THE TESTIMONY
J.N.Grace
Matthew 1: 21-25; Revelation 1: 9; 22: 16,17
Paul, when referring to this character of meeting, assumed that we all had something. When you come together, he says, each has certain things (see 1 Cor 14: 26) - a psalm, or teaching, interpretation or revelation. We cannot assume too much, but perhaps at least we have had some experience in the ways of God. In His patience He takes different ways to teach us; the normal way is by ministry in the power of the Spirit, by prophecy. It may be that He has to take the way of discipline to teach us, but how persistent our God is in His ways of grace so that He can reach His mind with us. I think therefore that each of us at least can have a psalm. What I have to say may be more in the nature of that.
I am thinking of the testimony of God. Our brother has referred to the tent of meeting which was the tent of testimony. I am assured that everyone in this room, every brother and every sister, would have a very big interest in the testimony of God. In fact that should be the prime thing in our lives. If it is not, why are we here? If God has left us here it is that we should be fully identified with His testimony, Some of us may for a time miss our way, but the grace that follows us would bring us back, and I think the way that we are brought back involves the testimony of Jesus. The testimony of God is spoken of in different ways, different expressions are used. There is the testimony of Jesus, there is the testimony of our Lord, there is the testimony of the Christ. All these are well worth looking into as the Spirit of God would open them up to us; but I think that, in the day in which we are, John's reference to the testimony of Jesus indicates the way by which we arrive at the testimony of our Lord or the testimony of the Christ, because what will hold our souls in the day in which we live, when all that is official has broken down, and when there is a hundred and fifty years of history in the recovery to the truth, the only thing that will hold and recover us is our personal links with Jesus. It is the personality of that blessed Man that will hold our souls, because God's testimony is bound up with one blessed Man, and if anything interferes, or beclouds the uniqueness of that Man, God will have to say to it and He will bring back our souls by way of our links with the person of Jesus.
So I think that the personality of Jesus shines in a day of recovery in our own hearts as it has never shone before, and the way that Matthew opens with a reference to Jesus would connect, I think, with what is said, that "the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus", Rev 19: 10. All that the prophets have written, all that they conveyed, was in relation to this one Man who has now appeared upon the scene, and "the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus". From one end to the other of the Scriptures, indited by the Spirit of God, it is all about this blessed Man. What I say is very simple but I think it is very fundamental. Beloved brethren, as one has found, one may have light; you may have an understanding in some measure of the truth that has been recovered to us, but the life and vitality connected with the testimony of God finds us out as to where we are in our links with this blessed Man. His name is Jesus. The official side is dropped, you will notice, at the end of the book of Revelation. When the Lord speaks He says "I Jesus" - as if personality first in Himself is becoming prominent in an increasing measure. But then I think it involves also that it is having its effect in the souls of His people and servants, and then it is that personality begins to shine in them, So I think we shall know one another personally, as we are found in the testimony of God, as we have not known each other before, and our links will be in life in the power of the Spirit. The Spirit of God at the close of this book is also presented in a personal way, not the Holy Spirit, not the Spirit of God, but the Spirit - "the Spirit and the bride say, Come". That is a fine answer, is it not? a fine answer in personality linked with the Spirit as the personality of the bride comes into evidence, as I believe it will. The assemblies go through; that is quite evident because the Lord is speaking to them here. He says "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies", so they are there. It is for us to find where the expression of them is and to be identified with them, and the way into it I think is through our links with Jesus.
John therefore, as he begins this book of Revelation, says he was "in the island called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus". That is the only testimony worth being identified with because that is what is going through. We have our links with one another universally, and the testimony involves what is universal, but in the practical working of it out it just involves how we are set in the will of God, in the locality where God in His wisdom has set us. So John was set in the isle of Patmos; he was on his own there as far as we know. There he was, in relation to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus; and what has worked out from that, dear brethren, is the book that we have in our hands and the ministry that has come to us by way of the book of Revelation through the Spirit of God. It has come by one man being in that situation, not in relation to his own will, his own pleasure, but in relation to the word of God, the mind of God being conveyed. Paul opened it up at Corinth - in that locality - and now it is being carried through in one man, in John. He identified himself with the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. One can understand the way the testimony has gone through. Think of that beloved brother Bernard who wrote that hymn nine hundred years ago, that hymn about Jesus:
'Jesus! the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast' (No. 279)
The very simplicity of what we have when we come together - a brother stands up to pray and concludes his prayer 'in the name of the Lord Jesus' - should thrill our hearts. It should bow our hearts when we hear the name of that blessed Man who gives character to things from the beginning to the end of our being together. So it is at the Supper; announcements are made 'in the name of the Lord Jesus'. There is a thrill connected with that! It is the way God has been pleased to put Himself in touch with humanity from our earliest days. Think of the Babe coming in according to Luke's gospel, the nations and the whole of humanity in view, but God putting Himself in touch through a little Babe. His name was Jesus. Wonderful penetration enters into that name - Jah the Saviour. Who can tell the depth of the mystery that lies in that name? But it is a name that we have all learned from our earliest years, and I think in this closing day God would have it that the personality of his blessed Man should shine increasingly in our hearts, and that that should find an answer in the development of a variety of personality amongst us, working out just where we are in divine wisdom where the will of God has set us. I think that is the testimony of Jesus.
LONDON
14 March 1978