You Should Witness to Yourself

Normally when Christians think of the idea of witnessing, they think of the version of the Great Commission in Acts 1:8.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my 
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

The idea here is that Christians serve as witnesses to others of the person and work of Jesus Christ, his gospel, and the implied call to respond in personal faith and repentance. And this is of course biblical and good and the primary idea of evangelistic witnessing in the New Testament.

When we come to Isaiah 43:10–12, however, we see an interestingly different view of witnessing.

“You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,
So that you may know and believe Me
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
And there will be none after Me.
I, even I, am the Lord,
And there is no savior besides Me.
It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed,
And there was no strange god among you;
So you are My witnesses,” declares the Lord,
“And I am God."

What’s so interesting about these verses is that the target of witnessing is left unspecified. That is, God doesn’t say, “Testify concerning my person and work to the other nations.” He just says, “You are my witnesses to my person and work.” What does this suggest? This suggests that Israel (or God’s people in general) are to be witnesses of God’s person and work to those involved in this conversation in Isaiah: to themselves and to God.

What makes this so striking in the context of the Old Testament is that Israel’s fundamental and recurring sin which ultimately led to their idolatry and exile was forgetting God and his works. What Isaiah records is a declaration that this cycle will cease, that Israel will remember who God is and what he has done and bear witness of it to themselves to provoke their own faithfulness to Yahweh. And in vocally bearing witness, they will return this as vocal praise to God and his name.

Christians too are forgetful people. Christians too need to remember the person and work of our Savior Jesus Christ and turn that to the Lord in worship. We too then can learn from Isaiah 43 that we should witness to ourselves. Every day we need the reminder that we have been chosen by God, that we are to know and believe him, that we are to understand who he is as God, that he alone is God, that in him alone is salvation, that he has saved us from our sins and his wrath, and that we are to carry that message to the world. So let us then witness to ourselves daily, that our witness to the ends of the earth might multiply!