And you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the beginning.
και υμεις δε μαρτυρειτε οτι απ αρχης μετ εμου εστε
11 Church Fathers comment on this verse
You also will be worthy of belief, because you were with Me and did not hear from others. The Apostles were in fact confirmed by this, saying that they "ate and drank with Him" (Acts 10:41). That this was not said from flattery, the Spirit bears witness.
And you also will bear witness, because you did not hear from others, but have yourselves been with Me from the beginning. The testimony of those who were with Him from the beginning is of no small importance. The Apostles themselves later said before the people: we are witnesses of His resurrection, we "who ate and drank with Him" (Acts 10:41). Therefore the testimony is from two sides: from you and from the Spirit. People may think that you bear witness to please Me. But the Spirit will in no way bear witness out of favor.
But together with the witness of the Spirit, He says, you yourselves will also bear witness. For you became eyewitnesses and spectators (Lk 1:2) of what was done among your own people, always abiding with Me as disciples.
The Holy Spirit will bear witness, and you also will bear witness. Since you have been with Me from the beginning, you will be able to preach what you already know. If you do not do this now, it is because the fullness of the Spirit is not yet present in you. Thus He will bear witness of Me, and you will bear witness, because the love of God, poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit given to you, will give you the necessary confidence for witness (cf. Rom 5:5). Peter certainly still lacked this love when, frightened by a servant girl’s question, he could not give true witness. Contrary to his own promise and overcome by great fear, he denied three times (cf. Mt 26:69-74). Yet there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18).
At any rate, before the Lord’s Passion, his servile fear was questioned by a female slave. After the Lord’s Resurrection, his free love was questioned by the very Master of freedom (cf. Jn 18:17; Jn 21:15-17). There he was troubled, but here he was calm. There he denied the One whom he loved, while here he loved the One whom he had denied. Yet even then his love was weak and insufficient, until the Holy Spirit strengthened and filled it. After He was poured out upon him in the fullness of abundant grace, He so inflamed his once cold heart for bearing witness to Christ. He so opened the mouth once trembling with fear, which had concealed the truth, that when all upon whom the Holy Spirit descended began to speak in the tongues of all nations, he alone rose first before the crowd of Jews standing around. He bore witness to Christ and confounded His murderers by the witness that He had risen. If anyone wishes to enjoy so pleasant and holy a sight, let him read the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts 2-5). Let him marvel there at blessed Peter, whose denial he had mourned. Let him see there how that tongue, which passed from faintheartedness to confidence and from bondage to freedom, brought a great multitude of hostile tongues to confess Christ. Yet only recently it had failed to withstand even one of them, and had uttered denial. What more shall I say? Such radiance of grace and such fullness of the Holy Spirit were manifested in him. Such a mass of most precious truth poured from his mouth that he made a great multitude of Jews, Christ’s opponents and murderers, ready to die for Him. These were the very men from whom he had recently feared to receive death with Him. The Holy Spirit did this when He was sent, though before He had only been promised. The Lord foresaw these great and wondrous benefits of His when He said: “They have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But that the word written in their law might be fulfilled: ‘They hated Me without cause.’ But when the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me. And you also will bear witness” (Jn 15:24-27). Certainly He, by bearing witness and by inspiring courageous witnesses, removed fear from Christ’s friends and turned the hatred of His enemies into love.
You yourselves also, Jesus Christ says to the disciples, are trustworthy witnesses of My teaching, My miracles, and My divine power, because you have been with Me from the beginning of My preaching and of My working miracles. Certainly you will bring many to faith, because not all are equally wicked.
United with one another by love, they must wage a common struggle against the world estranged from the kingdom of God. He foretells the persecutions awaiting them. Before them lies the struggle with all that exists on earth, a struggle Christianity must begin and conduct. But in this struggle He promised them the help of the Holy Spirit. Everything necessary for the spread of the Church of God He will accomplish through them. The Lord briefly sums up His action in the world by saying that the Holy Spirit will bring the world to consciousness of its sins and reveal in this the cause of its unbelief. Then He will compel the world to acknowledge that Jesus did not die as a sinner for His own sins, but that He died as the Holy One. As the Holy One, He ascended to His Father in heaven.
In His death and in the ascent to heaven that followed it, His holiness was fully revealed. Finally, He will prove to the world that its prince is judged, weakened, and cast down from his throne. In place of his kingdom, the kingdom of God will be established. In this lies the whole essence of Christianity: consciousness of sin, recognition of the Lord Christ as Redeemer from sin, and triumph over the enemy, the source of all evil.
The Holy Spirit will testify to the world both concerning its sin of unjust unbelief in Christ and concerning Christ's dignity; cf. Jn 16:10-11. Likewise the disciples, for their part, as human witnesses, will testify to the truth of Christ, because from the beginning they were eyewitnesses and hearers of Jesus Christ.
After telling the Apostles that the world’s hatred of Him had been witnessed by the prophet, Jesus added that the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, whom He would send them from the Father, would also bear witness of Him. This Spirit proceeds from the Father, and, guided by this Spirit, they too would bear witness of Him. In this same discourse, Jesus told the Apostles that He would ask the Father to grant them the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. Now He says that He Himself will send Him from the Father, from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds. There is no contradiction in these words. According to His humanity, Jesus asks the Father to grant the Apostles the Holy Spirit. According to His divinity, He sends Him Himself, for He and the Father are one.
In this sense the holy Apostle Peter later spoke of the witness concerning Christ borne by the Holy Spirit and the Apostles: "We are His witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit" (Acts 5:32). Though the witnesses differ, their testimony is nevertheless wholly the same, or one testimony in essence; cf. Acts 1:8; Rom 8:16; Rom 9:1.
There are witnesses for Christ Jesus in heaven and on earth. The Apostles were with the Lord Jesus from the very beginning of His ministry to the human race. They saw, heard, and handled what the Lord did among the Jews (1 Jn 1:1). They saw His miracles, heard His teaching, and knew His holy life (Acts 1:1, 8, 20, 22; Mk 1:1). Therefore they were such witnesses of Jesus that one could desire no more reliable witnesses. “That which we heard, which we saw with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life, we declare to you” (1 Jn 1:2-3), the Apostles said to the world. Their witness was strong already because they were wholly trustworthy witnesses.
Since they acted under the influence of the Spirit of truth, and were filled with Him to a degree in which no prophet had been filled, their witness was as faithful to the truth as it was mighty in its divine power. Thus, in order to be a faithful witness of Christ Jesus, one must learn not fleshly wisdom, but the Scriptures of God’s revelation. One must also practice the works of Christian life (Col 2:8).
The Lord’s comparison of the disciples’ witness concerning Him with the witness concerning Him of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, proves that this is one and the same witness concerning God the Word. It is the witness of the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the mouths of those chosen by the Lord to utter the words that conquered and subdued the world. But in the disciples one must distinguish a twofold witness, divine and human. As men, they were witnesses in the narrow human sense, for from the beginning, from the very start of the Lord’s preaching, they were with the Lord. Those who knew them were assured by their own persons that with their own eyes and ears they had seen and heard the wondrous words and works of God.
In this narrow sense again, they were lawful human witnesses of those majestic events which they preached to men. But if they had remained only with human capacities, their tongue could not have described all these events. Their words could not have had the victorious power which they possessed. Therefore the grace of God was poured into these weak human vessels, and these witnesses according to humanity found within themselves the words of God. “Do not be anxious,” the Lord said to the disciples, “what you are to say, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Mt 10:20). The Apostles, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, spoke before the Sanhedrin about the Lord Jesus in these words: “We are His witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32). They said “we” according to humanity, but ascribed their words to the action of the Holy Spirit.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 10 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS