The Integrity of Christ
Revelation
The character qualities that
are emphasized at then beginning of each of these evaluation reports are particularly
relevant to the problems or the successes of the congregation in that location.
So we have three attributes that are emphasized according to these three
titles. He is first of all called “The Amen.” This is based upon the Greek word
HO AMEN [o( a)mhn] which comes from
a Hebrew word amen, so it is a title
brought over into the New Testament that has its roots in the New Testament. This
particular title emphasizes the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Usually this noun
was used as an affirmation, like Let it be so; I agree with that. The use of
the article with the noun here is unusual. This is the only place where this phrase
is used this way as a title or as a personal name for the Lord Jesus Christ. So
where do we get the application of this title to the Lord Jesus Christ? It must
be understood in the context of the Old Testament. So much of what we have in
the New Testament is grounded in Old Testament theology. In Isaiah 65:16 we
have the use of the Hebrew word amen,
and it is usually translated “truth,” but this noun amen in the Old Testament is
only translated “truth” in this one verse, and it should not be so translated. NASB
“Because he who is blessed in the earth Will be blessed by the God of truth; And he who swears in the earth Will swear by the God of
truth; Because the former troubles are forgotten, And because they are hidden
from My sight!” Some translations continue to render this “Will bless himself
in the God of the amen.” That is a literal
translation. Everywhere else you find this form of the word in the Hebrew text
it is always translated as amen. The
reason it has been translated “truth” is because there is a relationship between
the Hebrew word for “truth” and the Hebrew word for “steadfastness” and “faithfulness.”
They are all various forms of the same basic root. Stability and faithfulness
is one dimension of this and then other forms of the word emphasize
truthfulness, and there is a correlation there between truth and faithfulness
and stability, that there are certain things that are always true and you can
always count on them, and this is grounded and we would say as believers, in
the person of God, that He is the foundation of all truth.
We get an idea of where
this word comes from in a somewhat obscure passage in 2 Kings 18:16 KJV
“At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the
LORD,
and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to
the king of Assyria.” This takes place at the time of Hezekiah when the
Assyrians are threatening
In the New Testament we
see that the same attributes that are applied to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Old Testament
are applied to Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament. Jesus Himself makes this
claim in John 14:6 NASB “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
Each of these nouns has the article with it, indicating specificity. He is
making an incredible claim here. He is the only way to God. Truth is determined
by the very thinking of God; he is truth, and that gives Him stability. We see
in Hebrews 13:8 that that stability is present in Jesus Christ, He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever. We can always count on Him no matter what
surprises or shocks us in life Jesus Christ remains the same.
So the first title
emphasizes stability, and at
The next thing that is
attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ is “the faithful and true Witness.” The
emphasis here is on witness. “Faithful and true” are adjectives modifying the
noun “witness.” He is a witness in His humanity. One of the objectives in the
incarnation was to provide a witness to who God the Father is. John
We know from our study of
Scripture that Satan challenged God in the time before creation, that in eternity
past at some point when God created the angels the highest of all the angels
was Lucifer. After a while he decided that he wanted be worshipped just as God
is worshipped, and he wanted to run the creation in God’s place. So he challenges
God. He challenges His sovereignty, His right to rule. This was a lack of
humility on Satan’s part. He challenged God’s integrity, the standard of His
rule. He challenged the application of standard of God’s standard, His justice.
How could a just God send His creatures to the lake of fire? He challenged God’s
love. How can a loving God send His creatures to eternity in the lake of fire? So
as a result of that is that God in His grace and according to His own purposes
decided to create a test case, a demonstration, as it were, of His grace and His
love and that no creature could ever run creation on his own. So he created the
human race, restored the planet, and He puts man on planet earth, and man is
going to demonstrate down through all the periods of human history all the
different permutations and possibilities of creaturely autonomy. So we see that
at different stages of human history we see that God has different amounts of
revelation, He gives man different amounts of aid, and throughout it all we
will always and consistently discover that the creature just can’t make it
apart from the creator. So we have to depend upon the creator, and that is what
Jesus Christ is doing. He is showing in His life that apart from 100 per cent
dependence upon the Father for everything in life as a creature there is no
stability, no happiness, and we cannot fulfil our meaning, purpose and
objective in life apart from that. So Jesus Christ is hypostatic union, as the
God-Man, demonstrates in His humanity what it means to walk in dependence upon the
Lord. In that He is a witness, he demonstrates these truths and for that he is
sent to the cross.
The word for “faithful” is
the Greek noun PISTOS [pistoj]
which describes His character. He is faithful to God,
He never violates God’s plan or purposes. He is without sin; he is impeccable. When
we bring together these attributes of immutability and deity, this terminology
takes us back to Psalm 89, a meditation on the Davidic covenant where God
promised to David in the Old Testament—2 Samuel 7:14ff—that his seed would sit
on an eternal throne and he would have an eternal dynasty. In verses 36, 37 NASB
“His descendants shall endure forever And his throne
as the sun before Me. It shall be established forever like the moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful.” It is connecting
the seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, to this faithful witness. The title “Faithful Witness”
comes out of Psalm 89:37 and brings into focus the entire Davidic covenant and
the fact that Jesus Christ is the one who will rule forever upon the throne of
David. When we look at the Lord Jesus Christ we can learn about God. He is the
one who reveals Him.
Faithful witness indicates
His role in the incarnation, that he was to be a legal
witness in a courtroom type of setting which would relate to Satan’s challenge
of God. Jesus Christ was also faithful in carrying out the mission of salvation,
so that He went to the cross and completed God’s plan of salvation and dying
for our sins, paying the penalty for our sins. He is faithful in His mission to
set the precedence for the spiritual life. Jesus Christ was tempted in all
areas as we are, yet without sin. What we learn from Hebrews 2 &3 is that
Jesus Christ handled temptation in His humanity by relying upon the Holy Spirit
and the Word of God. He doesn’t rely on His deity, that
would be no test at all. So he has to go through those tests in His humanity
without relying on His deity at all, and He is faithful in doing that. And then
he is also faithful in His teaching.
In the last phrase He is
the beginning of the creation of God. This phrase was misunderstood back in the
fourth century by the Arians. Arius taught that there
was a time when Christ was not. In other words, He is a creature. His beginning
was before the foundation of the earth but He was created some time in eternity
past; he had a beginning. So they would go to this passage, but it is a misunderstanding
of what is meant by “the beginning.” The Greek word here is ARCHE [a)rxh] which has
the idea of pre-eminence; He is not the first in kind, He is the first in
order. In other passages He is called the beginning and the end. That means He
is the one from whom we come and to whom we go. It is all about Jesus Christ,
in other words. He is the ARCHE, the first and foremost one in all of creation. This
is indicated in such passages as Colossians 1:18, 19; 2:9. To be full deity He
has to be eternal. Colossians
So the emphasis at the beginning
of this evaluation report is on His deity, His humanity, and on the fact that
He is the beginning and the end of all things. Everything goes back to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Since He is the focus of everything in our life there is no basis
for becoming a lukewarm Christian, which is what happens to the church in