Witness
Witness
The fifth mark of a Christian who “does” God’s Word is witness. For truth cannot be concealed or monopolized. If our eyes have been opened to receive it, we know ourselves under compulsion to pass it on. We are “those entrusted with the secret things of God” (1 Cor. 4:1), trustees of his secrets. Not only must we bear witness to the Christ we have come to know, but we cannot bear witness without this knowledge.
The words “witness” and “testimony” have been much devalued, and are sometimes employed to describe what is little more than an essay in religious autobiography. But Christian witness is witness to Christ. And the Christ to whom we have a responsibility to witness is not merely the Christ of our personal experience, but the historic Christ, the Christ of the apostolic testimony. There is no other Christ. So if Scripture leads to witness, witness also depends on Scripture.
The Bible, then, has an essential place in the life of a Christian. For the revelation of God leads to worship, the warnings of God to repentance, the promises of God to faith, the commands of God to obedience and the truth of God to witness. It is no exaggeration to say that without Scripture a Christian life is impossible. True, there are still many in the world who are illiterate, and cannot read the Bible. Others can read, but do not or not much, either because of their cultural background or because of the electronic revolution or because of some innate reluctance. Is a Christian life to be denied to them? No, of course not. If (for whatever reason) they do not read Scripture and meditate on it by themselves, I am bound to say I think they will be spiritually impoverished. But they can certainly receive God’s Word in other ways as I have indicated earlier—through sermons, though group study, through the mass media and through person-to-person communication.
Nevertheless, God’s Word is indispensable to us, by whatever means we receive it. Jesus himself put this beyond question when he quoted from Deuteronomy:
Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4)
God’s Word is as essential to us spiritually as food is to us physically. Both life and health are—quite literally—impossible without it. It is by his Word that God implants spiritual life within us (Jas. 1:21; 1 Pet. 1:23–25).It is by the same Word that he instructs, reforms, nourishes, encourages and strengthens us. It is truly by his Word alone that the man or woman of God grows into maturity and becomes “equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17).