3-2 Witnessing For Christ
Secondly, there is the matter of preaching. We are baptized into the Name of Jesus, and bear that Name in the eyes of men. The Hebrew concept of a name meant really a renown, an understanding of the person. The Bride comments that “thy name is as ointment poured forth” (Song 1:3), likening the name to the smell of perfume. The “scent” of a nation is likewise their reputation, the message they give out (Jer. 48:11; Hos. 14:7). We are the savour of Christ (2 Cor. 2:16), we bear His Name, and therefore anyone carrying the Name is thereby a witness to Him. “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye” (1 Pet. 4:14) uses ‘the name of Christ’ as meaning ‘preaching the name of Christ’. The two ideas are so closely related. In the course of this witness, men will ‘speak evil’ of us, and yet in doing so they are speaking evil of the Christ we are so identified with (1 Pet. 4:4,14). “For his name’s sake they went forth” in obedience to the preaching commission (3 Jn. 7). Because we bear the Lord’s Name by baptism into it, we are Christ to this world. Likewise, those in covenant relationship in the Old Testament bore Yahweh’s Name, and were therefore in all ways to act appropriately lest their behaviour “profane my holy name” (Lev. 22:32).
More than this, our faith will be strengthened by knowing that because we bear the Name, all that happens to us happens to our Lord and His Father. Thus Asa prayed: “Help us…in thy name we go against this multitude…let not man prevail against thee” (2 Chron. 14:11). It is absurd that man should prevail against God; and yet Asa believed that because His people carried His Name, therefore it was just as impossible that man should prevail against them. In the work of witness, OT prophecies about the Lord Jesus are applied to individual believers- Stephen is an early example (Zech. 12:7 LXX = Acts 8:1). The Lord’s death was to result in a unity between us that would lead the world to understand Him and the love the Father has for Him (Jn. 17:21,23); and yet through the loving unity of believers, the world knows them, that they are His disciples (Jn. 13:35). We are an exhibition to this world of the relationship between the Father and Son. Hence our behaviour is so crucial. For if we are divided and unloving, this is the image of the Father and Son which we are presenting.
1 Jn. 5:6 says that Jesus " came" [past tense] in water and blood [His baptism and crucifixion?], but He still testifies by three things-His Spirit [making alive the believer], the water [baptism cleansing us] and the blood [atoning for our sins]. The choice of 'three' things doesn't refer to a trinity- rather is it the principle of Dt. 19:15, requiring two or three witnesses. And note how inanimate things are spoken of as giving witness (Gen. 31:45-48; Dt. 31:28)- the three that bear witness don’t refer necessarily to three persons, as the trinity wrongly states. Those things which He enabled, witnessed through us today, provide the witness to the fact that He 'came' in the past.
The fact we are really and truly witnessing for Jesus, in His Name, doing His work, ought to endlessly inspire us to unflagging labour in this enterprise. We are to be “always abounding in the work of the Lord” Jesus, knowing it is never in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). And yet it is the work of preaching which has just been defined as not being in vain (:14); the more abounding labour is in the work of preaching (:10). Preaching is the work of the Lord Jesus in that He is working through us to do His saving work, and therefore we ought to be constantly active in His cause.
A related chain of thought arises from considering how the Lord Jesus is described as “finding” His people- the lost sheep, lost son, the idle workers in the marketplace (Mt. 20:6; Lk. 15:5,6,8,9); and yet He sends us out to “find” [s.w.] those who are to be invited into His Kingdom (Mt. 22:9), just as the disciples ‘found’ fish when they obeyed the Lord’s commission to fish (Jn. 21:6). We do the Lord’s work for Him in this sense. And yet of course people “find” the narrow way themselves, they “find” the treasure and pearl of the Gospel (Mt. 7:14; 13:44,46); but only because we have gone out and ‘found’ them. The Lord’s finding of us leads to us doing His work in finding others for Him and on His behalf. This Jesus “finds” Philip, and Philip’s response is to go and ‘find’ Nathanael (Jn. 1:43,45). And so it must be ours too.
Not only is His face our face, His hands our hands. His voice is our voice. Reflecting on how future generations of His people would preach Him, the Lord commented: “If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also” (Jn. 15:20). The command to all in Christ to go forth and preach-and-baptize (the command is all one) would have been shocking to a first century Jewish audience, who believed that only Messiah Himself or “the prophet” could baptize (Jn. 1:25). The implication of the Lord’s command was that all in Him are in fact Him, in their preaching of Him. In Old Testament times, God described His whole people as His anointed one, His Christ: “The Lord is a strength unto his people, and he is the saving strength of his anointed” (Ps. 28:8 RVmg.). The whole people were His anointed King, His Messiah, the anointed one. And so it is for all those today who are “in Christ”. Thus the prophecy about Christ personally that He would tread upon snakes and wild animals (Ps. 91:13) is quoted as being fulfilled in the disciples, who ‘were’ Christ on their preaching mission (Lk. 10:19; Mk. 16:18).
