We are Witnesses of the Resurrected Christ in our Word, our Life, and our Action

The apostles were witnesses of the resurrected Christ – they witnessed not only in word but also by their life and action, especially bearing witness of His resurrection; we as witnesses of Christ need to testify of His resurrection in our speaking and our life and action.

Many believers think that the way the kingdom of God is spread today is by preaching the gospel, that is, by doing a work for God, and for this they need to be prepared, trained, and qualified as “gospel preachers” and “Bible teachers”.

But the disciples in Acts did not go to a Bible seminary, neither were they trained how to preach the gospel or raised up churches. Rather, the Lord Jesus as the ascended Head of the Body uses a particular way to propagate Himself on earth: He uses a group of witnesses, the first-hand account witnesses who were with Him and to whom He has appeared to.

As believers in Christ we are not called to do a work of teaching or preaching but to bear a living testimony of the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ. A witness is one who personally witnesses something; he has a first-hand encounter and then testifies of what he has seen.

In His heavenly ministry Christ first propagates Himself through His disciples for the raising of the churches, the increase of the kingdom of God; the way He propagates Himself is by having His witnesses testify of what they have seen.

We, the twenty-first century believers, have not seen the Lord physically – and neither did the apostle Paul, but the Lord has appeared to us and He constantly appears to us; therefore, we cannot help but testify of what we witness of the Lord’s appearing to us.

For us to testify of Christ we first need to have experiences of seeing and enjoyment concerning the Lord and spiritual things. What we need is not more teachings or doctrines; we need more seeing, more enjoyment, and more experience of Christ, and then we will spontaneously testify.

For example, if you like football and see a great football game, when you recollect it and tell others you will be very excited about it; others may not be that excited, but you were there, you saw it with your own eyes.

The Lord wants us to see Him, enjoy Him, be with Him, and experience Him, and then we will spontaneously testify of what we have enjoyed of Him and experienced of Him, and the result is that He is being propagated on earth.

The Lord’s Resurrection was the Focus of the Apostles’ Ministry in the book of Acts

If you read the book of Acts, what stands out about the disciples’ testimony is that they were witnesses of the resurrected Christ – the Lord’s resurrection was the focus of their ministry (see Acts 1:22; 2:32; 3:13, 15, 26; 10:39-40; 13:33; 17:3, 18).

What did the disciples speak of when they preached the gospel? They simply testified of the Lord’s resurrection. They realized that God glorified His Servant Jesus through His resurrection and in His ascension (Luke 24:46; Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11; Acts 3:13, 15, 26; 4:10, 33; 5:30-31).

When Peter spoke to the people in Acts 3 concerning the miracle he just performed, he said, Men of Israel, why are you marvelling at this? Or why are you gazing at us, as though by our own power or godliness have made him walk? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you have delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him (Acts. 3:12-13).

Peter didn’t speak of “God” or even “Jehovah” – he spoke of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Triune God, Jehovah, the Great I AM (Exo. 3:14-15), who is the God of resurrection (see Matt. 22:31-32).

The God of resurrection has glorified Jesus through His resurrection and ascension. On the one hand, Jesus was a Man; as a man, God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 8:11). On the other hand, Jesus was God; as such, He raised Himself from the dead (Rom. 14:9).

As a man, Jesus was killed by men (Mark 9:31); but as God, He laid down His own life for us (John 10:18).

Jesus was put to death by men, but it was not possible for death to hold Him (Acts 2:24) because Jesus Christ is both God and resurrection – He is the resurrection and the life (John 1:1; 11:25).

He possesses the indestructible life, and He is the ever-living One; therefore, He delivered Himself to death, but death had no way to hold or detain Him – rather, death was defeated by Him, and He rose up from death in resurrection.

The fact that the Lord Jesus – the One whom the Jews have crucified and put to death in agreement with the Roman politicians – was raised from the dead is not just amazing – it is the focus of the apostles’ ministry.

The apostles have seen the Lord resurrected, they experienced Him, they enjoyed Him, and now they testified of Him, telling everyone that Jesus Christ was resurrected.

The Lord’s resurrection points back to His incarnation, humanity, human living on earth, and God-ordained death; when we speak of Christ’s resurrection, we also speak of God becoming a man, living a perfect human life, and dying an all-inclusive all-terminating death on the cross.

Also, the Lord’s resurrection points forward to His ascension, ministry and administration in heaven, and His coming back (Acts 2:23; 1:9-11). Praise the Lord for His resurrection! Now we – just like the apostles – are witnesses of the resurrected Christ!

Lord Jesus, we praise You for Your resurrection! Hallelujah, God has glorified His Servant Jesus through His resurrection and in His ascension! Praise the Lord, death could not hold Jesus Christ, for He is both God and resurrection! Jesus Christ as a man was resurrected by God as an approval of His redeeming death on the cross, and as God He raised Himself up from the dead. Lord, we praise You for Your resurrection, and we are witnesses of the resurrected Christ, speaking to all concerning what we have seen and heard!

We are Witnesses of the Resurrected Christ in our Word, our Life, and our Action

As those living in the continuation of the book of Acts today, we need to realize that, just as the apostles, we are witnesses of the resurrected Christ – not only in word, but also in our life and action.

We need to realize that our unique job is bearing witness of Christ’s resurrection by experiencing it day by day and enjoying it.

Bearing witness of Christ’s resurrection is the crucial point, the focus, in carrying out God’s New Testament economy (Acts 2:32; 4:33; 10:39-40; 17:3).

The resurrection of Christ should not merely be the most important fact and event in history, changing the course of history and the life of mankind; it should also be our experience today.

On the one hand, we want to know of the Lord’s resurrection and how He defeated death both as God and as man; on the other hand, we want to experience Christ in His resurrection and ascension, enjoy Him, and testify of Him in all that He is.

All that Christ has passed through, all that God is, and all that Christ has accomplished today is in the Spirit – the life-giving Spirit, the bountiful Spirit of Jesus Christ. When we exercise our spirit, we become witnesses of the resurrected Christ in our word and also in our life and action.

We testify of the current, up-to-date, living Christ in resurrection and ascension, telling others not only concerning what He has accomplished in His ministry on earth, but also what He is doing in heavens, and what He is doing in our own life.

When we speak the gospel to others we need to make sure we testify of what the Lord has done in our life, for He has worked in us as the resurrected Christ, making us witnesses of the resurrected Christ in our life and action.

Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ is both God and resurrection – He possesses the indestructible life. And as such a One, He lives in us as the Spirit with our spirit, to be our experience and enjoyment daily.

He wants to be our everything, even to work Himself into us through our experience of Him, until we become a people in resurrection and ascension, a body of witnesses of the resurrected Christ in our work, life, and action.

When we experience such a Christ in resurrection and ascension, death cannot defeat us but we will live in resurrection, we will experience resurrection, we overcome any death in our being and in our environment, and we bear witness of His resurrection life.

As believers in Christ we are those who daily experience Christ in His resurrection and ascension, and we become His witnesses by being in resurrection with Christ.

The Triune God of resurrection is working Himself into our being to make us His people in resurrection and be testified through us, and we are witnesses of the resurrected Christ in our word, life, and action.

Lord Jesus, we want to be the witnesses of the resurrected Christ not only in our word but also in our life and action. Give us the experiences we need that we may be inwrought with the resurrected Christ, the One who overcame death and came out as victorious in resurrection. Lord, may our daily experience be of not living in death but overcoming any death in our being and in our environment by living one spirit with the Lord Jesus, the One who has already overcome death and who lives again forever in His resurrection!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark R. for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Acts, msg. 13 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 4 (week 4), Propagating the Resurrected Christ under the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lo! in heaven Jesus sitting, / Christ the Lord is there enthroned; / As the man by God exalted, / With God’s glory He is crowned. / He hath put on human nature, / Died according to God’s plan, / Resurrected with a body, / And ascended as a man. (Hymns #132)
  # Praise Him! Christ is resurrected! / God hath raised Him from the dead! / All the pow’r of death is swallowed, / Man from death to life is led! / Broken through are hell and darkness / And His pow’r exhibited! (Hymns #124)
  # Thou art coming, at Thy Table / We are witnesses for this; / While rememb’ring hearts Thou meetest / In communion clearest, sweetest, / Earnest of our coming bliss, / Showing not Thy death alone, / And Thy love exceeding great, / But Thy coming and Thy throne, / All for which we long and wait. (Hymns #967)