Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 7)

  

“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.

 

We’ve seen that there are three aspects of “the word of their testimony”; that which Jesus Christ testifies about Himself, that which the Church has historically confessed about Jesus Christ – particularly as expressed in the Nicene Creed, and what we personally testify about Jesus Christ. While my “personal testimony” is important, it is important that it be faithful to Jesus’ testimony about Himself as contained in the entire Word of God, and that it also be faithful to what the Church has held to be the core of the Gospel and the truth about Jesus Christ, and which has fundamental expression in the Nicene Creed.

 

The creeds provide us an opportunity to catechize our people and to model clear Biblical thinking – thinking that is confident, sincere, orderly, and succinct. The creeds train us to do sound Biblical theology.

 

As we think about what we often term our “personal testimony,” I struggle with how best to approach the subject, because while I deeply hold to a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, and while I passionately believe that, in Christ, we are called into a koinonia (communion, fellowship) with the Trinity (the depths of which are beyond our comprehension), I also recognize that personal testimonies today are often far afield from the confession of Jesus Christ about Himself, and from the confession of the historic Church about Jesus Christ.

 

When I first came to know Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that the seed of the Word was planted in me and was working in me; however, I was anything but a cultivated plant, a plant being formed in a deliberate fashion; in many respects I was more a wild weed than a plant with purpose. Even though I came to know the Bible as a young adult, my knowing the Bible was more on my own terms than on God’s terms, I was more about the Bible submitting to me rather than submitting myself to the Word of God. I didn’t realize this at the time and I don’t pretend to understand all of the dynamics involved; I have often written and said that one of my great regrets, and I have many, is that I didn’t have older men to mentor me and help form me as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

 

Sadly, my “personal testimony” was all that seemed to matter to my first pastors and other adults when I came to know Jesus as a teenager. As I write this, I am reminded that in my last pastorate some people were surprised when I insisted on meeting with prospective members (along with other church leaders) to listen to them tell me about their relationship with Jesus Christ, including what they believed about Him. There were prospective members who were advanced in years who said, “Pastor, when I’ve joined churches in the past no one has ever had a conversation with me like this.”

 

Now I don’t want to offend anyone, because I know there are traditions in which you simply walk down the aisle to join a church, but I want to respectfully ask, “How can it be that no pastor or church leadership group ever had a dedicated discussion with these dear people, who were then in their 60s and 70s, about the nature of their faith in Jesus Christ? With all respect, I don’t see how this is responsible to Christ or to people. And let me sadly say, that I have known many dear people, well – advanced in age and who have been “in church” all their lives, who know little of the truth of the Nicene Creed and to whom the Bible is pretty much a sealed book.

 

A personal testimony not formed into the image of the Creed and the Bible can be a dangerous thing – dangerous to the individual and dangerous to others. In my own life I think there were times when I was more poison ivy than a fruit tree – because I was living what was supposed to be a Christian life of discipleship on my own terms, and while there may have been times I was a blessing to others, I was often a discredit to Christ and hurt others. All that mattered to my first pastors and churches was my personal testimony, it didn’t matter whether or not that testimony was being formed into the image of Jesus Christ. Practically speaking, this attitude may be less of a problem with people who tend to be conformists, but it is highly volatile with those who are accustomed to going their own way. (Naturally, it is still a problem with conformists which is why I write “practically speaking,” in other words, it may appear less of a problem on the surface, but it is still a problem, as my last pastorate illustrates).

 

When I write about my first pastors and the first churches I attended, I am simply making observations and I hold no ill will toward them, they were only doing what they had always done, they were only living in their particular church cultures. They certainly loved me and accepted me and made me feel welcome, and without that acceptance I have no idea the direction my life would have taken. They took the Bible seriously, and while they framed the Bible in the context of their denominational traditions, in this respect they were pretty much like all other denominations. 

As I was coming to know Christ, I first gravitated toward the denomination in which I was nominally raised, but when it became apparent to me that the Bible was not held in high regard, I was blessed to be introduced to the tradition in which I spent the first few years of my Christian life. I will always be thankful for those two pastors and churches – they did the best they could.

 

What is a testimony? What is a personal testimony? I am not sure that this is a simple question with a simple answer. Yes, at times it can be as simply reduced to Peter saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68 – 69).

 

But let me suggest that Peter and his fellow disciples came to this realization through a process and that the process was continuing. Later Peter would say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), and he would say this because the Father revealed it to him (Matt. 16:17); but even then, as we see in Matthew 16:21 – 23 and 26:69 – 75, Peter’s testimony was still in process.

 

If our personal testimonies carry with them the aspect of relationship with Jesus Christ; if an element of them is, “I know Him,” then let me ask if intimate relationships are simple – I have not found them to be simple, have you?

 

When I say, “Where else would I go? Jesus Christ alone has the words of eternal life,” I am making a statement based on years of experience and relationship with Jesus Christ in and through His Word, and in and through His Church. While I may have made this statement as a young Christian, and while I may have made it twenty or thirty years into my Christian life, it has a far more seasoned ring to it today, and I trust the seasoning will continue until I bow before Him face to face. “Where else would I go?” is not a slogan, it is not something to be degraded to a bumper sticker or put on a coffee mug, it is the ground of reality, the core of who I am in Christ – in this respect it is my testimony; it is the fruit of a relationship with Jesus Christ that is anything but simple, yes, it has fundamental “grounds” (think Nicene Creed), but it is not simple…no matter how simply stated it may be at times.

 

We’ll pick this up in the next post.