1 John 5.9

v 9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.

God’s testimony to man which he has given about his Son at times may reflect more and speak greater volumes about the Name and nature of God than of man or man’s relationship with Truth. The believer has the testimony of the water, which was provided by John the Baptist and the crowds he was baptizing in the Jordan, and the testimony of the blood, which was affirmed by many Jews and Gentiles alike, and we accept human testimony. By this testimony alone we hear the truths of God, we see the incarnation of the Son of God in the flesh, we hear of the word and the kingdom of heaven and the voice of God calling forth his will for the reconciliation of man. But beyond this indirect testimony of God by man, God himself Testifies, and God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God. Certainly, the testimony of God helps to ensure that man has understood and has heard, and for this God works many miracles within history for the flesh to see and know, not the least of which is the personal miracle of the Voice of God calling the sinner to belief in his name and repent unto salvation by the blood of Jesus Christ. Yet man already heard this from men, and we accept human testimony as it is. But God still chooses to directly Testify. Why and how, and what of this speaks to more that God is revealing in how he relates himself to man? He Testifies as the Voice in the baptism. He Testifies as the Voice of the Spirit of God speaking Truth into the heart of man. He Testifies as the voice of man’s heart is transcended by a love of God, that in being raised to God it is transformed by the Spirit to competently speak the Word of God, expressing what flesh could not on our own. In so many ways, the Spirit helps us in our weakness (Romans 8.26) with the full and True Testimony of God, which is greater because it is the testimony of God, and brings us back to the focus of the fulfillment of God’s Word; his Son Why then does God Testify? In part it is when the believers do not know what we ought to pray for, and in part it is because the believers depend on the power of God who intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8.26–27). But in part, it also reveals to man the Mystery and Unity that he enters as a believer. God’s will to reveal the Testimony he has given about his Son reflects the internal Name and relationship of Love and Truth within God. It reflects the importance of the Testimony of God, which itself is intrinsically greater because it is the testimony of God, and teaches the believer this primary of God’s testimony so that man may better understand who God is, and who man belongs to.in faith. In part it is within the Name of God as a God of promises and hope, for this Testimony of God is about that very Body which the believer has been baptized into, it is of the life that the believer is alive with, it is the glory of God such that the believer upon finding this sacred treasure worth his life has put his life by the flesh to death along with Christ’s on the cross. God could Testify through others indirectly, as he did with the Law of Moses, which was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator (Galatians 3.19), but were he to do this it would not yet be the singular promise that is delivered by one person, who is Christ (Galatians 3.16). His promise to Abraham was that by one he would bless many, that throughout this entire history and passage through tribulations and temptations that seemed ready to end the lineage of Abraham without the delivery of the promise, God would yet still transcend the limitations of man and fulfill the promise himself, as only he could and in illustration that only he could. Instead of sacrificing Isaac, God provides Abraham a ram to kill because The Lord Will Provide (Genesis 22.12–14); instead of asking for circumcision of the flesh, God provides in the Son a circumcision not performed by human hands (Colossians 2.11); instead of human testimony alone, God himself proclaims the Truth of his Son and the reconciliation that is wrought by him. Not only does God Testify to this in the coming of his Son, he does it throughout all history, from the initial Word of light and Creation, to the promises through the prophets and the psalmists, to the angels singing to poor shepherds of the advent of the Son of God in the flesh; God has proclaimed his Son and testified to his Son. What is this for? In the Son, the Truth of God is known. No one else could fully Testify to the Truth in the Son, for no one knows the Son except the Father, and likewise, no man could fully Testify to the Name of God the Father without the Son, for no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Matthew 11.27). Revealed in God’s choice to himself Testify of the Son establishes the reliance of man on God for the Truth of his Name and his Testimony, which with feeble creatureliness believers proclaim upon the confidence that he need not worry about what to say or how to say it for at that time he is given what to say by the Spirit (Matthew 10.19). Likewise, the profound nature of the Truth and Mystery which is of God, and in God, and can only be fully appreciated by full and direct fellowship with God by God’s power and miracle, is put forth as a gift to man. Likewise, when God swears to Abraham of the promise he will deliver to his offspring by the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, God declares “I swear by myself” (Genesis 22.16). God’s Word is the only suitable Truth to convey God’s Name, and so when man speaks the Name of God, he does so only by God’s Word in him, by God’s Spirit in him. What a blessing, recalling to the now believer that this is no mere religion of works and opinions in the flesh, but is firmly established on a foundation neither of works nor of man, but of God’s testimony. What hope it is, that the foundation of belief and the power of repentance seeking the forgiveness of sins by God is by a Truth which profoundly surpasses any alternative truths of the passing world, as it is the Truth provided by God of God, and God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God. What love it is, that God’s Testimony is of his Son, his plan for our salvation by his Son, and of his will to use sublimated and transfigured man to work his ministry of reconciliation while putting his own Spirit of Truth within man so he may stand competent to proclaim the Word. What great Grace to the not-yet believer who will hear; what great hope to the now-believer who speaks; what great love of God for his own Son that the highest proclamation of his Truth is by his own Spirit given to still incomplete and insufficient man to speak the Words of God, and in doing so, be used for a purpose and testimony above his own, a testimony which therefore is not only God’s Spirit in man but is an expression of God’s Love.