins are available to his
people. We must therefore recognize that
the testimony of God concerning Jesus was that Jesus came in
the flesh, he died, he was buried, and he rose again the third day
bodily. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? This is the testimony that the church has had to bore,
bear for 2000 years now. And the Spirit of God has borne
record in both dimensions. The job of the Spirit of God,
which is what we're gonna be getting into here in a minute
as we work our way down to the third category of testimony,
probably the fourth, is the job of the Spirit of God is to bear
record, with the Father and with the Word, who is the Word? Christ,
the Son of God in heaven before the world began throughout time
and into eternity. The Spirit is always bearing
record, but he also bore record in the earthly dimension of Christ's
incarnation and Christ's suffering, Christ's death and Christ's resurrection. The Spirit is always testifying. He's the one testifying of these
things. But the Spirit of God has testified
in Christ, the son, and the spirit of God is testifying in the believer
as well. And this is where John is really
building his argument. John basically has affirmed and
he has settled this notion that God has given us such a complete
record and testimony of who he is in his son, Jesus Christ,
both by virtue of the powerful work of the spirit of God, bearing
record to the son who bears record to the father, in their heavenly
dimension and in their control of the universe, but also in
Christ's incarnation, his ultimate coming and his ultimate ministry
and his ultimate death and his ultimate resurrection, that God
is born so clear a testimony that we have what we can call
now the gospel. The gospel is the testimony of
God. And in fact, if you are going
to be an effective witness of the gospel, you actually have
to know these things of which I am telling you now. You are
not an effective witness of the gospel where you cannot explain
the necessity. of Christ assuming a human nature
to deal with the transgressions that human beings committed against
a holy judge and a holy judge needing to reconcile these transgressions
under either judging you for those transgressions personally
or finding a representative who would be judged for your transgressions
so that the judge can find a way to let you go. This is all part
of the gospel narrative. In other words, the gospel narrative
is not merely, smile, God loves you, He has a wonderful plan
for your life. This is an atrocious way to present
the gospel when the dilemma is between a holy God and a sinful
creature on a highly judicial level. To simply say to mankind,
smile, God loves you, is to make a mockery. of the work of God,
of bringing Christ into the world. Now you and I know who are gospel
loving people, that Christ has been coming into the world from
the beginning of time. Lo, I come in the volume of the
book it is written of me to do thy will, right? So I'm just
gonna milk this just a few more minutes before I transition from
the heavenly witness, the witness of the incarnation of Christ,
and then the witness of the spirit in our life. How serious is God
to bearing record to Christ? He has chosen throughout the
whole of human history to give us emblems of the coming of Jesus
Christ all through the scriptures. So Christ has come as the lamb.
So Christ has come as the sacrifice. So Christ has come as the ox.
So Christ has come as the king. He has come as the prophet. He
has come as the priest. Christ has come as the altar
of sacrifice. Christ has come as the showbird.
All of the emblems that you and I rejoice in terms of the typology
and symbolism that represent the Lord Jesus Christ coming
into the world have finally culminated in his incarnation. So when we
read in Hebrews chapter one, God in sundry times in different
manners, spoke to the prophets, spoke to the fathers by the prophets
has in these last days spoken to us in his what? That's right. That's a culminating statement.
It's not a statement saying that God now finally has started talking
to us about Jesus. He's been talking to us about
Christ all the way through human history. In that sense, let me
help you. In that sense, the Spirit of
God has been bearing record to Jesus Christ since the beginning
of time. In that sense, the Spirit of
God, which is the Spirit of Christ in the context of the prophetic
word, has been bearing record to Christ's coming since the
beginning of time. Every prophecy, every picture,
every pattern, every type, every metaphor, every analogy that
is a revelation of the will and purpose of God is centered in
the person of Christ throughout Old Testament history. This is
the spirit of God bearing record from heaven of God's son. Are
you guys hearing me? That's a lot of work, isn't it?
Now, my point with that is you and I ought not to think that
we have a good handle on the gospel if we can just, you know,
in a shallow fashion, in a very terse, short fashion, say, well,
I believe Jesus died for my sins. Well, what do you mean by Him
dying for your sins? Do you understand the significance,
the eternally significant implications of His incarnation? Do you understand
what God went through, His purpose and His plan, the effort that
He endeavored to make the incarnation the culminating and crowning
work of God in the person of Christ. This is a critical issue
because from the beginning of the church age up to this present
hour, people can comfortably claim that they know God, but
deny the God, man, Jesus Christ. They comfortably claim that I'm
getting ready to work on that here in a moment. As I talk about
the exclusivity of Christ, I will say this to you and I want you
to grasp this now. It is impossible for a man or
a woman or a people or a church or a denomination to know God
apart from Christ. It's impossible. It's impossible
for a person to frame their lips or articulate confessions of
faith or as it were, expostulate doctrines and teachings about
God and say, but I deny Jesus. It's impossible. Such a person,
according to 1 John 5, verse 11, makes God a liar. Are you
guys hearing me? So the issue of the Spirit of
God bearing record to the water and the blood is critical. There
are three that bear witness in the earth. The water, the blood,
and the spirit. And the water and the blood and
the Spirit is a testimony, as I said, that goes all the way
back to the beginning of time as we deal with Christ in His
humility, as we deal with Christ in His sufferings, as we deal
with Christ in His exaltation, as we deal with Christ in His
office as the servant, as the slave, as the son, as the sacrifice. And the typology that we are
exercised in all throughout the Old Testament makes us marvel
at not only the purpose and design of God the Father to send the
Son, but the purpose and design of the Son in his submission
to all that to save me. For the Son to go through all
of the harrowing obstacles and antagonism and antipathy and
rage of the whole human race, and then to be abandoned by the
Father, that He might be the exclusively qualified sacrifice
for my sins, is an enormous contemplation on my mind. about God the Father
and God the Son in relationship to my salvation. I don't have
room in my heart or in my mind to belittle the idea or the significance
of the incarnation. There's too much evidence going
all the way back to the beginning of scripture that God has heaped
upon me testimony after testimony after testimony of the enormity
of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. how that he being in form equal
with God thought it not robbery, but he made himself of no reputation
and in what John Owens calls the infinite condescension of
the son of God, he came down to get me. And he came down throughout
the ages of history past in all of the biblical language and
illustrations and typology until finally, God himself said, this
is my beloved son. in whom I'm well pleased, not
just well pleased that he came to the waters of baptism in John's
day, but well pleased that he finally came after working through
the spirit, testifying to men and women all the way back to
Adam and Eve and Enoch and Noah and Abel and Cain all the way
up to the time that he was born of a woman made under the law
to redeem those that are under the curse of the law and to affect
the Abrahamic covenant so that we Gentiles might be a partaker
of the blessings too. And I'm saved because the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit bore a record before the world
began of a scheme of redemption for which they created the universe
and then acted in Providence to give us all the emblems and
bring us to this point where you and I are now able to bear
record of the same testimony of God's darling Son, Jesus Christ.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? See, you and I are bound
by the whole book, Old Testament and New Testament to testify
to his son, Jesus Christ. It can be summed up this way.
In John's language, he puts it this way over in verse 10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not, God hath
made him a liar, because he believes not the record that God gave
of his son. So believing that testimony for
me is precious because I know that I could never believe the
testimony had God not given me grace to do so. People every
day live and die and perish mocking the testimony of God concerning
his son. That's why I'm not moving real quick because the greatest
tragedy would be for professing Christians to live in a tacit
mockery of the incarnation because of their ignorance of the enormity
of work that the spirit, the father and the son put into the
culminating and crowning work of God taking on a human nature. The spirit bore record of Christ. He bore record of Christ. He
bears record of Christ to the believer, to the believer. And we'll see that here in a
moment. So he bears record first to Christ. He bears record in
Christ. And then he bears record of Christ
to the believer. Is that true? then he bears record
of Christ to the believer and through the believer to the world
to the world how does God bring his testimony to the world well
first of all he bears record in heaven as the Father the Word
and the Spirit these three are one Then he bears record in the
earth and the culminating work of the Son of God coming, being
baptized, doing his ministry for three and a half years, and
then dying on Calvary's tree. The Spirit was there working
in the water and the blood in such a powerful way that the
centurion that watched Christ say, my God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? And lays down his head and gives
up the ghost. You know what that centurion says? This was the
Son of God. What did the Spirit of God do?
The Spirit of God bore record in that centurion's heart. He
revealed Christ to him. He revealed the Son of God to
him. And we have it recorded in scripture for us. 2,000 years of inscripturated
testimony we have of the Spirit of God bearing record to the
Son of God, both at his baptism and at his death. They bore record
of Christ in the resurrection. The only way that you and I can
have the testimony of the gospel today is because of God's work
in Christ through the apostles who were witnesses of the resurrection
of Christ. And we learned this last week,
Christ broke into the upper room where they were all hiding in
fear and in abject, as it were, dismal hopelessness until he
came in and he said, look, see, flesh and bone, You know, a spirit
does not have flesh and bone. Touch me, see that it is me. And they went through all of
the necessary empirical evidence to affirm that Christ had risen
again from the dead. And what the Bible says, according
to first Corinthians 15 and Acts chapter one is that Jesus went
about for 40 days bearing what is called infallible proofs of
his bodily resurrection to the disciples. This work that Christ
did after the resurrection was designed to buoy up and strengthen
the testimony in the life of not only the apostles, but the
500 brethren that were with them so that when they would go forth,
to testify of Christ, they would be able to say legitimately,
we saw him after he rose again from the dead. They would be
able to do what John said in John, 1 John 1, verse one, we
saw and we heard and we touched and we handled the word of life. We saw it. We saw it. And now they become authentic
witnesses in the first century of the resurrection of the God
man, Jesus Christ, who was incarnate for our sins. and our redemption
in the spirit of god not only bears record in christ he bears
record through the believers and he bears record to the world
now the next thing i want to talk to you about with regards
to the testimony of jesus is the fact that the testimony of
jesus is the hinge pin it is the foundation it is the nexus
of god's testimony and what i mean by that is Christ is the ultimate witness,
and that needs to be understood. Christ is the ultimate witness
of God. That's something that has to
be comprehended of no other person. Does the scripture say he is
the faithful and true witness? So I wanna talk about that a
little bit before we move to John's real and final aim, and
that is you and I being witnesses. The work of the Spirit of God
along with the Father is to bear record of the Son. The Son came
into the world to bear record of whom? The Father. The work
of the Spirit of God along with the Father Work of the son is
to bear record of the father. And so in your outline, we have
the true and faithful witness. Do you guys see that? The true
and the faithful witness. I'll let my board drive before
I go to work. When we talk about a testimony, here's what you
have to also remember. This year is a legal term and
the law required, especially Jewish law and even in pagan
law, that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every
word be what? established. This is a long-standing
principle in adjudication that goes way, way, way, way back.
So in your outline, I am fundamentally looking at Deuteronomy 17.6,
Deuteronomy 19.15, Matthew 18.16, 2 Corinthians 13.1, Hebrews 10.38,
John 5.31. Go with me in your Bible to John 5.31. I'm going
to read a few verses in John 5. about the witness. And then I'm
going to explain briefly why we must be careful to recognize
the importance of Jesus Christ as the true witness. Now, if
you are like me and you heard my opening, uh, commentary on
the fact that every believer is a witness for God, it ought
to have apprehended you a little bit. If you are like me, And
you heard my opening commentary about every believer becomes
a witness for God. When you open your mouth and
say, I am a Christian, you are now putting your soul on the
line for God. You guys got that? And it's all
cute in a country where they don't care about religion. They
don't care whether you are a liar, a perjurer, you tell the truth
or not. That's all cute. But for God, for you and I to
call ourselves witnesses of God puts us on the line for the character
of God. Are you hearing me? And so it
is critical for you and I to think through now, what does
that mean for me to say I'm a Christian? Well, what it means is there
is a certain work that God put in to by which he has made you
qualified to be a witness of God's testimony. To be a witness
means that God put in a work, he accomplished a work by which
he has qualified you to stand on the behalf of God and speak
for God's character, for God's work, for God's testimony. That's
ominous, isn't it? That's extremely ominous. Because in ourselves, to be honest,
we don't capacitate, we don't bear the natural constitution
of being authentic witnesses. Do you believe that you have
the framework mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually
to be God's witness? Do you believe you have the ability
to stand as an authentic witness of God in yourself? Do you know
that you and I are part of the group of the scriptures that
says all men are liars? Do you know that? So when I say
that the person who calls himself a Christian is in an ominous
state because now he has to bear record to God's testimony, that
requires a work of grace necessary to qualify you to be able to
stand as a witness of God. This is not a small issue. This
is not a small issue. If you and I are not authentically
and truly qualified to testify to who God is and what he did,
we ought to keep our mouth shut. Is that right? This is a very
serious matter. After all, what happened to the
true and authentic witness when he came and testified to God?
They killed him. What happened to the prophets
who came and testified to God? They killed them. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? An authentic witness then is
not some cat running around playing willy nilly with the scriptures
and trying to impress people with Bible verses. That's not
a true witness. A true witness is an individual
who has been utterly impacted by the revelation of God's glory
in the person of Christ to such an extent that they are compelled
to say what they know. They are compelled to say what
they know, and especially in a court of law. So before I get
to the witness of the believer, of which I had already given
you a poor illustration of the work of the spirit, the work
of the spirit in testifying to the life of the believer. Before
we get to the believer, I want to get to the ground and cause
and basis for our qualification to be a witness. And that is
the one who is called the true and the faithful witness. And his name is Jesus Christ.
We need to work through that a bit. It's important for you
to know that in the Bible, the term true and the term faithful,
in connection with the idea of witness of God can only apply
in the authentic and in the genuine and in the original sense exclusively
to Jesus Christ. In the sense in which a person
is legitimately capable of speaking as a representative of God, it
only applies to Jesus Christ. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Only Jesus Christ can bear record to God, only Christ. Here's what John says in John
chapter five, where Jesus is talking to the rulers of the
church and they're arguing with him and he is again and again
and again confirmed the fact that he has come from God and
he witnesses to God and he testifies of his father And he knows what
they are thinking, that this man is committing blasphemy because
they understood that for Jesus to call himself the son of God
was to make himself equal with his father in his deity, in his
nature, which is an outstanding proposition for him to make.
Especially since the rulers of the church did not believe that
Jesus was neither the son of God nor Messiah. But here's what
our master said. I'm over at verse 20 verse 30
after he has given the clear testimony of the things that
the father has given him to do we read over in verse 30 are
we there I can of my own self do nothing as I hear I judge
and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the
will of the father which what now watch what he's doing he's
simply saying I have come to testify of another. And my testimony
is true because I'm not bearing record of myself. See, this gets
back to the witness of God. Are you guys following me? Listen
to verse 31. If I bear witness of myself,
my witness is not what? If I am bearing record of myself,
if the testimony that I am bearing, if the words that I am speaking,
if the, Demonstration of representing someone else is really representing
myself. This is where several months
ago I talked about the fallacy of Oneness Pentecostalism. where
they would assert that, you know, Jesus and the father and the
spirit are all one person, just kind of transforming themselves
from time to time. The fallacy of that logic is
that it does not establish a credible witness. A credible witness requires
at least two independent distinct parties. And if Jesus is the
father, then Jesus is bearing record of himself, correct? And
that would mean that his record is not true because he would
really be speaking of himself, about himself, though he is talking
in a second person. And that would be a farce. It
would be a fallacy. It would be a travesty of justice. It would not be to bear testimony. but because Jesus is indeed distinctly
separate from in his person, the father, he can bear record
to the father, the father being the subject, Christ being the
object, as I can bear record to Jan and Jan can bear record
to me, us being distinctly two different persons. But if I were
Jan and I am talking as Jesse about Jan, but in fact, I am
Jan, I would be lying to you. Now, there are a whole lot of
implications in this testimony of which when we talk about Jesus
being the only true, authentic, unique, exclusive witness to
the Father, the first and clear implication is that Jesus bears
the qualities, the attributes and the properties of God so
that he can testify to God. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? He bears the qualities, the attributes, the predicates,
the properties of God so that he can talk about God. You and
I don't. None of us do. That right is
exclusive to the father, the son, and who? The Holy Ghost.
You and I are outside of the scope, the realm, the capacity
actually to bear witness to God. We don't have the framework or
the constitution. Our mind in our heart is so marred by sin
that we don't have the apparatus by which we can even contemplate
God unless he makes it possible. Am I making some sense? So on
an ontological level or on a genuine and authentic level, on a genetic
level, you and I cannot be called true and faithful witnesses. There's only one. There's only
one. And that one is the son of God.
That one is God in the flesh. That one is Jesus Christ. He
is the authentic witness of God. And here's what he says over
in verse 37. And in fact, I'm going to read
verse 32 through 37, because this deals with the witness.
There is another that bears witness of me. Do you see that? Watch
this. I don't bear record of myself.
There's another that bears witness of me. Now watch this. And I
know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. Who is he talking about? The
father. This is what the text is going
to tell us. Now we know it's a spirit bearing
record of him too, but the text is going to do it. Watch. You
sent under John and he bear witness of the truth. John was like you
and I, right? John bore witness to Jesus, behold the Lamb of
God, which takes away the sin of the world. But I receive not
testimony from men. Mark it now, watch this. The
son says, I don't receive my testimony from men. This is what
I meant by now. Watch this now that there is
a very certain sense in which human beings, mere human beings
like you, I, and John the Baptist cannot testify to the integrity
and nature and character of God. It requires God to testify of
God. Are you hearing me? This is what
John is saying. Now follow the follow the read.
This is what John is saying of Christ. And this is what Christ
is saying in the context. Watch this. I receive not testimony
from man, but these things I say that you might be saved. He was
a burning and shining light. And you are willing for a season
to rejoice in his light. Here it is. Verse 36. Watch this. But I have greater witness than
that of John. Here it is. For the words which
the Father giveth me to finish the same works that I do bear
witness of me that the Father hath sent me. Do you see that?
Now, Jesus is incorporating works that demonstrate his Messiahship. The works become a demonstrative
illustration of his authenticity as Messiah, but he's getting
ready to give us the origin of those works in the next verse.
Look at what it says. And the father himself, which
has sent me, hath what? Borne witness of me. Got it? The father himself, which has
sent me, hath borne witness of me. Now watch this. You have
neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. You have not comprehended the
Father. Now, this is where it's going to get into the exclusivity
of Christ as the true and faithful witness, which we're going to
see in Revelation. I'm going to be able to stop there tonight. I
know that now. This is important. When we make the proposition
that Christ alone is the true and the faithful witness, we
have at least three tokens of that. We have the Spirit of God,
the Spirit bears record of Christ. We have the Father, the father,
uh, the father bears record of Christ. And then we also have
his words. Isn't that what he said? If you
don't believe me, believe me for my what works sake. So Jesus
is operating as the apostle of the father, the father sent him,
but he is functioning by the spirit of God. Spirit of God
working in Christ to bring forth the works of Messiah that authenticate
his claims as being the Son of God these three serve as Testimonies
to who he is. This is what John is saying when
John goes back to first Johnny He says there are three that
bear record in heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit there
three that bear record on earth the water the the blood and the
spirit. When we start back at water baptism,
we move from water baptism through his excursion or its process
to Calvary. Are you following me? When you
start at water baptism, where the heavens open up and the father
says, this is my beloved son. And the spirit of God says, amen
to it, right? Residing upon him, remaining
upon him, they move out. The father and the son and the
spirit move out in evangelical obedience performing ministry
for three and a half years. The Father bearing record to
the Son, the Spirit of God bearing record through the Son to the
world that Jesus is the Son of God. Are you guys hearing what
I'm saying? And they're bearing record through miracles, they're
bearing records through healings, they're bearing records through
the testimony of which Christ preached. And this is what Jesus
said in John 14 to his disciples, especially when Nathaniel, or
Philip raised the question, show us the Father and it suffices
us He said, don't you know, have I not been with you so long and
you still can't see through me to the father? Are you guys hearing
me? Now watch this. If you ever hear
a human being make those kinds of emphatic claims, call 911
or just shoot him. Just shoot him right on the spot,
take him out of his misery. Because he has crossed over into
a sphere that belongs to Christ alone. Are you hearing me, ladies
and gentlemen? He has crossed over into a dimension
like these megalomaniac messianic type folks who will tell you
to look at me and you'll see the father. Yes, I see the father
of lies. That's what I see. And what I
am saying is it is critical for you and I to know the privilege
of seeing the uniqueness of God's true and faithful witness in
the person of Christ. This is actually the whole business
of our salvation, our sanctification, and our glory. The Christian
has the privilege of living out his or her life, learning about
Jesus, More about Jesus would I know more Of his saving grace
show more of his fullness would I see more more about Jesus? because It is through Christ
That we obtain a legitimate and authentic and a real and an efficacious
testimony to the father It cannot happen any other way. It is critical
for you to know that when we are talking about the true and
the faithful witness, we're talking about a one-time act that occurred
in human history and will never occur again. God sent his only
begotten son into the world that the world might live through
him. Am I making some sense? This is important for this to
get into your heart. It almost sounds like Christianity 101
and it is, and it's essential that this foundation be laid.
The only way that you and I can know who God is, is through the
one whom God has sent to represent him accurately. This is the term
faithful and true witness that we are about to work through
here. Look at the verse 30. Let's see here, where's the next
verse that I wanna go? Go with me now in your Bible
to Revelation. I wanna talk about it from the
book of Revelation. Revelation talks about the true
and the faithful witness Here it is. I'm at Revelation chapter
3. I'm gonna read verse 14 It says it one more time also in
Revelation chapter 17 here in Revelation chapter 3 verse 14
Here's what Christ says to the last of the seven churches called
the church at Laodicea the slothful church the the very apostate
church given over to avarice and greed and excess of worldly
goods and pleasures, and often is prophetically describing the
church of the end times. Here's what he says over in verse
14. Now watch this. And unto the angel of the church
of the Laodiceans write, these things saith the amen. Do you guys see that? That's
a title for Christ. The word amen means truthful
or surety. It is an insignia that is placed
upon a promise that once the promise is made, when you go,
amen, you are saying that is a certain fact. We can believe
it. In other words, Christ is God's amen to us. This is what
the text says. And right. These things say at
the amen, the faithful and the true what witness and the beginning
of the creation of God. And in this context is the beginning
of the new creation. He is called the faithful and
he is called the true witness. The faithful and the true witness.
Go to Revelation chapter 17. I think we have it again over
in Revelation chapter 17 as well. In Revelation chapter 17, as
it describes the persecution of the great harlot against the
church, it comes up over against the people of God and the lamb. Notice what it says over in Revelation
17 verse 14. This is about the one world government
which will ultimately manifest itself in open hostility against
the believer right before the end of time and against Christ.
We read in verse 14, these shall make war with the lamb and the
lamb shall overcome them for he is Lord of lords and king
of kings and they that are with him are called and chosen and
what? Faithful. Now those that are
with him believers all believers therefore are faithful witnesses
but go with me now to Revelation chapter 19 here's the last verse
it finally came this is what we call the last vision which
corresponds to the coming of Christ at the end of time and
he has depicted ladies and gentlemen by John the Apostle in verse
11 as coming on a white horse verse 11 and I saw heaven opened
and behold a white horse Now the horse in the scripture is
a symbol for power and authority. And it's a symbol of power and
authority in the context of war. The horse is prepared for the
day of battle. I was talking to a sister last
night in women's theology class and she was asking me about the
nature of hell and she was using Luke chapter 16 as the context
in which she was struggling through what the language calls Abraham's
bosom and then hell. You guys know the language. And
she was struggling with how could the believer be in Abraham's
bosom literally and look over into the abyss of hell where
people are tormented. How can that be? And I shared
with her the necessity of knowing when the Bible is using a specific
genre device of language. that you cannot take everything
you read literally, you have to know when you are dealing
with symbolism. And I share with her that Abraham's
bosom is a Jewish way of saying heaven. Abraham's bosom is a
Hebrew or Jewish way of saying heaven. That those who die in
Christ, die as believers, their bodies go into the ground, but
their souls go to heaven. Abraham, as we will learn, that's
our next patriarch person that we will be dealing with in our
Women's Biblical Theology class. He's the major patriarch that
we're going to be dealing with. Abraham represents God the what?
Father. So under Jewish writing, Abraham's
bosom is equivalent to being in the heart of God. Just as
the scripture says in John chapter 118, no man has seen God anytime. Only he who is in the bosom of
the what father he hath revealed him. So every believer Jewish
and Gentile enter into heaven, which under Jewish terminology
is called Abraham's bosom. because Abraham is the typical
picture of God the Father in the Old Testament, where both
Jews and Gentiles enter into the inheritance. But you and
I, make this very clear, understand this. When we go to heaven, the
last chest that I wanna lay on is Abraham's. Do you understand
that? His chest is not big enough for
my desires. But to be in the presence of
God is to dwell in the heart and bosom of God. That's to be
in heaven, is to be in the center of his blessing, is to be in
the basis and foundation and the matrix of his favor. To be
in heaven is to have the whole heart of God as your habitation
for all eternity. for the Jewish people who thought
it was all about them. That language was accommodated
by our savior to help Jewish believers to know the difference
between believing in Jehovah and dying and going to Abraham's
bosom versus going to hell. Are you guys following me? Otherwise,
when the rich man said, send Lazarus over here so he can dip
his finger in a little water and put it on my tongue. The
language breaks down in terms of his genre because the soul
doesn't have a tongue. Neither can the soul be quenched
by H2O. Are you following what I'm saying?
Be very careful. Our Lord is using a genre of
device to help us understand eternal things from an earthly
temporal level. Does that make sense, brothers
and sisters? Now, the reason I say that is to say this. Jesus
is not coming back on a horse. Get that into your bosom now.
Well, maybe I need to use another word beside bosom. Get this into
your head now. He's not coming back on a horse.
We got F-14s, F-15s, F-17s. We got planes that can break
the sound barrier over three times now. A horse ain't gonna
work. It's the metaphor of a confined
chronological context in the which horses were the chief instruments
of war. Are y'all following me now? It's
so very important to understand this terminology. The white in
the book of Revelation always describes the post triumphant
victory of the son of God. Heaven describes for us the fact
that we already have the victory. Those of us that are clothed
in white, those of us that are riding on white horses, coming
back with him who is on a white horse, we're coming back not
to triumph, we're coming back having already triumphed. Are
you guys following me? That's the glorious image there.
But I want you to notice the language that's used and ascribed
to Jesus alone in Revelation chapter 19, verse 14. Verse 11, notice what it says.
And I saw heaven open and behold what a white horse and he. Not they, he that sat upon him
was called. Faithful. And true. And in righteousness, he does
judge and make war. His eyes were a flame of fire
and on his head were many what? And he had a name written on
there that no man knew but himself. And he was clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood. And his name is called what?
The word of God. This describes Jesus Christ in
his last manifestation in this world as the triumphant savior
who will come back as the judge of all mankind. He's coming back
as the what? Judge. But he's coming back to
judge in righteousness, that's what the white describes. He's
coming back, not by himself, he's coming back with his people.
We saw that in chapter 17. We come back with Christ, we're
called faithful, we possess the white, we ride horses too, but
those are all derived blessings that we get. In reality, Christ
is the only true and faithful witness. Are you guys following
me? Christ is the only true and faithful
witness. And the spirit of God's work
is to bear record of the truth and faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
I want to make sure this comes home. I'm going to wait till
next week to pull this out fully for you because I have it in
my outline. The importance of understanding
the job of the spirit of God, going me back to first John chapter
five. This is where I will close here. The job of the Spirit of
God is to take the things of Christ and to bear them upon
the heart and mind of the believer in a full panoply, a full panoply
and display of all of Christ's offices and all of Christ's works. so that everything that Christ
is in terms of him being God's mediator for our redemption,
listen to me, ladies and gentlemen, the job of the Spirit of God
is to display before us the full panoply, the full-orbed manifestation
of all that Christ is for us in every office so that he might
successfully persuade us that Jesus Christ is the true and
faithful witness of God. The goal of the spirit of God
is to lay out, to spread out every office, every attribute,
every work, every characteristic of Jesus Christ, the full plan
of who he is. Are you guys hearing me? of who
he is. His job is to lay it all out.
That's the role of the Holy Ghost, to lay it all out so that his
elect might by these offices being fully disclosed to us. Every office, every work, every
characteristic, every attribute pertaining to his mediatorial
call affirm and accurately testify to the Father is designed to
fully persuade us that God is true. Are you with me so far? I'm gonna say it one more time
and then I'm gonna just read the text and next week we'll
unpack it for us to think this through. The reason why I will
be able to, when necessary, and called upon to testify to God's
witness, God's record, God's testimony that he gave concerning
his son. The reason why I will be able
to do it and to do it successfully is because of the operation and
ministry of the Spirit of God. Are you hearing me? The Spirit
of God has the assignment of unfolding to me the full panoply,
the full or display, of every office, every characteristic,
every attribute, every service, every work of Jesus Christ that
God the Father gave to him as the mediator of those who will
believe on him. The job of the Spirit of God
is to show these things to us. Are you hearing me? To show them. I'm quoting John chapter 16,
verse 13. The word show means to fully declare, to fully unpack,
to fully unveil, to make known. The objective of the spirit of
God, Michael, is to give me a complete testimony, a complete reckoning,
a complete witness of every office, every work, every attribute,
every characteristic of the God-man Jesus Christ as my mediator necessary
to qualify me to be his witness. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? I'm pressing this home for a reason. The job of the
spirit of God is to penetrate my mind and penetrate my heart
with an unveiling, a showing, a declaring, a manifesting, and
unveiling of all of the attributes and characteristics and offices
of Jesus Christ, essential to my salvation, so that I am qualified
by the work of the Spirit of God, bearing record with my spirit,
bearing record, bearing testimony to my spirit, that I am qualified
by virtue of the revelation, not by virtue of who I am, by
virtue of the revelation. By virtue of the, are you guys
following me so far? By virtue of the revelation,
I am made to be qualified to open my mouth and talk about
things that I don't intrinsically know and have not actually seen
and have not actually been a witness of. I was not there 2000 years
ago. I wasn't in the garden. I wasn't
at the baptism. I wasn't walking Capernaum Street.
I don't know nothing about Galilee. I don't know nothing about Israel. I don't know nothing about Nazareth
in terms of being a physical witness. Are you guys following
me? And yet for 2,000 years, God has qualified men and women
to become witnesses of God. Now there's a long list of things
that the Spirit of God does to make us qualify to both understand,
know, and be assured of concerning the testimony of Jesus Christ,
by which we can open our mouths and say with conviction, these
things are true and be willing to die for them. I'm going to
share with you eight things next week that the spirit of God does
to make us authentic and legitimate incredible witnesses of the only
true and faithful witness of God. Are you guys following me?
So I want to make this one last proposition. I want this to resonate
in your head. We'll come back and build it
up next week. It is impossible for any human being to be able
to testify to the reality of God, the father, apart from God,
the son. It is impossible for a person
to say they know God and not know Jesus Christ. It's impossible for me to believe
God and deny Christ. Are you guys with me so far?
I'm going to show you explicitly through the work, because I want
you to be able to grasp the beauty of the inner Trinitarian relationship
between the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. and the effort that
they have put into making sinners who originally are the objects
of God's wrath, witnesses of God's glory. But this must be
stated for the record. It is not possible according
to 1 John 2 and 1 John 5 to say that a man can know the father
and not know the son. Am I making some sense? It's
not possible for a man to say he can have the father and not
have the son. It's not possible for a man to
say he can love the father and not love the son. Are you with
me? I got Bible verses under all this. It's not possible for
a man to say he can honor the father and not honor the son.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? It's impossible for a
man to even talk about God the father without God the son. because it's God the Son who
accurately and fully and credibly reveals the Father. There is
no way to know the Father apart from the Son. You guys got that? This is what makes the Son enormous
to our salvation. All right, let's close Father,
thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the testimony. Spirit of God, thank you for
the work of grace in our hearts is simple, but at the same time,
it's profound. And we are so glad that you are
in conjunction with the father and the son making these things
a reality in our soul day by day. We are also so glad that
there's only one true and faithful witness upon whom all our salvation
hangs totally and completely. And we are so glad that you have
given us faith in him, that we might be able to say we have
life in Jesus Christ, which is a gift of God. We are so glad
for the grace that you have shown to bring us out of darkness into
your marvelous light. As we go our way, give us traveling
mercies, prepare our hearts to worship you on Sunday. We pray
in Jesus' name, amen.