You Have Been with Me
And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
John 15:27
The great difference of the followers of Jesus is that they have been with Him. We are not indoctrinated into the secrets of Christianity through concentrated training or by the means of secret seminars and highly pressured meetings. Rather we learn the secrets of God’s grace through an intimate connection and relationship with Christ that is established by His Spirit through the gospel, and is made ours through our own personal faith in Him.
The Early Apostles: Christ in this verse above, and through this entire chapter of John 15, has repeatedly stressed the necessity of His followers being vitally connected with Him — just like a branch is connected to the Vine. This is essential for spiritual life and for witness. The indispensable trait that was recognized by both the believers and non-believers alike was that the Apostles had been with Jesus (Acts 1:21–22 and 4:13). “From the beginning” traces their association with Christ back to the days of John the Baptist in the wilderness, when he had personally pointed the disciples to Jesus.
Mark 3:14 summarizes the entire idea of the apostles in people who would be with Christ and bear witness to Christ: “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach.” This is the most basic and fundamental understanding of spiritual life and of ministry. The nature of the Christian life is first and foremost a relationship of spiritual intimacy with Christ and from that relationship we serve as witnesses.
The Spiritual Intimacy of the Church: As we read on through John 14–17, we see the prayer of Christ where he prayed not only for His apostles but also for those who would later believe.”I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word” (John 17:20). He also spoke clearly of the same intimacy with those who would believe: “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23).
Initially in the early days of the Church Age, the Spirit was transmitted in some settings through the laying on of hands by the apostles (Acts 8:14–17 and 19:1–6), but this was not the case every where or even most places. Even in the earliest days of the Church, the Spirit came upon people most often simply through the preaching of the message and through their repentance and faith (Acts 2:38–39; 10:44–45; Ephesians 1:13–14).*
In fact, we see in Paul that though he was not among those early followers of Christ, he was called an apostle (Rom. 1:1) and came to be one in an unusual way. Christ had appeared to him personally, “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (1 Cor. 15:8). Yet the blessings of intimacy with Christ were not limited to the apostles, rather they proclaimed that all could come to Christ through faith. Peter wrote, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).
Paul explained this principle in Colossians 3:1–3
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Paul could write to people he had never even seen and proclaim to them that the “riches of full assurance of understanding” were available to them. The Spirit of God takes the Word of God and builds up believers in intimacy Christ and in the assurances of God’s promises toward us.
The Spiritual Witness of the Church: Now the Church of Jesus Christ operates today on the same principle as the apostles. Christ calls us to Himself that we may be with Him and that we may bear witness of Him in the world. The word “witness” was used throughout the New Testament, especially by John. It means to testify to what we have seen or heard or what we have received by divine revelation. John write, “And we have seen and testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). Our calling is not to merely serve and seek to testify through good works alone, rather it means that we open up our mouths and speak, that we take up our pens and we write (or our keyboards) and we tell the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.
Today, like everyday, we are to draw close to Christ in intimacy and we are to bear witness of Him in the world. Often we will do this with the witness of kindness among others, but we cannot be satisfied to do this alone. We must also preach the gospel that men might repent and believe and receive Him.”He who saw it has borne witness — his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth — that you also may believe” (John 19:35).
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* Some have claimed that the Spirit came upon people at water baptism initially in Acts 2:38–39, but such an interpretation is inaccurate because it does not take into consideration the differences in the verbs used in the original language. “Repent” is plural imperative, meaning that all needed to repent of their sins. Repentance and faith are used in the New Testament as two parts of the same response to the gospel (Romans 10:9–10). “And be baptized everyone of you” is a singular imperative verb, meaning that baptism applied only to those who repented. This was further emphasized by the words “each of you” (hecastos humon in the original Greek). “All should repent and each of you who repent should be baptized” is the idea. And then the final verb returns to the plural, “and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” linking the reception of the gift to repentance, not to baptism. And this is what we see throughout the remainder of the New Testament, that the Spirit came upon those who repented and believed, not upon those who were baptized — Acts 10:44 the Spirit fell on those who believed while Peter was still preaching . Though water baptism is a command (Matt. 28:18–20) and believer’s baptism is the pattern we see in scripture, it is done out of obedience to Christ, and not as a means of receiving the Spirit of God. Salvation is “not of works” (Eph. 2:8) and water baptism is a work.
