As believers in Christ we are His witnesses on earth, and just like the early disciples, we are witnesses of the resurrected Christ.
What does it mean to be a witness? According to the New Testament, the meaning of a witness is primarily to bear a living testimony of Jesus Christ in His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
This is what the early disciples did – wherever they went and whatever they did they testified of Christ as the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended One. This is what we should do today.
We may say that we didn’t physically see the Lord Jesus, for He may have not appeared to us as He did to Peter, James, John, and even Paul. But as we receive the gospel and open to the Lord from our heart, the Lord appears to us spiritually, in our spirit, and we receive Him as our life and Savior.
The more we read the Bible with a prayerful attitude, the more we pray and open to the Lord, the more we call on the name of the Lord, the more we read the ministry, and the more we meet with the saints, the more Lord becomes real to us, He appears to us, and we become His witnesses.
The early disciples didn’t invent something that they taught, and they didn’t just preach or teach. They simply attested to what they have seen, they confirmed what they have witnessed.
We may not be articulate or eloquent, and we may not be a good speaker, but when we see the Lord, we cannot but speak about Him and be witnesses of the resurrected Christ.
But if we don’t see Christ and we don’t have His fresh appearing, even though we may be a good and eloquent speaker, at most we speak some doctrines and teachings, but we don’t give a living testimony.
The world needs to hear what we have seen and heard. When we read the word of God, we need to tell the Lord, Lord Jesus, I want to see You again.
When we hear a message, a sermon, or the prophesying of the saints, we need to tell Him, Lord, remove the veils and cause me to see You! Lord, the more I see You, the more I am Your witness!
On one hand we need to see the Lord in spirit as we open to Him and read His word, and on the other, we need to live one spirit with Him.
To be a witness of Christ means that we live Christ, we walk in the spirit and we become His reproduction, His continuation on the earth. Our living needs to be one with Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension, so that we may be witnesses of the resurrected, ascended, and all-inclusive Christ.
If we don’t live in the spirit, we may do an outward activity but we may not witness Christ. May we live to the Lord, may we have lots of experiences of seeing Him and enjoying Him in all the things He appears to us, and may we be genuine witnesses of Christ on earth today.
Through Death Christ Entered into the Realm of Resurrection for us to be in Him and Walk in Him
Who is the One of whom we are witnessing today? This is Jesus Christ, the One who was God becoming man, living a perfect human life on earth, dying an all-inclusive death on the cross, resurrecting to be a life-giving Spirit, and ascending to be enthroned above all.
We testify of Him. The Christ we testify of passed through death and entered into resurrection. Through His death Christ entered into another realm and He even became another realm, the realm of resurrection.
In this realm He is not just a man but a life-giving Spirit, an all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, and it is into this realm that we are brought through regeneration.
When we receive the Lord Jesus, we entered into the realm of the divine life in resurrection, and we are now learning to live in spirit and by the spirit to remain in this divine and mystical realm.
We need to realise that, after the Lord died on the cross and went through death and Hades, there was a change – He became something, He entered into something, and He even brought forth something, which is the realm of resurrection. And we all who are regenerated entered into this realm and belong to this realm.
It is in the realm of resurrection – Christ as the resurrected One – that our Christian life and church life are. Because Christ is the living One with an indestructible life, death is not able to hold Him (see Heb. 7:16; Acts 2:24).
In the realm of the resurrected Christ there’s no death, and here death cannot touch us. Christ delivered Himself to death, but death had no way to retain Him; rather, death was defeated by Him, and He rose up from the dead.
Christ is both Lord and resurrection (John 1:1; 11:25), and He possesses the indestructible life. He is the ever-living One, and death is not able to hold Him.
Hallelujah, Christ resurrected from the dead, and He is now a living One, the life-giving Spirit, to come into us and impart the divine life into us and make us His witnesses! We are the witnesses of the resurrected Christ.
The Christ of whom we witness is not merely a crucified Christ – He is a resurrected Christ, One who has passed through death and entered into resurrection, and now in resurrection He is a life-giving Spirit to impart life to all those who want to receive Him!
We testify of this One – we are witnesses of the resurrected Christ, having a daily contact with Him and enjoying His resurrection life and power, and then speaking to others concerning Him. Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we praise You for not only dying for us but also resurrecting to become a life-giving Spirit. Hallelujah, our Christ went through death and resurrection and became the realm of resurrection for us all to enter in and enjoy the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit with His bountiful supply! Lord, we are Your witnesses, testifying that You have risen and that You are the resurrected One in us, living in us and moving in us. Oh Lord Jesus Christ, our resurrected and ascended Head, we praise You!
Experiencing the Christ in Resurrection and being Witnesses of the Resurrected Christ
The resurrected Christ of whom we are witnesses today is not merely someone who two thousand years ago resurrected, and now we attest to this and confirm this.
Rather, we want to know Christ in His resurrection, experience the power of His resurrection, and live by His resurrection life, so that we may be living witnesses of the resurrected Christ (Phil. 3:10-11).
We seek to experience the resurrected Christ in our daily walk and living, and we want to live in this One, by this One, and even as this One – as His corporate expression on earth.
He not only delivered us from the fear of death by His life-giving resurrection, but He in resurrection became something we can experience and enjoy today.
We need to experience the resurrected Christ daily and even moment by moment so that we can testify concerning Him.
He has become the resurrection life and power, and through regeneration He has brought us into Himself; now in Himself as the sphere, element, and realm, we can enjoy Him, possess Him, receive Him, be filled with Him, and live Him to express Him.
How can we be witnesses of the resurrected Christ? It is by our life, our living, our walk, and also by our speaking.
Christ’s resurrection was the focus of the apostles’ testimony (see Acts 1:22; 2:32; 3:13, 15, 26; 4:33; 10:39-40; 13:33; 17:3, 18).
Whenever the apostles spoke of Christ, they always mentioned His resurrection; the resurrection of Christ refers back to His incarnation, humanity, human living on earth, and God-ordained death (Acts 2:23), and it points forward to His ascension, ministry and administration in heaven, and coming back.
Thus, the apostles’ testimony of Jesus Christ – the Lord of all – is all-inclusive, as depicted in the whole book of Acts.
We also need to enjoy Christ and experience Him in His resurrection, and we need to contact Him in a fresh way day by day, and we will spontaneously be living witnesses of the resurrected Christ.
God glorified His Servant Jesus through His resurrection and in His ascension (Luke 24:26; Acts 3:13, 15, 26; 4:10, 33; 5:30-31).
The focal point of our gospel preaching is the resurrection of Christ, which involves all He has accomplished in His incarnation, human living, and death, together with what He also has accomplished in His ascension, His administration, and His return. Amen!
We need to live with Christ, walk in Christ, and daily live in the realm of resurrection – and not in the old creation. If we still walk and live in the old creation, we cannot be witnesses of the resurrected Christ; we may even have a badge saying we are witnesses of Christ, but unless we walk in the spirit, we cannot testify of Him.
We cannot perform a living; a living is spontaneous, it is something that comes from the life within.
We need to know Christ in the power, sphere, and element of His resurrection, and we need to live by this One in our spirit through exercising our spirit. Then, we will testify of Him, bearing a living testimony of the resurrected Christ, and we will be the witnesses of the resurrected Christ.
Lord Jesus, we want to know and experience You as the resurrected One so that we may live one spirit with You in our daily life. Amen, Lord, keep us in the realm of resurrection. Keep us in our mingled spirit throughout the day. May our daily life and living be in spirit, in the realm of the new creation, so that we may be living witnesses of the resurrected Christ. Save us from walking in the old creation or living in the flesh. Oh Lord Jesus, we turn to You. We set our mind on You. We take You as our life and we allow You to live in us. We want to know You and the power of Your resurrection!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Acts, msgs. 1-2 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Propagating the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-inclusive Christ as the Development of the Kingdom of God (2018 fall ITERO), week 3, Being Witnesses of the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-inclusive Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Death by Him has been abolished, / Incorrupted life is shown; / Death’s enthralling bonds are broken, / Resurrection life is known. (Hymns #540)
# Make my life a bright outshining / Of Thy life, that all may see / Thine own resurrection power / Mightily put forth in me; / Ever let my heart become / Yet more consciously Thy home. (Hymns #571)
# Life out of death—oh, wondrous resurrection! / Seed sown in conscious weakness, raised in power; / Thy life lived out in days of toil and friction, / “Not I, but Christ” in me from hour to hour. (Hymns #640)
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