This is the testimony: that God has
given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. (1 John 5:11)
Christ is never proved to be alive from the
dead, nor to be Lord, by doctrinal statements. Your statement of faith may
include the fact that you believe Jesus died and rose again, ascended to heaven,
and is at the right hand of the Majesty on High, but how are you going to prove
your statement? What has God given as the evidence of that? You may believe it;
you may be willing to lay down your life for that faith; you may state it with
tremendous emphasis, and yet you are not thereby proving it. You will never
prove anything by saying: "I believe with all my might that this is the case!"
You will never prove a thing by standing up and declaring it as something which
you believe. You will never prove a thing by saying: "I believe in all the
fundamentals of the Christian faith!" and calling yourself by some name which
indicates that you believe in the inspiration of the Bible. Nothing is ever
proved in that way. Reducing the whole matter to these two points – that Jesus
Christ has been raised from the dead, and is Lord of all – you have still to
prove your statement after you have made it. If you have appealed to the fact
that the Word of God says so, even then you have proved nothing. Your proof can
never be by argument, because what argument can build up, argument can pull down,
and what logic can construct, logic can destroy.
How, then, are you going to prove that this is so? By the expression and
manifestation of His risen Life, that is all – but it is a mighty "all!" That
signifies that you are the embodiment of the thing which you declare – that
besides the doctrinal statement there is the living expression. Thus the
resurrection and the lordship of Jesus are bound up with this expression which
is called the "testimony." The testimony is not a system of truth. It is that
extra factor to the statement and presentation of truth which is the power of a
Life which conquers death. How, then, will you prove that Jesus has conquered
death? The proof of it will be a death-conquering Life that expresses itself in
you.