"This is the Testimony"

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 4 - The Testimony of Jesus

"And He said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!... And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself... And He said unto them, These are My words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning Me" (Luke 24:25,27,44).

Well, that is the testimony of Jesus in Moses and all the prophets, covering the whole of the Old Testament. That is what it amounts to.

We are going to confine ourselves now to one fragment of that, and if you like, you can have Exodus 25 open. I am not going to read any of it, perhaps not quote any of it, but it is going to be at the back of our consideration. You know it is the point at which the Lord gave commandment about bringing all the materials and the making of the tabernacle. The word 'testimony' occurs repeatedly in two connections with the tabernacle. The tabernacle itself was called 'the tabernacle of testimony'; and the ark (the central thing in the whole tabernacle) was called 'the ark of testimony'. So, very simply, we are able to see that testimony is very much bound up with the tabernacle. It is that which has to do with the testimony of which John speaks, and of what is here in Luke 24.

It is interesting, just by the way, to note that in the Roman letter alone, this forty-fourth verse of Luke 24 is verified by some forty Old Testament references, verifying Christ in Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets. How much more there is referred to in the New Testament is a very profitable line of investigation.

Well, then, we have in figure the testimony of Jesus in the tabernacle constructed by Israel on the instructions given to Moses. There are several inclusive facts about that which we want to get hold of.

Now I am assuming that you are anxious to know what the Christian life really is - if I say what the testimony of Jesus is, that may be vague to some of you, but it is the same thing - the Christian life and the testimony of Jesus are one thing. Do not think of the testimony of Jesus as something further on in the Christian life, some kind of side-show to the Christian life, some extra thing. It is nothing of the kind. The Christian life is the testimony of Jesus, and the testimony of Jesus is the Christian life. They are one and the same thing. But I am taking it that you are really wanting to know what a Christian is and what is the nature of our lives when we belong to the Lord. That is very simple, and I want to help you as the Lord helps me in this matter.

This tabernacle of testimony (which is a very comprehensive system, every detail, even the smallest, of which points to the Lord Jesus) this testimony of Jesus, as so symbolically and typically presented, was central and all-governing to the life of God's people. It governed everything in the life of God's people; it was the very centre of their life. What is right at the heart of the Lord's people being His people? It is the testimony of Jesus. It is not just coming into another religion called Christianity. It is not just adopting a certain Christian system and order of things. It is, in other words, what the Lord Jesus is as right at the heart and centre of everything, to govern every phase and aspect of our lives. There [in the tabernacle] it had to be put right down in the middle, and they were grouped around it, and everything that they did was governed by that central thing. That may seem elementary, but it is not only elementary.

The Testimony the Explanation of the Existence of the Lord's People

First of all, this testimony of Jesus can be said to explain their very existence as the Lord's people. Why had they been taken from among the other nations of the world, distinguished by God and separated? And in such a wonderful way - with such mighty power exercised by God, with such thoroughness and utterness and precision brought out and made God's peculiar people - that is, people peculiarly God's. It was for the testimony of Jesus, that is all that they should represent: in the midst of everything on earth and in the heavens:- Jesus Christ. It explains their existence. Their existence cannot be explained along any other line, and what is here in the Old Testament as type and figure is to be a prophecy, as we have seen previously: a pointing on to something yet to be, and we are that something yet to be.

Christ has come, not in figure, type, symbol now, but in reality, and He has constituted a people in relation to Himself, and they become the one vessel of the testimony of Jesus. He is right at the centre, and the explanation of the very existence of any true Christian is this - Jesus. Our existence rests upon that, and of course it at once determines whether we are Christians or not. Is the Lord Jesus recognised, identified, seen, present, active, living, glorious, because we are alive? Is it possible for others to recognise the Lord Jesus, to see what He is like, what He means, what He implies, what is in Him, because we have an existence? Our very existence as Christians is based upon this: that right at the very heart of our very being as the Lord's people is the testimony of Jesus. It explains the existence of Israel; it explains our existence.

The Testimony in Every Phase of Life

Note, next they had to arrange all their affairs in relation to the testimony. And that is not so elementary as it sounds. They had to arrange their dwelling. I wonder if, when you are looking for a new house, your first thought is: how is this going to further the Lord's interests? First of all, before anything else, what bearing has this on the testimony of Jesus? They had to arrange their very dwellings in relation to the testimony, to the tabernacle. They were grouped around it and the position was quite definitely prescribed as to that central object.

And all their affairs had to be arranged with this one consideration: how does that bear upon the testimony of Jesus? Oh, it would be a tremendous thing if we always stopped and thought: "Now, God is disposing of me and in His disposition He appoints that I should be here or there, in this or that occupation." There is sovereignty in the disposing of my life if it is really in God's hands. If I have been baptised into Christ, there is a sovereign hand, things are not taking a course without control, this is no mere accident: there is something in my being where I am. Now then, evidently in God's disposing of me, there is something of the interest of His Son involved, and I have to adjust myself to the testimony of Jesus. I may be in this capacity or that, this profession or that, I may be in this country or that, I may be in all the countries, I may be anywhere, anything, under the directing, governing hand of God which disposes of me and says, "This, for the time being is My will for you". My first attitude should be this: "Well then, the Lord has something concerning the Lord Jesus in this, I must adjust myself to that". That is simple, that the testimony of Jesus is the explanation firstly of our existence, and then of the order of our lives sovereignly and our adjustment to the sovereign ordering, arranging everything according to the testimony, letting it be the governing consideration.

How much time is lost, how much of life is wasted, how much is unfruitful because we have not squared down on this and faced up to it and said, "Now then, God has some purpose concerning His Son in my being how I am and where I am. Since I have put my life into His hands and have not rebelled against His will, not taken my life out of His hands into my own, since I am His, He has something for His Son". The testimony of Jesus in every phase of my life - that is the thing I am to look for, that is the thing to which I must adjust.

The Testimony to Govern Movement

Then, in the third place, all their movements were governed by the testimony. When God wanted them to move, He commenced with the tabernacle of testimony; the ark of the testimony went before and then came all those Levites with the various parts of the tabernacle. And their movement, the next phase, was governed by the testimony, and the phase after that was governed by the consideration of testimony. God would govern our lives as to movements with this one [thing]: the interest of His Son always, and the progressive and ever-developing interest of His Son. It is a forward movement that God has in mind, and every movement is governed by that. If you and I are so bound up with the Lord Jesus, so bound up with the testimony of Jesus, then God, Who always acts in the interests of His Son, can get us moving, can get us going on. Sometimes His changes of position may be very strange and not what we would have chosen, not what Israel would have chosen; but at every place He has something concerning His Son for us to enter into and for Him to show forth through us.

All this is one tremendous appeal, for the Christian life is this: that we and Christ are one. The testimony of Jesus is in us and we are in it, and it governs all considerations and all interests. And the one thing which is always uppermost and foremost in our thought, our consideration, our desire and our determination, is that where we are and what we are and how we live and how we work and what we do shall bear firstly and immediately upon the interests of the Lord Jesus. If that were so, God could do anything! You have that in the New Testament in a marvellous way spiritually.

You can get a Stephen, and it is only putting this in another way to say that Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit. It simply means that Stephen was utterly the Lord's; the Lord could do as He liked with Stephen. Stephen has only one interest in life - the testimony of Jesus. He is a young man utterly at the Lord's disposal, and God can make that young man the instrument of bringing into this world the greatest instrument, apart from His Son, that He has ever had for Divine purpose: the apostle Paul. He has Philip, also utterly concerned with the testimony of Jesus, and so the Lord can move that young man in such ways as to touch tremendously far-reaching interests of His by a single contact.

You must remember that it was not just automatic. Philip could have argued, and he had plenty of arguments if he had wanted to argue, "Here is a great work in Samaria, and the Lord said when He commissioned at the beginning: 'all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth' (Acts 1:8); and I am here in Samaria. That is the Lord's commission, I am right there where the Lord said we should be and things are happening. Now the Lord says I am to clear out of Samaria where things are happening and go to a desert?" What do you expect to find in a desert?! He could have argued, but he was so concerned with the testimony of Jesus, the Lord could do anything with him. He got himself to the desert, the unpropitious place, the unpromising place where naturally it would be nothing. He made a contact: we do not know all that that contact meant, but we can take it for granted that if the Holy Spirit has put something in the Bible to survive two thousand years and be of value right through two thousand years, there is something in it; it was not just an incident in apostolic times. There is something of tremendous spiritual meaning in that.

So the book of Acts is just this: God had people, men and women, young men, young women, who had no other interest beyond or before the testimony of Jesus. He could do things. They were governed by this, and God could move them to great purpose. That is central and all-governing.

The Testimony a Pattern of Heavenly and Spiritual Things

The second thing here is this: the testimony was a pattern of heavenly and spiritual things. The Lord Jesus, when He was asked for principles of prayer (I do not believe He was asked for or ever gave a model prayer, rather He was asked for principles of prayer: what are the laws of prayer, what are we to pray about, how are we to pray) He included this clause: "Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth." Take that "as in heaven". There is something going on in heaven, some order of things in heaven, there is some shape of things in heaven, there is some kind of procedure in heaven, there is some nature of things in heaven. May that be repeated here, may that be here as it is there: as in heaven so on earth.

When the apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, he came to what is in our arrangement chapter 15, that part of the letter where he is pointing to the resurrection and the glorifying. And he used this phrase - "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly" - "as in heaven, so on earth". "As is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly." There is a heavenly order, a heavenly system, a heavenly set of spiritual principles, and this tabernacle was an earthly, typical setting forth or representation of heavenly spiritual things, that heavenly set of things which is no longer in type but in reality. Christianity, the Christian life, is a heavenly thing lived here on this earth; that is all.

Life Initiated, Sustained and Consummated From Heaven

And when you look at the tabernacle to see what that means, there are quite a number of things, but among them is this: there is this question of a real fellowship with God. That is the first thing which arises with the tabernacle - fellowship with God.

In heaven fellowship with God is absolute, there is no interference there. Oh, how we long for the ceasing of the interference of things here with our fellowship with God. In heaven there is no interference at all, nothing at all to limit, hinder, get in the way, come between, mar, spoil, overshadow - nothing whatever which belongs to this world. It is glorious, heavenly, free, full, unquestioned fellowship with God. It is one of the primary things brought into view with the tabernacle.

Now, what the testimony says then, is this, that there is a life which we are called to live and to have which is altogether outside of this world. Now, that may sound very difficult, but let me say again, that is not extra to the Christian life; that is the Christian life.

By our new birth, we receive a Life which does not have its spring or source here in this world at all. Its spring and its source is in heaven. It is a heavenly Life in its very origin and nature, and it is that Life come down from heaven and put in us. We receive it; and then, not only in the origin of our being as children of God, but in the continuance here, we are living on and by and in a heavenly Life, a Life which is outside of this world. Everything of our understanding of the Lord Jesus hangs upon this.

You know what we have been saying in these messages: "As He is, so are we in this world." He came to represent in Himself what a Christian is. He is the Christian, the model Christian, the example, and He in Himself here on this earth in incarnation just shows us what a Christian is.

He said some strange things which get us into an awful mess if we try to deal with them in our own mental power. He talked about Himself being here in the world and at the same time being in heaven, and He is talking on the earth. How can you be in two places at once, and so far apart as heaven and earth? Well, that is the mystery, it may sound like a mystery, but this is what He meant, "I am here, it is true, but I am living by a Life that is altogether outside of this world. My life does not come from this world, does not belong to this world, it is another Life, and because I have that Life, I, by the very nature of My being constituted by that Life, I am really in heaven all the time". Perhaps you know what it is to live somewhere else than the place where you are; in your home, your native place that is your life, and while you are going on here, and doing your job, all the time you are there, the thought of that, the strength of that is bearing you up and carrying you on. That is a feeble illustration.

The Christian life is basically this: living by and in and on a Life which is altogether outside of this world. That was Israel's difficulty in the wilderness - to live on a life outside of this world. They were always harking back to Egypt. That was solid ground, at any rate, you could be sure of things there, see things, handle things, things were real there; that is, when you talk naturally, according to natural senses. Out here, well, you have to live by faith all the time. Yes, that is just it, it is another life outside of this world.

God had seen to it that they were clean cut off from that world; His demand was that not a hoof should be left in Egypt. The principle is that your life is not to be drawn, not for one breath, from Egypt. It is another life altogether. That may seem to make the Christian life complicated and difficult, but thousands, millions, since the Lord Jesus was here, have lived that life and are living it today, and are quite satisfied to live it and quite happy to live it. It is a great reality, one of the wonders, if only you look at the thing from another standpoint.

The Israelites looked at it from the negative standpoint, "How difficult, how complicated, this life is, how uncertain this life is!" If only they had taken another standpoint - "This life is a romance! You do not know what is going to happen, but all sorts of things turn up". Is that not true to the experience of many of us? Do we not look back on our Christian life and see that we have not drawn anything from this world, but the Lord came in in amazing ways. When we have been at Wit's End Corner, we have met the wonders of the Lord, it can only be attributed to the Lord. That is the testimony of Jesus. You see, He lived out from heaven. "As He is, so are we in this world" - living by a heavenly Life. If you do not understand it, that is the fact. You have got to get on to that basis to be a Christian.

How this carves up what is called Christianity today, it dismisses a vast amount and says: Christianity is a living out from heaven upon another Life which has nothing to do with this world. It is a Life which is sustained from heaven. They went through the wilderness, year after year, decade after decade, living not on the wilderness - no ploughing or sowing was any good in the wilderness - all had to come from above, but they were sustained. They could have been sustained very much more than they were if only they had taken the right standpoint. If they had not murmured and complained, they would have made it possible for the Lord to do so much more for them. "How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel" (Psa. 78:40-41 AV). Nevertheless, poor as their reaction to the Lord and apprehension of the principle of their new life was, they were sustained from heaven.

Now the Lord Jesus says, "I am the bread which came down out of heaven" (John 6:51). I am; you are called to live a life out from heaven now, I can sustain you". The testimony of Jesus will be that although you may not have the dainties from Nebuchadnezzar's table, nor the wine, you will flourish very much and you are better off. That is the testimony of Jesus. I do believe that we have to lay hold of this testimony of Jesus. Too many of us have got miserable faces about our Christianity; we are not fat and flourishing. We have got to give the Lord a better chance by better faith in Him. He can sustain from heaven when there is nothing here at all.

It was not only initiated and sustained, but consummated from heaven. It was brought to its full development from heaven. You see them passing over Jordan, going into the land and possessing, coming into fulness of life in type. The type always falls short of the reality, but God can consummate this life just as well as He can initiate it. He can see us through to His full thought without any resources here; He can get us right through gloriously, out from heaven. That is the Christian life, that is the testimony of Jesus. If these things are not true, then Jesus has no meaning at all. The testimony then, is that in Christ and by Christ we have a life that is outside of this world, and that Life is constantly supplied and sustained from outside of this world, and that Life will be perfected outside of this world. Simple, very testing, but gloriously true.

Take the Lord Jesus as the example. He did live by another life, and He did go right through this life as sustained from heaven, and He did ultimately triumph and enter into glory, not by any help from this world at all, but in spite of this world's opposition. He went through and triumphed gloriously as out from heaven. That is the Christian life.

The Testimony Expressed Corporately

My final word concerning this testimony as represented by the tabernacle is this: the testimony was expressed corporately. That is perhaps the greatest test of the testimony, it has proved to be so from the beginning. For one thing - and it is not a small thing - if there is anything that satan hates more than a corporate testimony, I do not know what it is. The testimony of Jesus was expressed corporately, and if you want to see what I mean by that, let us look at it very simply.

There were times, not only once or twice, but there were times when the whole life of God's people was held up because of one person, or because of a little clique. The whole life, the whole progress was held up; the whole testimony was in suspense because of one person. That is terrible, but God has His ways of showing that His principles are very real principles. When God is setting forth His truth foundationally, He sets it forth very emphatically, He leaves you no doubt about it.

If Aaron and Miriam in a corner begin to quietly smoke, there is going to be a conflagration (that is, a great and destructive fire, in the figurative sense here) presently in all Israel. If Dathan and Abiram and their company get into a quiet place over there where they think no one sees or hears what is going on, and they begin a kind of conspiracy, it is going to affect the whole life of Israel. And it is going to be dealt with on a corporate basis so that all Israel learns the lesson that no one can live unto himself, no one can die unto himself, no one can sin unto himself. If Achan, one in all the house of Israel, just takes the forbidden thing and hides it in his tent and covers it over, it is not very long before all Israel are gathered round Achan. God had His way of doing this and finding it out. "Israel hath sinned" (Joshua 7:11). Achan had sinned. "No, Israel has sinned; I do not look at individuals, I look at the whole". All Israel is held up in defeat at Ai, and then by the Divine process God says, "Bring your tribes, take a tribe, take the families, and then just sift it down to the last man", and the last man was Achan. Look at Him starting with all the tribes of Israel and working down till He got one man. You have many thousands in Israel, but it all comes down to one man, and upon that one man Israel is held up and until that one man's sin is dealt with, Israel cannot live. I say that God, when He first of all lays down His principles, does it very vividly so that you can see for all time. That is the dark side of the thing.

You can take it on the other side, the light side, that one man's faithfulness so often meant a great deal to all Israel. But the point is this, that this testimony, from God's standpoint, can only be fully expressed corporately. There must be a right relationship between His people. Nothing can be covered that shall not be made manifest. It may not be that that sin will be brought out and named and declared publicly, but there is a very much more effective way of declaring it than that. It will bring all the Lord's people who are connected with that under arrest, a sense will come into the atmosphere that something has gone wrong, the Lord is not going on with us, we are stuck; what is the matter? Then there has to be heart-searching and someone presently will have to say, "Yes, I have been criticising, we have been so-and-so, and the Lord is convicting us." The Lord abides by His basic law. But that is one side again.

Oh, the values of this! You cannot be an individual isolated anywhere in this world if you are really apprehending the testimony of Jesus; you have all the values of the whole church right there at your disposal. You can stand into the active practical values of all the prayer and all the praise of the Body of Christ and it will work. Christ is one; it is not so many people. The Body of Christ is one from a heavenly standpoint. If only when we went out into the world and knew geographical and physical isolation, loneliness, wherever we are, that we were standing into the good of the testimony of Jesus, we should find tremendous support coming to us. And if we could only read the hidden explanation of it, we should know that Christ is putting to our account all the spiritual values of His people, all the values of their prayer. Some of us have proved it to be like that. What we owe - when laid aside, cut off, isolated physically, in great need - to the tremendous power coming to our help because of the Lord's people praying... maybe at a great distance! Why, the probability is that some of us would not be alive today but for that very fact. The Lord has taught us the value of that, so that we do, definitely and deliberately, take the values that are ours in the people of God, and we find it works.

The testimony of a heavenly Life in its origin comes corporately. What does that mean? God's means, God's instrument of bringing souls to birth is the Church. If that were more recognised, there would be a great deal more happening in this world in the salvation of souls. What is needed is a corporate impact of Christ upon this world, and satan is keeping many souls in bondage and defeating the Gospel tremendously by first of all dividing up the church, getting inward disintegration and weakening its impact, because the Church is none other than Christ. One cannot say it with greater emphasis - you are not Christ as an individual. Christ and His Body the Church are identical in Divine effect and power, and the more corporate is the expression, the greater measure of power and the mightier the impact upon the kingdom of satan to wrench away souls from his grasp and mastery in the initiation of this heavenly life. It will become far more effective and full by a corporate movement, through action that is organic, not organised.

Oh, how much more is done in a corporate way than by living on your own as so many individuals. And, blessed be God, we are not going to be translated and glorified one by one, we are going to be glorified together with Him (Eph. 2:5-6). That word 'together' there does not mean in union with Him, it means in union with one another in Him, glorified together in Him. It is going to be a collective glorification. God's thought is collective from first to last. The testimony of Jesus is most fully realized there. This is the testimony, or this is the Christian life. May the Lord teach us and lead us into it.