Volume 1, Issue 12
7 Aug 2015
 Having dealt with Christ’s human witness (John the Baptist) in our last two issues, we will now turn our attention to Christ’s divine witness. According to Jesus, He needed no human witness; He did not need “testimony from man” (John 5:34). Why? Because Christ claimed to have “another that bore witness of [Him]” who was a far “greater witness than…John” and whose “witness [was] true” (John 5:32, 36).
Who was Christ’s other witness? God the Father, who is “ever true” (Romans 3:4) and “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2).
Once, when the Pharisees declared that Christ’s claims were “not true,” because He bore “record of [Himself],” Jesus responded: “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me” (John 8:13-18). What other witnesses did Jesus need to collaborate His claims than Himself and the Father, especially in light of the fact that their Word is the determining factor when it comes to the truth (John 17:17)?
If human witnesses are not needed to verify and confirm the claims of Christ, then, why does Christ employ human witnesses; such as the apostles of old or the church today? The answer is found in John 5:34. Human witnesses are necessary for men to be “saved.” According to the Bible, it is by “the foolishness of preaching” that God has ordained “to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Apart from a human witness, your lost family and friends have no hope of salvation.
While providing the world with its only hope of salvation, human witnesses also provide the basis for the world’s condemnation. All who believe and receive the Gospel will be saved, but all who refuse to believe and reject the Gospel will be condemned. The fate of men’s immortal souls, as well as their eternal destinies, is determined by whether men receive or reject the Gospel. This explains why the Gospel—the Word of God— is portrayed as a sharp “two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). To the believer it is “the savor of life unto life” (2 Corinthians 2:16). To the unbeliever it is “the savor of death unto death” (2 Corinthians 2:16).
Jesus once said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:34-36). The dividing sword that Jesus brought to the earth is the Gospel. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that pits people against one another, even people within the same “household.”
The “feet” of those who “preach the Gospel” are “beautiful” to those who believe (Romans 10:15). However, the preacher of the Gospel is intolerable to those who are perishing.
Listen to the words of Jesus in John 15:18-27: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.”
The world unjustifiably—“without a cause”—hated, persecuted and put Christ to death for uncloaking its sin with the truth of the Gospel. Likewise, the world unjustifiably—“without a cause”—hates, persecutes and puts to death Christ’s human witnesses for uncloaking its sin with the truth of the Gospel. Here, we have another hint at the identity of “the two witnesses,” not to mention an explanation for why they are so hated by all the world.
Did you know that we get our English word “martyr” from the Greek word used for “witnesses” in Revelation 11?
The same Greek word is used in Revelation 2:13: “I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.”
The same Greek word is used in Revelation 6:9: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.”
The same Greek word is used in Revelation 20:4: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
The same Greek word is used in Revelation 1:5: “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”
From all of this we may safely glean that not only will Christ’s human witnesses suffer in this world because of their testimony for Him, but their testimony for Him puts them at continual risk of martyrdom!
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Don Walton
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