Witnessing - Key Texts #1

There seem to be seven key texts concerning Christian witness or testimony. Let’s take a closer look at each.

                1.    Luke 24:48

In this passage, the risen Jesus tells His disciples, “You are witnesses of these things.” We believe this passage includes us today. Witnesses of what? The context is of Jesus coming upon His frightened friends and having to prove to them (again) that He is not a ghost. Then he “opens their minds concerning Scripture,” (verse 45), and tells them:

“Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Verses 47-49

What were they witnesses of? His suffering, death, and resurrection. Repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name. The “promise of My Father” is clearly the Holy Spirit, which Jesus had promised several times before His death, but first there is a necessary retreat. They are to stay in the city until they “are clothed with power from on high.”

Are we witnesses to His sufferings and death? Only second-hand ones. Our testimony would not stand in a court of law. “Hearsay,” the judge would say. But what about repentance and forgiveness? What about His resurrection? Are we witnesses to these?

It is entirely possible—indeed, essential—for a Christian today to be a personal witness of the resurrection power of Jesus. Yet far too many of us are not. We are still only hearsay witnesses. Our friend said it. Our mother and father told us. Our pastor preaches about it. We trust all these people; they are faithful witnesses. Surely they speak the truth. And so we go and tell others what we believe to be true, and are discouraged by the results. We’ve missed a step, perhaps two. Have we truly taken a good look at our lives, repented, and become personally acquainted with God’s unlimited forgiveness? If so, we most assuredly have something to share, something that tends to overflow in direct proportion to the amount of forgiveness we’ve received. (“She was forgiven much, so she loves much,” Jesus said about the repentant woman at His feet. See Luke 7:47.)

Once this miracle has happened in our lives, there is still another step before we are as powerful witnesses as God wants us to be. We must wait to be “clothed with power from on high.”

We know the disciples had only ten more days to wait. But there is no indication they knew that. “Wait,” said Jesus. So they did. Did they ask each other what it might mean to be clothed with heavenly power, and how they would know when they were?

When it happened, they knew.

And they immediately began a) telling the story of the suffering, death, and resurrection they had seen, and b) proclaiming forgiveness. Peter’s first sermon, on Pentecost Sunday, was about God’s grace and mercy. (Acts 2:22, 38, 39)

Do we wait until we are clothed with power from on high? Or do we rush out to perform the next New Method?