AGAIN EPHESIANS BECOMES luminous: “Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds” (Eph. 4:17). This verse is instructive: “Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord”—in the Lord all our affirmations become testimonies. Outside the Lord you can affirm but you cannot testify. Outside Jesus all our affirmations are affirmations—the Word becomes word, but in Jesus all my affirmations become testimonies—the Word becomes flesh.
Affirmation says “that”—something outside me, but testimony says “this”—something inside me. Christianity has its “that”—the Jesus of history, but the Jesus of history becomes the Christ of experience—the “that” becomes “this.” The two are put together in the words of Peter on the day of Pentecost. “This is that”—this which they had found in the Holy Spirit was that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.
In the Epistle of 1 John the word “this” is found twenty-eight times. This Epistle was the last Epistle written, and it was filled with “this”—filled with the fact of Christianity as experience. Historical? Yes. Experiential? Yes. Both.
There are two kinds of reality—the reality of history and the reality of experience. Each can be proved to a very high degree of certainty. The highest degree of certainty, however, is where the reality of history becomes the reality of experience, where they both say the same thing, corroborate each other. When we are in Jesus Christ we have the highest certainty possible—the two kinds of reality dovetail and speak the same thing—in Jesus, the historical reality; in Christ, the experiential reality; in Jesus Christ, the glorious combination of the two.
So in preaching Jesus Christ we affirm the gospel as it was in Jesus and we testify to the gospel as it is in us. Affirmation and testimony are two sides of one reality.
O Jesus Christ, Thou art my message and my experience. Everything historically promised is experimentally verified. What certainty, what fire, what joy! I could find nothing more sure and more secure. I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall affirm only that which I have experienced—my preaching will be testimony.
