God’s testimony is that which sets forth His mind and will for His people, that to which the saints of God can turn at all times for light and guidance for their pathway. When Israel had turned away from God, the word of Jehovah through Isaiah was “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples” (Isa. 8:16). There was a remnant of Israel who valued God’s word when the mass turned away from Jehovah into idolatry and rebellion, and among them the testimony of God was bound up, and maintained for His pleasure. When the wicked sought to familiar spirits, the word of God was “Should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:19-20).
God’s Testimony for Israel
From Exodus 31:18, and other Scriptures, we learn what was God’s testimony for His earthly people Israel. On mount Sinai, God “gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him…two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” The lawyer who tempted Jesus, when asked by the Lord what was required of man in the law, answered “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself,” and Jesus said to him, “Thou hast answered right” (Luke 10:25–28). This was the word of the testimony as summed up in Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:4.
Alas, there was no one in Israel who ever obtained the life promised by the law, for no man was able to keep the righteous requirements it demanded from them. Still, there were those who valued the law, for although they had not the power to answer fully to all that was demanded, they loved the Lord, and sought to walk before Him in the light of His word. They were not blessed of God because they kept the law, but because their trust was in Him; and like Abraham, they were justified by faith.
The Ark of the Testimony
When Moses came down from the mount with the testimony in his hands, and saw the idolatry of the people, he cast the tables out of his hands and brake them at the foot of the mount. As having been with the Lord on the mount he knew what was becoming to this solemn situation, and with divinely given intelligence did not bring the tables into the camp, else it would have brought judgment upon all. At the command of the Lord, the renewed tables of stone were put into the ark which Moses made (Deut. 10:1–5), from thenceforth to be in the holiest while Israel rested, and in the ark with its coverings while Israel marched.
Christ, the true Ark of the Testimony, was the only One in whom there was a perfect answer to the demands of the law. He truly loved the Lord His God, and His neighbour as Himself. Whether viewed as Man in the holiest of all now, or as passing through the wilderness of this world, God finds delight in One who answered in every detail to what His law required.
The Testimony of the Son of God
Coming into the world, the Son of God bore testimony to what He had seen and heard with His Father, a testimony that brought with it the revelation of God, the manifestation of eternal life, and the declaration of the Father’s Name. There never had been heard in this world anything of this before; it was something entirely new, having its origin in the Father Himself, and being perfectly made known in His Only-begotten Son.
Regarding the One in whom the testimony came it is written, “He that comes from above is above all” (John 3:31-33). How great is the Person of God’s Son: He is above all. Whether we view Him in eternity, or as Man upon earth to do His Father’s will, or as exalted now at the Father’s right hand, it can be said, and repeated as in this verse, He is “above all.” Only One so great could bear the testimony He brought to earth from heaven.
How very solemn it is to read concerning the wonderful testimony borne by the Son, “and no man receives His testimony.” Such was the darkness in which man was, under the influence of the god of this world, that he refused the word spoken by the One whom God had sent. In spite of the rejection of the Son, it could yet be said, “He that has received His testimony has set to his seal that God is true” (3:33). Left to themselves none would have received the testimony of the Son, but God, in sovereign goodness, prepared a remnant to accept the wonderful tidings of the Son: and there are still those who are drawn to the Son by the Father to accept His testimony.
The Testimony of Christ
When the Apostle Paul went to Corinth he took with him the testimony of Christ that which is summed up in the opening verses of chapter 15 of his first epistle to the Corinthians, and especially in verses 3-4, “how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. It was the testimony of the Gospel of which Christ is the subject. Through believing this testimony of a Christ who died and rose again, the saints in Corinth had been saved; and all who have believed this testimony since that day have also received the salvation of God.
In 1 Corinthians 1:5–7 Paul refers to this testimony of which Christ is the theme. Having received the Gospel, there was the confirmation of the testimony in what God gave to the assembly at Corinth. God’s grace enriched them “in all utterance, and in all knowledge . . . so that they” came behind in no gift. The assembly was endowed by God with that which would bring edification, encouragement and comfort; and these things brought enrichment to the saints as they gathered together to the Name of the Lord. Gifts from God in the local assembly evinced that the testimony of Christ had been received as well as spoken to them by the Apostle.
The Testimony of God
That which is spoken of as the testimony of Christ in 1 Corinthians 1 is spoken of by Paul as “the testimony of God” in the following chapter, where the Apostle writes, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God” (verse 1). Christ was the subject of the testimony, but God was its source: it was what God sent to men concerning His Son; and what God sent did not require to be embellished with human eloquence, or presented with an appeal to human wisdom.
God’s testimony to the Corinthians, who delighted in the wisdom of man, presented Christ as crucified, that which seemed foolish to the natural man, so that their faith might stand in God’s power, not in man’s wisdom, things that the human senses could not take account of, but which were revealed by the Spirit of God, and received by those in whom the Spirit of God dwelt. Divine revelations were contained in this divine testimony, and the very words in which the testimony was communicated were inspired by the Spirit of God.
Another aspect of God’s testimony is given in 1 John 5, where the Spirit, and the water, and the blood unite to tell us of the greatness of the Person of God’s Son, and to tell us that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Men are responsible to accept this three-fold witness to Jesus, for to reject it is to make Him a liar, a most serous matter for the unbeliever who hears the testimony that God has given. Those indwelt by the Spirit of God have this divine testimony within them, for the Spirit witnesses to the glory of God’s Son in heaven, and to the work He wrought upon the cross.
The Present Testimony
Perhaps the better reading of 1 Timothy 2:5 is “For God is One.” The opening words of God’s testimony to Israel that were graved on the tables of stone were, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). Where men worshipped many gods, it was necessary to make known that there was but one God, the God of Israel, the creator of heaven and earth. In Christianity there was the declaration of the truth of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but they were One, even as the Son of God on earth said to the Jews, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
In the present testimony that God gives to men the Lord Jesus is presented as the “Mediator between God and men.” Jesus has come from God to make Him known as a Saviour God, and He is the only One in whom we can learn what God is, and what the thoughts of God concerning man are. There is no other mediator, whatever the pretension of those who would put themselves between God and men. It is a very solemn matter for those who bring in a priestly caste to keep men from the knowledge of God in the One Mediator, or to keep men from going to God who has made Himself known in the One Mediator.
It is the Man Christ Jesus who is the Mediator, for only by becoming Man could the Lord Jesus disclose what God is in His nature of love and in His desire to save men from their lost estate. Though never ceasing to be God, the Son of God is truly Man, One in whom is the fulness of Godhead and the perfection of manhood.
God’s disposition is seen in Christ Jesus giving Himself “a ransom for all” (verse 6). While upon earth, the Lord Jesus said, “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Here, in 1 Timothy, it is the scope of God’s testimony, and the availability of the work of Christ, for the ransom price that Christ has paid allows God to send His testimony to all men offering them His salvation and blessing. When the Lord spoke on earth He had before Him those who would accept the testimony sent from God, and would thus avail themselves of the divine blessing His work provided for them.
The Testimony of Our Lord
There was a time when the ark that held God’s testimony was in captivity, but it was for the humiliation of those who had taken it captive, for Dagon their god was humbled and broken before it, and they were plagued by the God whose testimony it was (1 Sam. 4, 5). When the true Ark of God was taken by men, and crucified and slain, it was for the overthrow of all the enemies of God’s people, of Satan and the power of death. When Paul was in prison, the special vessel of the testimony of the Lord, he could view himself, not as Nero’s prisoner, but as “the prisoner of the Lord” (2 Tim. 1:8; Eph. 4:4), for the Lord, in His wisdom, had allowed him to be in prison that His will might be done. We would never have had the wonderful prison epistles had not Paul been laid aside as “the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles” (Eph. 3:1).
Some were evidently ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, and of Paul, who, in a peculiar way, made known the truth committed specially to him for the Gentiles. If the testimony belonged to the Lord, and concerned the Lord, the Lord was quite well able to look after what was His. All power had been given to Him in heaven and on earth, and if He chose to lay aside His servant Paul it was because it suited His purpose, and would secure His will. They might bind the Lord’s servant if it was His will, “but the word of God is not bound” (2 Tim. 2:9), and it would accomplish what He sent it forth to do.
Timothy was exhorted not to be “ashamed of the testimony of our Lord,” or of the Apostle who had been so faithful in making it known Paul could also exhort his son in the faith to be a “partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel,” for he himself was at that time suffering for the testimony he bore. Weak in himself, Timothy could rely on the power of God to sustain him, the God “who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling…according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”
Paul and Timothy were among the special vessels that Christ chose to bear His testimony, but every saint of God has a part in this wondrous privilege. Of old, the Kohathites were called to bear the ark upon their shoulders, the ark which contained the testimony of the Lord; and like them we too are called to bear about the testimony of Him that gave Himself a ransom for all, and that tells of the eternal life that is in the Son of God for all who believe in Him.
The testimony of our Lord not only brought the Person of Jesus as Lord before men, but spoke of God’s great salvation, and of a divine call that belonged to the eternal purpose of God. The grace that is realised on believing the Gospel was also in God’s purpose for us before time began, but was manifested by the appearing of God’s Son in this world. John wrote of this grace coming in the Person of the Son, saying, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” It came in Christ’s Person, and His death upon the cross made it available to all men.
Entering into death, the Son of God annulled death, taking away its sting for those who believe in Him. Anticipating His great work, the Son of God could say while still on earth, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death” (John 8:51). Moreover, having come out of death, the Lord is able to send forth His servants with the testimony that “life and incorruptibility” have been brought to light. Eternal life is available in the risen Son of God for all who trust Him, and every believer shall soon have a body of glory like His body of glory, for “this corruptible must put on incorruptibility, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). What a wonderful testimony is the testimony of our Lord!
R. 1.2.68