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26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. ~ John 15:26-27
In the previous passage, the Lord Jesus teaches us love each other. We will value His teaching, especially when we are being hated by the world. Whatever hatred we face from the world, it is not because of who we are, it is mainly due to their emptiness. It is their emptiness which makes them respond to the Lord Jesus with hatred.
The Lord Jesus warns us about hatred so that we are enabled to identify the deeper issues and have compassion on those who treat us poorly. We do well to recognize the deeper issues behind the poor treatment people levy on us. I do not believe there are excuses for this, but there are often many explanations.
In the first three books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark and Luke, we find the Holy Spirit working in a very similar way to what we see in the Old Testament. It is also clear that just as the Lord Jesus came to fulfill the promises of God, the Holy Spirit is doing much the same. It is not until this fourth Gospel of John that we discover in detail the new way in which the Spirit of God will be training us to receive the life the Lord Jesus died to give us. This life that we are being given is not a place or a thing to be experienced in the future, it is a person to be experienced now.
Now, in v.26, the Lord Jesus informs us the Holy Spirit "will testify about me." The Holy Spirit is the witness that the Lord Jesus is alive and sovereignly involved in the believer's life. It is the Holy Spirit who lifts the veil from our understanding, enabling us to really know the Lord Jesus. We mustn't be detoured from His ability to show us the Christ and His ways.
In v.27, the Lord Jesus goes on to say, "And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning." Clearly, He is referring to the apostles here, but it also applies to us. And, we testify or witness by telling others about what He has done and is doing in our lives. This is the most effective way to witness, by telling others about how He is working in our lives. The end result is to know Him and to make Him known.
As a result, the Christianity that we present to others is fresh and alive. I like what Jim Cymbala has said, "I have since learned that the most mature believer is the one who is bent over, leaning most heavily on the Lord, and admitting his total inability to do anything without Christ. The greatest Christian is not the one who has achieved the most but rather the one who has received the most." It is at this point that we discover, we do not need to be taught to be His witnesses. No, we do not need a class to be taught the proper procedures to witness. What we need is to be taught by this One who has overcome sin and death and pretentiousness.
Finally, when the Lord Jesus comes into our lives, He shows us how His kingdom is upside-down and inside out. He shows us the value in the undervalued, the overlooked and the underdog. He can handle our honesty. He embraces our cracks and brokenness. And He will love us with an undying love. This is the attractive life. This is the life we all desire. This is eternal life. A personal relationship with "the way, the truth, the life."
