We must take care in presenting truths and realities about our Lord:
The longer I am a follower of Christ, the more I see the huge responsibility I have to be a faithful witness for God, and to represent him rightly before a watching world. All believers are meant to reflect and represent to others who our Lord is and what he is really like. This is even more true of teachers and preachers. It is our obligation to share our Lord properly and correctly.
This realisation has just become even more acute to me for two reasons. One, I share plenty of biblical and Christian truth online and elsewhere, and it is incumbent upon me to make sure that I get it right. Sure, none of us will perfectly and flawlessly do this, but we should aim to be as careful and clear as we can be about our witness and testimony of scriptural realities.
And given the warning of James 3:1, we really want to make sure we are doing this right: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Since teaching is my main gifting, I need real care here.
The witness of Jesus
The second reason for thinking about all this has to do with my daily Bible reading. I again just finished the Gospel of John, and I was struck by how often Jesus would remark that he only does and says what the Father wants him to do and say.
Consider these passages. John 5:19 says this: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise’.”
And in verse 30 of the same chapter we read:“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
In John 12:44-50 we read this:
And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
And in John 14:8-11 we find this: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
See also John 17:6-8: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”
The witness of his followers
If all this was true of Christ, so too the believer. That can be quite daunting, but there is some good news here: Jesus told his followers that the Holy Spirit would help them in representing Christ properly. As we read in John 15:26-27:
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
And John 16:12-15 has more of the same:
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
And sure enough, when we go on to the book of Acts, we see this happening, with the promised Holy Spirit being poured out upon them at Pentecost. Then we learn about how emboldened and empowered the early disciples were, so much so that as we read in Acts 3:11, ‘all the people were utterly astounded’.
One more example. When Peter and John were arrested and threatened not to preach in the name of Jesus, they responded this way: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
So provision has been made for Christians to be good and faithful witnesses of Christ. As mentioned, that does not mean we will always get things right. This side of eternity we all see through a glass darkly. We often will let our own biases and finitude get in the way.
But with the promises given to us by Christ himself, we have real hope that we can in varying degrees represent God faithfully, just as the Son did. That is an enormous and challenging task, but God gives us grace to make it happen.
So whether you are giving a sermon, witnessing to a friend, posting memes and quotes online, or chatting with a neighbour, always send up a prayer to heaven first, that your words and your deeds are true reflections of who our God really is.
