Before there was the testimony of Jesus Christ, there was the testimony of God for - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Gn 1:1, and it was God who first said “Let there be light”. Gn 1:3, and there was..
Concerning the Word of God, John writes for us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Jn 1:1 and Jn1:14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only, Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
It was God who spoke first and it was God who testified first that by that light, Gn 1:10 God saw that it was good. As He made – the waters above and below the sky (Gn 1:7); as He made the vegetations (Gn 1:11); as He made the lights in the sky (Gn 1:14); as He made the sea creatures and the birds (Gn 1:20); as He made the land animals (Gn 1:24). Each time God testified that He saw that it was good and the light by which God saw, was the light by which He released through the word of His mouth, from His mouth…. And it is by this light that God testifies, and it is in this light that the testimony of God can be viewed and only to be viewed, and it is through this light, that one can see what God saw and agree with God’s testimony that it was good.
So good, that Jesus testified that, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not sent His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” Jn 3:16,17
The very fact that God has sent Jesus to save the world, confirms God’s testimony concerning what He had made in the world – the waters, the creatures, the birds, the vegetations, and the animals – that what He saw was good – so good that it is worth sending His Son to save. So the appearance of Jesus Christ is not to save sinners as such or even to save the world – it is to confirm and validate the testimony of God from the moment God spoke and that which existed or was created after God spoke was good. As such, Jesus Christ did not come into this world to save us first, but to bear witness to the world, that God’s testimony is true and valid – and if we are to truly do the things that Jesus has done and as John wrote in His letter – that on this earth, we are like Jesus – than we must see that our very presence on the earth – like Jesus’ presence on the earth is to bear witness to the goodness of God and the truth of His testimony, that is the word of God, is the word of one who has no lies. And as such, the true honour that needs to be bestowed on the word of the One Who has no lies, is not faith but application. God’s word does not need to be believed in and does not deserve to be believed in – it deserves to be applied and to be lived in and lived by.
Those who believe in the testimony and witness of Jesus Christ are saved – that they may have eternal life which allows them to come to know the One true God Who sent Him – a knowledge of Whom leads you to the verdict that God is good in Whom is (are) no lies or darkness – A God Who keeps His word even if it costs Him His Son. A God Who is honourable and therefore a God Who can be trusted, and as such a God to be fearfully respected.
The life of Jesus Christ in His every word and action has always been, by His own declaration, that He does nothing except what His Father shows Him, and does what His Father does, and says what He hears His Father say – Jn 5: 19,20 “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does….”
Jn 8:28 “When you have lifted up the son of Man, then you will know that I do nothing on My own but speak just what the Father has taught Me.”
Jesus said “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know” --- not you will believe --- The truth is, we who are supposed to bear His Name and His witness have not lifted Him up – but have brought Him down in all our thoughts, words and actions – we have not listened to Him nor have we allowed others to listen to Him. We have not exalted Him above all other names – but have tried to make Him equal with others who claim to be from God or who claim a righteousness of their own – we have made Him a co-redeemer, NOT the SOLE Redeemer. We have called Him a good man, even a prophet of God, a great teacher, and compared Him with the likes of Buddha and other sorts of religions when none of the others have even been able to bear witness as Jesus has: – that God alone is Good – And therefore only the word of God and the works of God alone are good. Mk 10:18: Why do you call Me good? No one is good – except God alone.”
If no one is good except God alone, then no words are good except God’ alone, and no work is good except God’s alone. And if we say we believe Jesus Christ – then we must believe what He testifies about – the One Who sent Him. Remember He came as a witness concerning the testimony of God. His appearance in this world bears witness that God spoke and saw the truth, that what He made was good – so good that it was worth sending His Son to save!
So the verdict then is this – “Light has come into the world” Jn 3:19 for God said, “Let there be light” Gn 1:3. But men, like Adam refuse to come into the light lest their deeds be revealed for what they are – deeds of rebellion against the only good God.
Now God is looking for those who are beheaded because of their witness of Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus and also for the Word of God and the Word of God, that they might become beheaded because of the Word of God (Rev 20: 4NIV)
Those who are worthy to become beheaded for the Word of God and because of the Word of God, are those who have come to know the Word of God through the testimony and witness of Jesus Christ and His finished work –> that to believe the Word of God would be an insult to the Word of God – that the only justice that the word of God and the Word of God deserves is that it should be treated as the truth (Truth), applied as the truth and lived by as the truth.
That is a treatment of the word of God that is the testimony of God, that died from the day Eve listened to the Devil when he said to Eve in Gn 3:1 Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ and Eve, in her ignorance of God, replied “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will surely die.’” Eve added to God’s exact testimony to Adam – “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Gn 2:16,17
Firstly, God did not say that we must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, for there were 2 not 1 trees in the middle of the garden Gn 2:9 In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God did not say, ‘you must not touch it’.
Our ignorance of the word of God and our refusal to leave it alone without adding to it or ignoring it’s full exact message, has always caused us to join with the Devil in disbelieving God and we chorus “Did God really say…?” and follow our roots in Eve by adding to it and ignoring it’s full details, and in Adam – keeping silent instead of standing up and bearing witness to what He had personally heard from God: the words that had come to Him from the mouth of God. Death came, not because we ate the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of Good and Evil; but death came because man refused to live by the word of God that came from the mouth of God.
Jesus’ first words to the tempter and murderer were, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’ Matt 4:4 By this one reply of Jesus, He refuted the error of Adam – it was not the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil that brought death – but rather it was the refusal by Adam to live by the word of God that brought death. And so, Jesus re-established God’s testimony that when He saw that it was good – it included the “vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds” Gn 1:11 – they were good.
Jesus did this by becoming a co-testifier with another man, a man who had seen God and lived by the word of God, and also died by failing to live by the word of God --> Moses. For Jesus was quoting what Moses wrote in Deut 8:3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. – on EVERY WORD that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus stood with Moses, and co-testified as a Son of Man, with another man’s testimony of God, and so made it valid by being the 2nd witness.
Moses was the 1st witness of the word of God – that is the word from the mouth of God that we can live by only, and Jesus was the 2nd witness of that word – for Jesus came and lived; worked and died amongst us according to the word of God that had proceeded from the mouth of God, and was raised again and now lives forever more – because of the same word of God.
God is looking for others who would stand with Jesus, for everything should be established through 2 or 3 witnesses. God is looking or that 3rd witness. A 3rd to bear witness that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and a 2nd who came from the earth – not from heaven – a 2nd witness who can stand with Moses and say; “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the lord” Deut 8:3
Then truly, the accuser can be silenced for a dusty one has taken a stand with the Leader of the dusty ones, [the ‘Hebrew’ word means ‘dusty one’ – a son of the earth or the soil], and testifies: God’s word is life and it is truth.
When that testimony is resurrected, raised up again, by ones who are fit to be witnesses, because they have received the power to be witnesses and because they have seen, heard, felt, tasted and smelt the Word of God – Jesus Christ our Lord – and are testifying according to what they know because of what they have seen, heard, felt, tasted and smelt – When this testimony is resurrected, as it was restored, then the consequences of not living on every word that comes from the mouth of God can be unleashed as the final witness of the goodness of God.
The testimony is a jealous and exclusive testimony – man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God – and so the proof of it’s full truth must be manifested, not just in the lives of those who have lived by it but also in the lives of those who have not lived by it.
Now the understanding of this will surely bring a spine tingling chill to the ears of those who hear – it is a word of judgement that unleashes the consequences of every action and thought and word which you have ever formed that has ignored the “every word” of God that came from His mouth which you have heard, read and seen. And so – no one is spared but each is judged according to what they have received – “… from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded: and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked”. Lk 12:48b and Jesus said, “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. Lk 12:47, 48a
Those who have never heard a word from the mouth of God will live better than those who have heard the word from the mouth of God and have not lived by the word.
If Moses who failed to live by the word that came from the mouth of God – only once in Nu 20:7”Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water….” Moses did not speak, but struck the rock 2ce – and lost his place in the Promised Land.
How much more severely, then, shall we be punished for our Rock is no lifeless lump of clay, but the Living Rock, Who is Jesus – if we continue to strike at the rock to get water – when it has already been said “– If you remain (abide) in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish or will, and it will be given you.” Jn 15:7 To abide (remain) in Him is to abide in His testimony – “God alone is good”, and to stand with Christ to prove the testimony of God – In the beginning God…
Through such a group of witnesses, who have come to know and live by the word from the mouth of God well enough, – that they know that faith in God and His word is an insult to the honour of God – yes, to come to the place where faith in God and in His word is an insult to Him – That to truly honour God, we must live lives that take God’s words as the truth, and are the words by which we live by – and die by – then we have the spirit of the worshippers God is seeking – those who’d worship Him “In spirit and in truth”. – For through such worshippers, the testimony of God, which has been buried by the lies of man and devil and left for dead – will be resurrected, raised up, once and for all, and never again to be put to death again. If you would not subject the testimony of God to death again, once it has been raised up in you – then how much more will God spare you from death again – the Second Death – once you have been raised from the Dead at the Resurrection.
So, those who would lose their heads – their so called logic and sanity, because of the word of God and for the word and Word of God – which is and Who is the Testimony of God – have resurrected the testimony of God with their lives, in their lives, through their lives – to them the privilege of the First Resurrection belongs. It is those who have the power to witness the testimony of Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus and have been beheaded because of the word of God and for the Word of God, [both small and capital W] who can resist the mark of the Beast.
