Testimony Dependent on Revelation
TESTIMONY DEPENDENT ON REVELATION
In Rom 1: 17, 18, the Spirit of God speaks of present revelation of “righteousness of God”, and of present revelation of “wrath of God”. Thereon is based, I think, the “testimony of God” (1 Cor 2: 1), which goes out from God to men. (This the apostle calls “our testimony” in 2 Thess 1: 10.)
That which God is pleased to reveal in any particular day, becomes, it appears to me, the subject matter of God’s testimony to men in that day, testimony being always based on revelation.
Thus, and similarly, Moses writes in Deuteronomy 29: 29, “Those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever”. The chapter is full of what God had been pleased to bring to light—to reveal—concerning Himself. Moses writes that this had not merely been for Israel, but also for men generally, that is, for the nations also to heed, see vv 24-28. There was evidently a testimony in it for all the men of that day
I do not think that it could be said that the “wrath of God” is revealed in the gospel. The meaning of gospel is evidently ‘good news’. See Luke 2: 10 for the meaning of the word (which is better than any resort to a derivation from the old Anglo-Saxon words, god-spel). The apostle does not say that the wrath of God is revealed in the gospel. He says that “therein is the righteousness of God revealed”, Rom 1: 17. This is first to be declared, and it is all in man’s favour, clearly. It is “unto all and upon all them that believe”, see Rom 3: 22. Yet, though wrath is not a part of the gospel, it is revealed, and therefore it is a part of the testimony—that is, of the present testimony, which has to be testified, see Acts 20: 26, 27. If men will not have the one (righteousness) they will have the other (wrath). Hence the testimony is the voice of God, and addresses itself to all.
We see, I think, that the “testimony of God”, based on these two revelations of Romans 1, is more than the gospel. What is the reply (see 2 Tim 1: 8) when we ask ourselves, what is the testimony in our day? That is, what would God say by us to men?
No withholding of this part of the testimony—“wrath” —is found, so far as I see, in the ministry of the blessed Lord when Himself on earth, see Matthew 23, &c. It accompanies the most full and blessed invitations of grace, for man hears and chooses the love or the wrath.
We find this testimony, I think, in all the preachers in the Acts of the Apostles. In Paul’s writings continually—see especially what he says of wrath (2 Thess 1: 8, 9; 2: 5) to those Thessalonians who had heard the “gospel” from his own lips. I suppose that some had refused it. But those who did, heard from him when with them, what he here repeats, the story of “wrath”. For after speaking of the Lord’s vengeance in “flaming fire” on the rejecters of the gospel, he says, “Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” (See also Peter, James, John (Revelation) and Jude.)
The Corinthians had evidently received the “testimony of God” from the apostle Paul, 1 Cor 2: 1. His first preaching to the Greeks comes before us in Acts 17, 18. First, God’s testimony to idolaters in Athens, chap 17 is in a general way, that this unknown “God, will judge the habitable world in righteousness”, v 31. Then, to the Corinthians (chap 18: 4, 5), his reasoning with them begins in the synagogue, the testimony going farther, and involving both righteousness and wrath, or “the testimony of Christ”, 1 Cor 1: 6.
‘God’s love revealed below’ was seen in Christ here. The revelation and the testimony lay in Him. The testimony lay in what was revealed. Hence I think it could be said, He was the “testimony”, and, as I have said, there was the love, and the grace, but no hiding (in His ministry) of what must be the portion of those who rejected both. Paul speaks of the revelation of God’s Son in him, Gal 1. Hence his testimony. Could we say that our individual testimony now can go beyond this individual making good of the revelation in us? In Christ the testimony was co-extensive with the revelation. He says in reply to “Who art thou?” “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8: 25 NT. His testimony was perfect as the revelation was. Our testimony is, more or less, I think, defective, as the revelation in us is partial; but I see that what is revealed is the “testimony”, but also that only that which is “revealed”, or made good in us, is the (often defective) measure of our testimony. For it has to be made good in us first. I should like to know what others think of this matter. I think the “testimony of God”, and hence our testimony is, as I have said, wider than the gospel, and that wrath is one part of it. “Wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety, and unrighteousness of men”, Rom 1: 18 NT.
From Helps for the Poor of the Flock—vol 9, 1904
