In response to the disciples’ troubled hearts over Christ’s announced departure, He promised an ongoing divine presence through the indwelling Spirit. He also announced the provision the Spirit would make in the future by leading them into all truth. Jesus then turned to the matter of the disciples being His witnesses.
Effective witnessing for Christ is a partnership between the Holy Spirit and believers. Clearly, Jesus expected His early followers to be His witnesses. Equally clear is the fact that He expects His current followers to be His witnesses. What He knew we must know: Christian witnessing is indeed a divine-human partnership. This is the central focus of the third Paraclete passage, which we find in John 15:26–27.
From the moment of our conversion and public identification with Christ, we are witnesses. The only option is what kind of witnesses we are: poor, inconsistent, impotent and inaccurate — or authentic, powerful, winsome and believable. Our witness consists of the persons we are as well as the words we speak.
Manner of life
Knowing that being an effective witness involves both our verbal witness and our manner of life, we dare not offer a verbal witness while our own manner of life declares to others: “Come to Christ and be miserable like me, or cranky like me, or sour like me, or joyless like me, or impatient like me, or arrogant like me, or sharp-tongued like me, or quarrelsome like me or spiteful like me.”
The point of the third Paraclete passage is that we are not alone in the assignment of being Christ’s witnesses. Our divine partner is the Spirit of truth who through us also testifies of Christ (John 15:26).
When those early disciples of Christ moved out into public places as His witnesses, people marveled at them and realized that they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). They had a story to tell because they had been with the One who was the main character in and author of the story.
Those early witnesses were keenly aware of the divine partnership they enjoyed, declaring on one occasion concerning their testimony about Jesus, “We are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32).
Like the hymn declares, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations.” We have a witness to live out daily, and we must do it in partnership with the Paraclete, the indwelling Spirit of God.
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