23.2 The True Witness
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14a). – By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established (2 Corinthians 13:1). – But you will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you, and you will be witnesses out from Me inside of Jerusalem and inside of all Judea and Samaria and until the furthest parts of the earth (Acts 1:8 – JSV).
Jesus was one witness. As a single witness, Jesus cannot be the evidence that God speaks the truth. A further witness, just like Jesus, through humans upon this earth is required. That second witness of Christ is Christ Community, the local Church.
As I See and Judge. Our commitment to walk together as the Body of Christ in each local place IS the only true witness of Jesus faithful and true, the very Proof that God is speaking the truth, that we are what God looks like.
Before we look further at how this is so, however, I want to place completely this judgment of God Himself called “the manifestation of the sons of God,” this refuge out from which we look to see all things. As I see you, so I see God. As I judge you, so I judge God. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new. Now all things are of God (2 Corinthians 5). We do not discount human perfidy, yet we see it dead upon the cross, and we see God in kindness through all things.
Prior Statements. I have made two specific statements regarding this phenomenon called “the unveiling of the sons of God.” First, I have stated that the one difference between us right now and them in full glory is that they believe that God speaks the truth while we do not. And in believing that God speaks the truth, they see all things inside of Christ, carried by a Shepherding Father. They see God revealing Himself through every person coming their way.
Second, I have stated that the greatest grief that the true sons of God will carry is all the pretend “manifest sons” who are given power to express the full measure of the arrogant Christ. Yet we see even them carried inside of Jesus.
The Greatest Shock. I made these statements in the past because I sensed them to be true. Now, I am coming to know exactly how they are true.
Here is another similar statement I made out from the same sense of knowing. I have stated that the greatest shock heaven will know is watching the Christian Church rejecting the second appearance of Jesus and “putting Christ to death” as He reveals Himself again. Most will reject Jesus because they “KNOW” that God does NOT look like a man or a woman, a human who is one of them. Yet we are saying that the revelation of Jesus Christ is not a bunch of individuals, but a family of people walking together.
What Is the Real Proof? What, then, is the real proof of Christ? What piece of overwhelming evidence silences forever the echo of the serpent, “Did God indeed say?”
Then, let’s turn this question around. What is the testimony that convinces everyone that Jesus is the Christ? And what persuasion convinces all to receive Jesus as their own life, starting with God’s precious people who imagine they have a life of their own? Everywhere you look, Christians are declaring that the “witness of Christ” is to tell people to accept, in one way or another, God’s program (grace or works) so that they can “go to” heaven after they die.
The Expression of Father. All authority inside of heaven and upon earth has been given to Me. Having gone [through] {into the Holiest} therefore, disciple all the peoples, immersing them into the name of the Father and [into the name] of the Son and [into the name] of the Holy Spirit {which is “New Jerusalem”} (Matthew 28:18-19 – JSV).
Jesus is not giving to us a program of “conversion” into Nicene Christianity; rather, He is giving us to the expression of the Kingdom, the ecosystem of Father arising on this planet. No one can become what they do not see. If Salvation, the final end goal and consummation of all the desire and work of God, is the Church, that is, being a member of the Body of God, then how can anyone be immersed into such knowledge if it does not exist in the lives of those who call themselves “Christians?”
One Thing Only. An individual person, standing behind a podium, either haranguing or pleading with or inviting lost sinners to “repent” CANNOT be the witness of Christ. Christ is simply not in view. Certainly, Jesus uses anything and everything to open hearts to His knowledge, but dunking someone under water is not immersing them into the name of the Father.
Let me get at what I am getting at. The witness of Christ is one thing only – a family of people, walking together through the daily joys and difficulties of human life on this planet, loving one another with a pure heart fervently. The witness of Christ is a miracle.
Immersed into Name. When people see, with their own eyes, inside their own present experience, this impossible miracle continuing day after day, they will become convinced, bit by bit, that God is not known by the serpent, but by humans. And the day will come when they will recognize and know that God lives inside their hearts and reveals Himself to all as and through them as they are real.
That last sentence is what being immersed into the name of Father means. How can Christians who have never been immersed into the name of Father and who don’t even believe in such a thing, then turn and fulfill “the great commission?”
Face and Name. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads (Revelation 22:4). To “see His face” and “His name on our foreheads” are two ways of saying the same thing. The forehead is the place of seeing; the forehead is the frontal position of the human person.
To have the cover removed from my eyes (the unveiling) means that I now see you together as the face of my Father, because I see you together through my Father’s eyes, that is, my Father’s name. And thus we together are immersed into Father’s name. This is the unveiling of the sons of God.
Glorious Liberty. “The glorious liberty of the sons of God” is NOT an achievement, but the surrender of acceptance that God is, in fact, together with me and through all of my humanity, revealing Himself to others. And “love one another” is simply the natural expression of that same surrender of acceptance that God is, in fact, together with you and through all of your humanity, revealing Himself to me.
Assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Matthew 13:35b). When your face is Jesus to me, that is when I see Jesus as He is.
What Would You See? Christian Community, as God means Church to be, is the only proof of Christ.
Consider your present Christian life. Does the world, seeing you living as an isolated Christian, holding your fellow believers at “arm’s length,” become convinced that God sent Jesus into the world? Yet there have been many “Christian Communities” through the centuries. If I were to take you to any or all of those expressions of Church, would you see a people who (a) loved one another with a pure heart fervently, and (b) knew that Father was revealing Himself through their humanity and through all their interactions together?
Judging God. If the Church does not believe in Jesus, how can the world?
That they all might be one, as You, Father, are inside of Me, and I inside of You; that they also might be one inside of Us, that the cosmos might believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they might be one just as We are one: I inside of them, and You inside of Me; that they might be perfected [brought to full completion] inside of one, and that the cosmos might know that You have sent Me, and have loved them just exactly as You have loved Me (John 17:21-23 – JSV).
These words are not a setting forth of “achievement,” but a simple statement of fact. But they are true for us ONLY as we, as the judge over God, chose to know that they are true.
A Reciprocal Mercy Seat. Here is the proof of Christ. You and me, walking together in all the press of daily life, offending each other and being offended by each other, yet in every contention and in every celebration, seeing the face of Jesus in one another’s face (even in the midst of personal hurt) and seeing only Father in ALL of our interactions together.
And this revelation of God-as-He-is comes through one place only – the Mercy Seat as our own hearts towards one another, a reciprocal and continuous Mercy Seat.
Here is the judgment. “God, I know that what You say is the only thing true. God, You speak the truth. God, my own heart IS the intense and ferocious love by which You love Jesus.”
Gethsemane. How can the world ever see what Christians themselves refuse to see? How can the world ever believe what Christians themselves refuse to believe?
Let it be, let it be, as I say to you. If a grain of wheat, having fallen into the ground, should not die, it remains alone. If, however, it should die {that is, become another form, the plant}, much fruit {many more seeds just like itself} it continuously and actively bears [carries or brings forth] (John 12:34 – JSV). The plant is Christianity as it has been these last two thousand years; the many seeds is Christ Community as I have described in this text on life together. The transition point is called Gethsemane.
Silencing All Accusation. Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, and may overcome when You are judged” (Romans 3:4).
All the darkness of the heavens, all the accusations bouncing back and forth inside of hades, all the unsatisfied lusts of gehenna, all the mockery of the unregenerate, all the superior hatred of the Judaics, all the unbelief of Christians, all the refusal to enter in of those who appear to “draw near,” all of it SCREAMS: “God, You lie! God, You lie. God, You LIE!”
By one action alone every accusation against God is forever silenced. – You and me saying together, “Let us be together as You say, oh Father.” – Love one another – God speaks the truth.
A Universe of Life. The purpose of this shorter lesson, then, is to place the many Christ Communities, the many seeds that are the Lord Jesus Christ in Person in us together, scattered all across this earth, as the full and final witness of Jesus faithful and true, the testimony to all that God speaks the truth. Then, in the next lesson, we want to discover how the Kingdom of God flows out from these Communities of simple humans, you and me, loving one another through all difficulty and offense.
Christian Community is the source out from which the knowledge of God flows, first to all who believe in Jesus at some level, and then to all creation.
By our life together, an entire universe of LIFE is formed.