Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 6)

 

"And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

Continuing to consider “the word of their testimony,” we’ve seen that one aspect of this testimony is what Jesus Christ testifies about Himself in the Gospels and throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. His testimony about Himself must always be our testimony about Him – without deviation, without addition or subtraction, without mitigation.

 

The second aspect of “the word of their testimony” is the historic confession of the Church. What has the Church believed down through the ages as the core of the Gospel? What are the foundation stones of the Building which God is constructing (Ephesians 2:19 – 22; 1 Peter 2:4 – 10)? While what I believe is important to me and to my relationship with Jesus Christ, what I believe is of no serious importance to the world – but what the Church believes is of critical importance. It is the testimony of the Church that is critical to the world, not my testimony.

 

The third element of “the word of their testimony” is my own “personal” testimony, and while it is indeed important, is only important to the world as it is faithful to the testimony of Jesus Christ about Himself, and as it is faithful to the testimony to the Catholic Church (I use the term “Catholic” in its universal sense – and I use an upper case “C” because of the Church’s transcendence).

 

Why is it that with new professing Christians we are more concerned about their “personal testimony” than about them learning and understanding the testimony of Jesus Christ about Himself, and the testimony of the holy Catholic Church? Do we not see that in the Parable of the Sower it is those who “do not understand” who have the seed snatched away by the evil one? Do we not see that it is those who “have no root in themselves” who fall away? Is it not those who allow “the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” in whom the word is choked? (Matthew 13:18 – 23).

 

Do we not care that a “personal testimony” may be based on significant misunderstanding? Where do we get the idea that “this is my personal testimony and you can’t touch it, you can’t critique it, you can’t question it”? If our children were to come home from school and declare that 2 plus 2 equals 11, and that this is their experience and we can’t question it, how would we respond?

 

Most buildings have load-bearing walls, if these walls are destroyed or compromised, the building will fail. The testimony of Jesus Christ has load-bearing walls, the central and supporting elements of confession and doctrine, teaching and obedient behavior, that are foundationally essential to our life in Christ and participation the Biblical - Christian community.  If our personal testimonies do not rest on, and incorporate, Biblical load -bearing walls, eventually our lives, and the lives of our congregations, will experience failure. Structure failure is often incremental, manifesting itself via cracks, door frames out of square, or floors out of level. Incremental failure can lead to catastrophic failure.

 

There are times we may move into a house that has perfectly engineered load – bearing walls, but then we decide to cut through an interior wall to create a doorway, not realizing that the wall was load – bearing and that we have just compromised the structural integrity of our home. This is what can happen when teaching and behavior are brought into the church that is contrary to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. If we know and ponder the Nicene Creed, we will have a basic knowledge of the structural load-bearing system of the Testimony of Jesus Christ. Of course, this Testimony must become our testimony, and in this threefold testimony; what Jesus Christ testifies about Himself, what the Catholic Church testifies about Jesus Christ, and what we testify about Jesus Christ; we will overcome by the grace of God.

 

We’ll return to our “personal” testimony in the next post.