THREE TESTIMONIES TO JESUS
J. Mair
Acts 10: 38, 42, 43; 8: 27–39; 9: 19 (middle)–20
How well the bride in the Song of Solomon could speak of her beloved and describe him, drawing attention to the features of beauty that enraptured her heart. I suppose that every lover of Jesus can speak somewhat about Him and His worth. Beginning at the foundation of things, they are able to say something about Him as their Saviour and Lord.
In the three passages we have read the speakers draw attention to Jesus. Peter says, “Jesus who was of Nazareth”; and Philip announced to the eunuch “the glad tidings of Jesus”. I would like to have heard as he unfolded from Isaiah 53 and doubtless from other scriptures his knowledge and appreciation of Jesus. Then Saul of Tarsus, after his conversion and after being in the company of the brethren in Damascus,
goes out and preaches “Jesus that He is the Son of God”. It shows that every real soul has a certain appreciation of Jesus as distinguished as outstanding, as eclipsing every other man, and there are many who could stand up and speak the glad tidings, and say something about how Jesus has found a place in their hearts.
So Peter is speaking to Cornelius and his household. He was sent; he had that ecstasy and was directed to the house of Cornelius to bring the glad tidings into it. So he comes and says,
“Jesus who was of Nazareth—how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power”.
It reminds you of Luke 4, Nazareth and His anointing, and the service that was committed to Him. Peter would hold all that in his heart, the great opening preaching of the Lord Jesus, quoting from Isaiah and bringing out what His mission was and what He could do on behalf of men in their need.
So Peter says, “Who went through all quarters doing good, and healing all that were under the power of the devil, because God was with him”. This is, I think, a peculiar impression of Peter’s that He went about doing good and healing. You will remember that in his epistle
Peter speaks about the things that were not present in Jesus; he says, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2: 22) as if Peter had a peculiar impression of the moral worth of Jesus, the moral glory that shone in Him, over against every other man, Peter included. Peter would say, ‘This was not there; that was not there’. Peter would say, ‘Well, I cut off the ear of the bondman of the high priest; Jesus healed it; He was different from me; He did not retaliate’. Peter says, “Who, when reviled, reviled not again”. He would say, ‘I did; but this is Jesus; this is the Man who has found a place in my heart’.
Now he is telling it out to this gentile
household—and what effect it has! It shows how powerfully this was held in Peter’s own soul that when he told it out it had its own effect upon every one in that household, and how many there must have been. It says, “The Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were hearing the word”. So how effective Peter’s preaching of Jesus was He says, “To him all the prophets bear witness that every one that believes on him will receive through his name remission of sins”. “Through his name”, the name of Jesus; it carries all weight up there in heaven. You go and speak to God in the name of Jesus; He will listen to you; that name carries its own credentials in heaven, the power of the name; so he says, “Everyone that believes on him will receive through his name remission of sins”.
So if there is anyone who has not received the remission of sins, you just believe on Jesus, and you will receive it through His name, because that covers everything. It covers what He completed on Calvary’s cross in order that repenting sinners might be freed from their load of sin. What a name the name of Jesus is! What it is in the believer’s ear, but what it is in the sinner’s ear to hear the name of Jesus. Well, I trust everyone here knows something about the remission of their sins through the name of Jesus, through what He has effected, and how God regards His work. You mention His name, “Lord Jesus”, and it carries all the power of that name. Think of the hosts that fill heaven; we do not know about them all, but think of what the name of Jesus means up there. Think of what it was when He came in as a lowly Babe, heaven’s hosts were moved in regard to Him. Now His work is completed. He is back in heaven a glorious Man and God is pointing to Him as the One who has done all the work and the One in whom salvation is available to every needy soul tonight. What a name, the name of Jesus!
Well, it is fine to be able to say something
about it, just what you cherish in your own soul. The woman in John 4 had just a few minutes contact with Jesus, yet He found a place in her heart and she goes out and says, “Come, see a man”, ‘This Man has eclipsed every other man for me. You come to Him; come and learn the story of the glad tidings; come and receive all that He has provided for you, this water of life that will spring up in your soul, that will cause you to vibrate in a song of praise to Him who is God’.
Well now, in Acts 8 the preaching of Philip has the effect of making the eunuch wish just to go out of sight as far as this world is concerned. The eunuch comes in for the gain of the
work of Christ, so much so that he says, ‘Now I would just like to take my place with the christian community. If Jesus has gone that way, I would like to go that way too. I do not want to have any place in this world; I do not want to have any prominence for myself among His people’. He was reading the prophet Isaiah. How well Isaiah could speak about this!
What a chapter that is, Isaiah 53, covering Christ’s history here, what He was as growing up into manhood; those early years from childhood to boyhood and up to manhood. You think of all these things being cherished by Isaiah. They had not yet taken place, but he had light as to it all from God and he was able to speak about it so attractively.
The eunuch is reading about this and God is taking account of it. You know, He takes account of things that happen, of persons who are exercised, persons that mean well. God takes account of these things and He may put something in your way, or somebody in your way, just to bring in the needed touch to enlighten you in your soul as to the glad tidings. You can see throughout the Scriptures how God intervenes just to give a touch, where
it is needed, to an exercised soul. So here Philip draws near. He says, “Dost thou then know what thou art reading of?” The eunuch replies, “How should I then be able unless some one guide me?” Here is this great man, having such a place in Ethiopia, but he is not assuming anything, he says, ‘I do not know; I would like to understand this’, and asks Philip to come up and help him.
Well, these are the people that get help, humble people, simple people, who just say if they do not know. So it tells us the place where he was reading about the closing moments of Jesus’ history on earth, when He was facing Pilate, and the religious leaders, a section that brings out so beautifully the excellence of Jesus as the One “who, when reviled, reviled not again”, 1 Peter 2: 23. What features these are, what moral worth is in them, and they shone in their excellence in Jesus. We have wholly failed in these things, but He never failed. It says,
“He opened not his mouth”. He had every right to; He could have taken the place of the judge instead of the One being judged, but He accepted the place He was given, and it was all in the determinate counsel of God. So it says, “Philip, opening his mouth and beginning from that scripture, announced the glad tidings of Jesus to him”.
As I said, it would have been fine to have heard Philip unfold the glad tidings of Jesus. Philip knew them, he was given special gift to preach them, but he was able to sit down with one individual soul and he had as much joy in that as in speaking to a company, just to tell out what he knew of the Saviour, the glad tidings of Jesus, this glorious Man whom he held in his affections. What a Person He is! What a Saviour!—and how accessible. It is “the glad tidings of Jesus”, that lowly Man, whose life was so fragrant, every step of it. How fragrant to heaven were those closing moments as He faced everything, but faced it all in the lowliness of a Man who had come to do the will of God, and in the doing of it to provide a way of salvation for men.
So Jesus is preached to this eunuch, and so effectively, “And the eunuch says, Behold water; what hinders my being baptised?” Jesus went out like this; He claimed no rights at all. He just
went out, and the way men put Him out He accepted. He accepted the cross they put Him upon. So it says, “They went down both to the water … and he baptised him. But when they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no longer”. But then it adds, “He went on his way rejoicing”. He went away a happy man. He was not seeking anything in this world, he was not trying to keep one foot in it and one foot, so to speak, in christianity. No, it is impossible to do that. You are either in one or the other.
You are either going to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season or you are going to enjoy christianity amongst the people of God.
There is nothing more blessed than to be fully committed, and it is the answer in the believer to baptism. You say, ‘Well, Jesus had no place here. What am I going to do? Am I going to have a place here? Am I going to have any of my joys in this world?’ You come to a decision and you say, ‘No, no; I am going to accept the position that He accepted and relate myself to what is of Him here’. That is the eunuch; and he went on his way rejoicing. We do not know whether he went back to a company of christians, and if he did not, I am sure he affected a few when he went back. His surroundings would be affected by a man whose soul was filled with the worth of Christ and he rejoicing in his knowledge of Him.
Now in Acts 9 it says of Saul of Tarsus, who had only recently been converted, “And straightway in the synagogues he preached Jesus
that He is the Son of God”. He too preached Jesus. What a presentation of Him it is! It is the same Person. He is still the same Person; it is Jesus, who fills God’s presence, and who will fill that eternal scene. What a Person He is, and the apostle preaches Him “that He is the Son of God”, that is, He is the Centre of another world. The eunuch accepted that he was having no place in this world. Paul says, ‘Now I will tell you about Jesus as the Centre of another world’. He had no place in this world, none whatever, but He has every place in God’s world.
What a world, that world of bliss—God’s world! It is going to be filled with persons who rejoice in the knowledge of Jesus as their Saviour. There is nothing that will enter into it but what is covered by His blood. Every family will be covered by the precious blood of Jesus, and they will all cherish Him as the Centre of it all.
So Paul preaches “Jesus that He is the Son of God”. It says, “He was with the disciples …
certain days”. It was not long, but he got this impression of Jesus. Saul of Tarsus was the centre of his own world before, and he tells of all his credentials, what he was as superior to his fellow men, all that but drawing attention to himself as the centre, Philippians 3: 5, 6. Paul brings all that on to view, not to engage us with himself, but only to bring into relief what Jesus is as the Centre and Sun of God’s world. Paul would say, ‘That is where I was, and I clung to all these things and gave myself to them. I wanted to be first; I did not want anyone to be before me; I wanted to shine as the superior one in this area which religiously claimed so much’. But then he says, ‘I have had to throw it all away’. Like the eunuch going in the water, Paul went into the water too, to dispense with all his own credentials which he boasted in and find that he was, as he says himself, “… the least of all the saints” (Ephesians 3: 8); that is, he would take the place of being the least of the company that will fill eternity for God’s pleasure.
Well, I suppose we all feel how undeserving we are, but then when we arrive at God’s thoughts about us, we are all to be clothed in the worth of Christ. That is how we appear before Him, and He could not have it any other way. He must have us entirely according to His own thoughts if He is going to have a world of bliss for His own pleasure. All this is filled out now in the assembly as an area where the saints appear in this glory, having Christ Jesus as the supreme One in their midst. May it always be true. May we not allow anything else to take His place, so that He may be the supreme One—and we shall find that it is the happiest setting we can be in. May He bless the word!
Preaching at Cullen, 2 June 1974
Published by F. C. Mutton, 22 Christchurch Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 4QY, England Printed by High Speed Printing Limited, 43 Conduit Street, London, W1S 2YJ