Our Report

The heavenly vision, when seen and becomes incarnate, transforms itself into our message.

Roberto Sáez

Reading: 1 John 1:1-4.

I want to place today's emphasis on the testifying to what we have seen and heard. If what we have seen and heard is the heavenly vision, the result of having seen this vision, is that it will first come down to earth among us. Then that which is heavenly and which is possible to live out will transform itself into our testimony. What we have seen and heard, which our hands have touched, which we have contemplated and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life, this is what we declare to you.

The heavenly life style

God was pleased to save the world through the foolishness of preaching, he wanted this to be the way of showing his life to a world that was dead; by the reporting of the Word. How important preaching is. But what would be of our preaching or of our reporting, if they were only concepts and words about a heavenly vision, and we did not have the reality of this vision. But the wonderful thing is that the life was manifest and we have seen it and have touched it; it is among us. And this life has produced something in us, has produced fellowship.

This life was manifested to us. And this is a community life, a life in family, a life in a plurality of persons, and that brings with it a life style, a way of being, of behaving, in which these people, having an equal nature and substance, share a common life, with the same characteristics, in which one lives for another, and is totally committed to the other. In which the Father, for example, gives all things over to the Son, and the Son, equally, gives all things back over to the Father.

It is wonderful to meditate, throughout the Scriptures, how the Father has acted from beginning to end, and how the Son has acted from beginning to end, and how the Holy Spirit has acted from beginning to end. We have the finished picture in the Scriptures.

Upon contemplating the Father, we see Him preferring the Son in all things; we marvel at his character. And that's why, in a final greeting, Paul says: "The love of God the Father, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all".

"The love of the Father". The Father is characterized by love. For love's sake, he gave all things into the hands of the Son; he gave him the entire universe, the whole creation, despite being the "greater" and having the right to claim all the things that were created by the Son for Himself. Because the Father, having the ability to have created all things by himself, allowed the Son to create them. John says that nothing was done without the Word, and that of him, for him and by him all things were made. What a heart the Father has! A generous heart, a heart that produces everything and gives everything up for the Son. "The love of God the Father be with you all".

"And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ …". Having been constituted heir of the universe, and the Father having summed up all the things in heaven and on earth for him, Satan came and tried to steal all things, causing chaos in the heavens. And when everything was lost, the Son comes to this world, to seek and save what had been lost, among whom were we. And, when the Son triumphs, and does the work that the Father asked of him, he has the right to claim all the restored things and take them for Himself, but in Jesus' prayer in John 17 he says: " (Father) all things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine ". What a heart the Son has, what tenderness!

The Son is still working for the Father and for us; still interceding, even now. There are still battles that the Son has to fight, there are still judgments that he has to execute. But, when he has suppressed all dominion, he will deliver all things to the Father who held all things. There will come a time when everything will have been submitted under the feet of the Lord, and then the Lord Jesus Christ will submit himself to Him who gave him all things. Although the Lord Jesus Christ has the principality on his shoulder, and all power has been given him in heaven and on earth, one day he will again surrender them to the Father, recovering the order that existed in eternity past.

At the end of these parentheses, there will be something that did not exist in that eternity: us. We are the extension of the heavenly fellowship, the extension of this heavenly life. The church, which is nothing other than the extension of that fellowship, of that life that was with the Father and with the Son, and that was manifested to us through the Holy Spirit; because from the day that we believed, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise. From this day forth, this life in fellowship, in a plurality of persons, which has the characteristics of love and which leaves individualism behind, this life which makes us live as a family and in fellowship, which came to us from above, which in a moment became the heavenly vision to us, but which took shape as a reality among us; this life is in us, and this life is the one that we declare.

The apostle has the burden of declaring it, "that ye also may have fellowship with us". The first ones to receive this life were the apostles, the first to have had the blessing of experiencing that heavenly life, that corporate life. This heavenly life took shape among them, and when they were formed into this life and God's Holy Spirit came upon them, and baptized all those who were with them into the body, this transformed itself into a report, a declaration that converted thousands of persons. They started being added, and the heavenly life came down to them, and since then it has been passed on from generation to generation. The way of doing this has been the declaration, the proclamation of God's life.

Heavenly vision

How important the vision is first and foremost; then, the declaration of the life, the incarnate Word, who brought not only the heavenly vision, but the heavenly life, life in fellowship, and then the proclamation. How important it is that our eyes are opened, because nobody can experience this life if his eyes are not opened to him.

When the Lord Jesus Christ came, the Jews thought that they saw; but in reality they were blind. The Lord Jesus Christ cured a blind person from birth. They were amazed that the Lord had done this healing, and were asking him: "How did this happen? Who did this to you?", and the blind man was saying: "I know the one neither who did it, nor how it happened; but a thing I know: that I was blind, and now I see". And the Lord Jesus Christ did this miracle in order to confront the Jews with their blindness. Because they thought that they were the people who had the greatest understanding of God; but they were blind, and guides of the blind. They thought that they all had God with them, but the Lord says to them: "You are children of your father the devil".

It is tremendous not to be conscience of the fact that you cannot see; it is tremendous not to be conscience of one's own nature. So the blind man was doubly blind, because he was physically blind, but he was also blind because he did not know anything about God. When he had the Lord Jesus Christ in front of him, and the Lord asked who was the one that had healed him, he says: "I do not know, Lord". And the Lord manifests himself as the Messiah. The blind person said: "Now I see, Lord", and bowed down and worshipped him. Not only did he recover his sight but he also saw the heavenly vision.

In John's epistle, we find the expression: "what we have seen" three times. And when he says this, it includes the apostles. It was the apostles who first saw. So how essential the vision of the Resurrected One is, the vision of Christ glorious, for those who have this ministry. Thus once this experience is present, the ministry of the Word begins to work. Now comes the importance of experiencing the extension of that heavenly life. That's why God sent the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

The power of the heavenly life

John uses three expressions to speak to us about this heavenly life that was manifest to us: the Word of life, the light of life, and the bread of life. With these three expressions, he tries to transmit what this manifest life consists of. It begins with an illumination, because the Word, as the light of life, comes to give us the heavenly vision. As the Word, he becomes flesh and speaks to us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this life that is manifest, in this eternal life that is in Christ, what God gives to us is everything. The whole of God's provision is in this life in such a way that John identifies him as the bread of life, because bread includes everything that we need. And we can take of him; not only to see him, but also to experience him. We have been called to the fellowship with his Son, and through the Lord Jesus Christ, we are touching, taking part in this heavenly life. So the Holy Spirit comes to confirm all of what the Lord Jesus Christ is.

How much difficulty our Lord had in getting men to believe in him. In John's gospel we so often hear this question from the men who heard Jesus speaking, or when they saw him performing miracles: "Who is this?" They cannot understand him; their understanding is dulled, their blindness does not allow them to see. And it is not until the Holy Spirit comes, bringing the certainty of faith, and confirms who Jesus is, in the heart of the disciples. Only then did they start to understand who the Lord is, what it is that they have, what it is that they have received.

When the Holy Spirit revealed the testimony of the Lord Jesus in the heart of the church, all those who believed, who saw and who started experiencing the power of this life in fellowship, began to be transformed. The heavenly vision transformed them.

The apostle Paul, a man who had been formed in the values of the Hebrew and Greek culture, who had the title of a Roman citizen and the glories of this world, goes so far as to say, after experiencing the heavenly vision, all things that for him were once profit, he now esteemed them as loss for an experience Christ. These values that the apostle exhibits are now the values of the heavenly vision which when compared with those of the earthly life, are immensely superior.

For this vision and for this life of the vision that has been manifested to us, there are men like Paul, and many others, who have given their lives, withdrawn from the business of this world, who have renounced fame, titles and places; they have renounced many things, in order that their lives may be exclusively governed by this heavenly vision. And for the same vision, there are men who took on great things for God, because from a great God it is necessary to expect great things.

There are men who have shown great prowess; being governed by the heavenly vision, they have renounced their culture, they have crossed seas, have gone to other continents, have mixed with other cultures. For example, think about Albert Schweitzer. At the age of twenty, he was a teacher of theology and a pastor in a church. At the age of twenty, a great exponent of the music of Bach, applauded in Europe. And he, giving up everything, went away to the Belgian Congo, to live among the natives, to preach the gospel. But nobody took heed of him, because the people suffered illnesses, malaria, poverty, and he knew that he had to do something more than just preach to them.

Our testifying is not only about words. Our testifying has the richest content of a real life: it is the life that was with the Father and with the Son, and that has been manifested to us. And this life is powerful, to make our preaching more than just words, but also to gesticulate it. And this young man returned to his country, studied medicine, gave concerts, bought medicines, surgical instruments, formed a hospital team, and gave fifty years of his life as a doctor to the black natives of the Belgian Congo.

When one experiences the heavenly life, one cannot but experience the being transformed to the image of this Life. Life that, as we have mentioned, has the characteristics of love, and is capable of giving everything, since the Father gave everything to the Son and since the Son gave everything to the Father.

The foundation of fellowship is life

The loss of the heavenly vision brings ruin; it brings division, weakness as far as the power to testify is concerned. When the vision is lost, the reality of the life is lost. We do not lose salvation; but we lose the reality of life in fellowship, and when that gets lost, we also lose the power to proclaim the gospel.

The days of John, when he writes his epistle, were days of ruin, days of confusion, days in which the false teachers and the heresies were swarming; days in which the brothers did not know who was who. They could not differentiate between a real brother and a false one. And so John speaks to us in a very particular way in his epistle, and so often repeats a phrase that will identify people: "he one who says ... he who says he has no sin ... he who says that he knows him ... he who loves ... he who does not love ... he who walks in light ... he who walks in darkness ... he who confesses ...he who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life".

What does this type of language mean? It is a language of identification; about people who are, and those who are not. So John's words help us to identify he who is. And he is going to tell us, in the first epistle, that the foundation that makes us what we are is that we have God's life in us. What makes fellowship possible is the light of life that is in us, which illuminates and guides us. What makes this life work among us is that we have the anointing of the Holy One, who is in us, who is real, who is not a lie, and who confirms us in all things.

The materialization of the life of God, of the heavenly life, is possible thanks to the fact that God's life is in us, and that this life is given to us and is declared to us by means of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So, when the brothers are confused, and they do not know he who is, then it is good to know that the one who has the Son has life. And that is enough for me to know; that you are my brother, to receive you and to have fellowship with you. How can I know that I am inside, and not outside? How can I know that I am in the fellowship? Because I have the Son of God, and because I have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside me, who guides me into all truth and righteousness, which will never leave me uncertain. Glory to the Lord!

Love and truth

So, brothers, we are in a time in which, because of what we have seen, because we have seen the finished picture, ever since the manifestation of God's life began through the first believers, up till us, John's burden was to announce what we have seen and heard: to what end? "that ye also may have fellowship with us". What is the point of this declaring that we have to do then? It is not just about proclaiming the gospel to save souls, but to proclaim this life.

So our reporting is not only to save the lost, but also our brothers, so that they also have fellowship with us, and to restore the unity of the church. So that's why it has such a specific way of speaking about our brother, when it says: "he who hates his brother..." How tremendous! "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother". So it is not only a question of speaking; it is a matter of life.

We need to restore unity; we need to restore fellowship. We need to understand what essentials we have in the Word to receive others on the basis of the correct principles, and not to add things that are not in the Word. So John, in his second epistle, is going to add two more essentials: love and truth. And he is going to say to us that - when everything is in confusion, when the brothers are full of doubts, when for so much time we do not see the Lord, and are living in a time of ruin, of confusion - love, which comes from the life that we have, is what has to agglutinate us, which has to bring us together.

Love, but also truth. Sometimes we have the tendency to separate love from truth; and the one who tries to separate love and truth is trying to divide Christ; because love and truth are inseparable virtues of Christ. And the one who insists on the truth and says: "No, the importance for having fellowship is the truth", and is trying to say that the truth is the interpretation of the Bible, and that if you do not understand the Bible as I understand it, then we can have no unity, then this is an understanding of a truth which is not necessarily a virtue of Christ. We are speaking about a human truth, about an intellectual truth, about a conceptual truth.

But, if we understand that the truth is Christ himself: how could we separate the truth from Christ himself? The truth separated from Christ transforms itself into a doctrinal zeal; and this doctrinal zeal has led to some committing the greatest errors. The greatest sins, the greatest violence, the most terrible wars, the most tremendous hatred has been done in the name of truth, because of religious zeal. He who tries to impose this form of truth over and above the truth, which is real life, which is Christ, is really just separating the brothers, and causing divisions.

He who wants to emphasize truth separate from love is going to bring a heap of problems upon the brothers. And he who tries to speak about love as a good-natured grandpa who allows anything and everything, and who because of love will accept whatever happens, is separating love from truth, and this attitude is not a virtue of Christ either, but rather it is a carnal concept of love. We need to restore fellowship, so that our reporting may be more effective.

Let's not be rebellious to the heavenly vision

Finally, I wonder what point of the heavenly vision we are at. We are coming to the end of our time, the time of grace. The Lord is at the doors. Those who preceded us have bequeathed us a tremendous testimony of the heavenly vision.

My burden today is that we do not be rebellious to the heavenly vision; because to be rebels would not be consistent with the vision. But we have said that when one has this vision, when their eyes have been opened, one experiences a revolution, such a great transformation, which is capable of making us leave everything for this vision. And it does not mean that everyone here is going to leave his work for this vision, but it implies that the priority is going to be in the heavenly vision. So, brothers, my burden is for reporting, because testifying and declaring hasn't any effectiveness if we do not have the reality of the life.

How has Christendom failed, and what is the great shortcoming of the Christendom of our days? The fact is that it has thought that the supreme task of the church is to evangelize, to save souls, but with a damaged church. So, the effectiveness of the testifying, although we could gather many people together and save many people, but we bring them to a place where there is no fullness or reality of the life about which we are speaking.

Therefore, we have to emphasize the restoration of the church, the restoration of God's house, so that our proclaiming might have more force and more effectiveness; so that when we go and tell of the life that God has given to us, we may cause an impact in the heart of the people who listen to us. Blessed is the Lord!

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