The Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus

The Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus
by Charles J.B. Harrison

(First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine 1955)

"...the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Rev. 1:9).
"...the word of God and the testimony which they held" (Rev. 6:9).
"...her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus" (Rev. 12:17).
"...your brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus" (Rev. 19:10).

THE FOCUS OF DIVINE INTERESTS IN THE EARTH

In these expressions, which, after all, come to but one expression, we have what is nothing less than the focus of Divine interests in the earth, and the focus of all the enemy's antagonism. There is something on the earth which to God is the focus - the thing that His eye rests upon, and which matters supremely to Him; and it is therefore not surprising that that same thing is the focus of the enemy's attention also. If that is for God, then it is THE thing against which all the wrath of the enemy is set.

Any who in these days are seeking to walk with God, seeking to be in fellowship with Him, are finding themselves spiritually in a very real battle. There is no doubt about it: we are in a tremendous issue that is being fought out. Anyone who prays knows that there is a battle on. Anyone close to the Lord knows that it is no easy way. An immense conflict is raging in the spiritual realm. But it is the history of all the ages that what is of God is only realized through the fiercest conflict. When anything is of vital account to God, it always creates an intense battle. It is resisted, it is fought for - and then the victory comes.

If, then, there is something in these days fraught with great issues, we need to know what it is. Unless we know very clearly what we are in, and what it is about, we shall be confused people, we shall be baffled people; we might really be people out of the fight, because it is beyond us - we cannot make it out. It is most important that we should make it out, that we should know what is the greatest thing that matters in these days. If there is one way in which the enemy is seeking to keep us, the people of God, from the supreme issue, it is by providing other alternative occupations and interests, so that, when the greatest issues of the ages are consummating, God's people should be found trifling. Yes, this is really so. Satan would keep us fighting about little departmental matters, or little things of an historical interest - and a very remote antique history much of it is. It is the up-to-date thing that matters. What is God doing now? and are we in it? - and is it because some of us are in it that we are meeting a reaction and forces that are almost overwhelming? What is the thing? - what is it all about?

Well, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and light unto my path" (Ps. 119:105). We come back to the Word of God for His explanation, and I believe that in those words that we read together from the book of the consummation we have a key to the whole matter. John, of course, typifies a man who is in full fellowship with God, counting for God, and counting for Him in a day of great difficulty. It was a day in which there was declension on all hands, and yet there was this which represented God embodied in a man - a man, as regards himself, in distressing circumstances, a man relegated from the scene where things seemed to be happening, a man right out as far as men were concerned, and yet the man representing fellowship with God in the situation. The explanation John gives us of what he was going through is in those words - "for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus". And when we come to the further passage a little later on, the Apostle uses very strong terms, that in his vision he "saw... the souls of them that had been slain" - notice, "that had been SLAIN" - "for the word of God, and for the testimony, which they held".

There are, therefore, two factors in this thing, in this reality that is vital to God and that is the enemy's point of attack. There are two factors, and both of them are important.

(1) THE WORD OF GOD

The first factor is the Word of God. Why was John here? - "for the word of God". Why were they slain? - "for the word of God". Why do things happen? - "because of the word of God" - yes, and the other part of it - "the testimony of Jesus." But what is the Word of God that sets up all this? What is the Word of God that creates this terrific antagonism?

Well, we need an adequate conception of what God Himself means by 'the Word of God'. He does not just mean the Bible - that, because we have the Bible, then we are slain. We are anything but slain. You can get Bibles at every bookshop. It is nothing to do with the Bible - except that the Bible is the vessel of God's revelation of Himself. The Bible can be the Bible - and a closed book as far as its meaning goes. No, it is more than that. It is not even Bible doctrine. You need not get slain for holding sound evangelical doctrine.

Indeed, mere 'soundness' may be quite a deadly thing. Assuming 'soundness' in matters of doctrine and Scripture, there is something even greater yet, and that relates to the SPIRITUAL understanding of the MEANING of the Scriptures.

(a) As the Revelation of God as He Is

What is the Word of God? We need to be clear as to what we mean. We cannot afford to have a whittled-down conception of the Word of God. Nothing inadequate will do in these days. Of course, the Word of God is the speaking of God, God speaking. But I think we can put it like this. It is the REVELATION of God, and of His mind and will.

It is the revelation, first of all, of God Himself as He really is. A word is a means of expression. It is a means by which concepts are conveyed. And the Word of God is the conveying to men of what God is, what He is like - not the God of men's imaginations, not the God of an enfeebled Christendom, but God as He is. "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). How little God is known as He is! Yet God has revealed Himself as He really is. But how much of that revelation has broken through at all? For every little glint of Him we thank Him; but how much more is needed of the living God, of a mighty unveiling of what God is like - and moreover God in the Person of His Son. What a terrific thing God has done in sending His only-begotten Son into the world - emptying Himself and taking the form of a servant.

(b) As the Revelation of God's Mind and Will

Yes, 'the Word of God', is the revelation of God Himself through Jesus Christ. But it is not only that. It is the revelation of God's mind and intent and will concerning all things. The Word of God is all-inclusive: it is the expression of God's mind about things. What a tremendous need for God's thoughts to be unveiled, so that we see them - so that we understand them and know what God is after. One of the great rebukes of the prophet Jeremiah was concerning the prophets who prophesied "a vision of their own heart", and had seen nothing. The Lord says that they "steal my words every one from his neighbour" (Jer. 23:16,30): it is all secondhand, it is all just getting bits from people and books and so on. That is not the Word of God. The Word of God is what the Holy Spirit reveals in power of God's own thought and mind.

(c) As the Realization of God's Mind

Yes, it is the revelation of God Himself, and the revelation by the Holy Spirit of His mind and will. But it does not stop there. The Word of God is revelation unto realization. It is not only the revelation of God's mind: it is the realization of it that is bound up with the Word of God. It is the Word actuating and operative that matters. It is not only the seeing of what God is like, and seeing what God wants. The vital thing is a people in whom that begins to operate. John was not in Patmos because he agreed with the Bible and its revelation. He was there because it was true in him. It was because the mind and thought of God began to operate in his own life, and to make him a certain kind of person, that the wrath of the enemy was roused and brought to bear upon him. It is the Word of God not only revealed, but realized, that Satan hates. He hates it working, doesn't he? He just hates it working.

The Word of God has not attained its object, until it is lived and expressed. We should not be content with an objective conception of Divine thoughts, while we ourselves remain just the same as ever, should we? We should not be people of a very beautiful ideal, but in whom it is manifest that the thing does not work. That is the battle. It is where the thing begins to work that the enemy is roused. Then he is furious. He does not mind how 'sound' we are as long as it does not work. He does not mind what truth we hold about the Second Coming, or anything else, so long as it does not work. But God is not content with a revelation without a realization.

CHRIST THE SUPREME SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORD OF GOD

What is the Word of God? What is its supreme significance? There is a MEANING of Scripture, not just the text itself. It is very important to know the text - we ought all to know our Bible: we ought all to know what is in Genesis, and we ought to know what is in Chronicles, and so on. It is most important that we should know our Bibles. But you can know the whole Bible, and not know what it means. It is the MEANING of the Bible that matters. The Holy Spirit must light it up and say, 'This is what I mean by that, this is the significance of that', and when that comes, that is revelation. For years the Church has had the Epistle to the Ephesians, but very few people have seen what it means. It has to light up.

The supreme significance of the whole Word of God is Christ. In other words, God has revealed Himself inclusively in the Person of His Son, who is the meaning of all things: and if we have not seen the meaning of Christ, we do not know the meaning of the Word of God. The point is this. Our Christ has to be much bigger than our Bible ideas. He has to swallow up the meaning of every book. He has to overwhelm everything with Himself. No book, however helpful, is really registering with us unless it has a Christ-meaning. The Person is the meaning of it all.

Every tag of Scripture is related to the Person - every bit of it. 'Not one jot or tittle shall pass', the Lord says; and I believe the fulfillment of the Law is going to be embodiment in Christ of the ultimate reality lying behind it. It is going to be Christ Himself; there is a meaning in every bit of the Law that has a fulfillment in the Person. There is a meaning in all the glories of Israel's economy which has an eternal and an abiding counterpart, "the heavenly things themselves". The heavenly things themselves are all going to be realized in a Person who will fill all things. And our Christ needs to get bigger and bigger, so that the Word of God has its content and meaning ever enlarging.

What antagonism there has sometimes been to that statement that we need an enlarging Christ! People say, 'How can Christ ever get bigger? What nonsense!' Of course, He cannot literally get bigger, but He can mean a great deal more to you and to me. You and I have to have a Person who is much bigger to us today than He was a few months ago, until we are crying out, 'Oh, what a Christ I have!' You did not say that a few months ago. You said, 'How glad I am that I'm saved!' Well, praise the Lord for that. But 'What a Christ have I' is different. Paul's motto is: "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21), because he has seen something of Christ's greatness.

THE WORD OF GOD OPERATIVE

Then we need to consider not only its meaning, but its application and realization in life - the Word of God revealed and operative. The question is how much it works. It is when God's Word begins to work in our lives that all the trouble begins. Let us take these few examples.

(a) Christ as Lord

We will all agree that, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ is Lord. The New Testament says so. "He is Lord of all" (Acts 10:36). Yes. But let me apply that to my life and say, 'Lord, I want you to be absolute Lord of everything in my life' - ah, then the trouble begins, doesn't it? The whole life begins to get turned inside out. The Holy Spirit comes and says, 'I am not Lord there, I am not Lord there'. 'But, Lord, I could never... I do not agree, I could never face that'. And so many just sheer away from that initial matter of the Lordship of Christ, and the enemy laughs. 'A THEORETICAL LORD - it doesn't work!' Yes, apply the Word of God and everything begins to come up.

Take a child of God who in their home, to begin with, simply says, 'Lord, I want you to be absolute Lord of my life', and as they go back to their profession or their office they seek to go with Jesus as absolute Lord. 'If there is anything, Lord, that is not according to You, I want You to show me'. Well, that is a very good covenant to make. Yes, but then things begin to happen, difficult things begin to happen, misunderstandings seem to arise, and those who have most committed themselves to the Lord seem to run their heads into the worst trouble, and at first they cannot think whether it is they themselves or the other people who are wrong. You have set up the whole matter of this battle for the testimony that Jesus is Lord. That is the first thing.

(b) Christ as Life

Take the next one: Christ not only as Lord, but as life. We read in the New Testament that Christ is our life (Col. 3:4). But how ever is Christ to be our life? Only when "it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth" (Gal. 2:20): so it presupposes an utter committal to the Cross - 'I do not want to live my life, Lord; I want You to live Your life.' What a tremendous crisis is needed to make the Word real! 'Christ our life'. Oh, friends, it is a tragedy that God's people are looking at an objective truth in Scripture, and saying, 'Oh, yes, Christ is our life, so we are all right' - but He is not our life in practice, in experience. It is a most terrific thing for us to be in any way really living in the power of His risen life. It can only happen where the Cross is accepted, and we say, 'Lord, I have got to go out - there is too much of me'. And do not let us think that that is a sort of miserable, introspective life. Not a bit. It is a practical crisis that says, 'Lord, no more nonsense: I want Your life, not mine - that is all'. He replies, 'All right, My child, I will show you what it means', and then it begins to happen, Christ begins to come through that life, and wherever that life goes, something will happen. That is the Word of God in operation.

(c) Christ our Life Together

Take another great factor. 'Christ OUR life' - that is, TOGETHER. You know, God has given a revelation of what He means by the Church - Christ as the life of His people - and, do you know, there is nothing in the Word about religious orders or denominations or anything like that. They just do not exist. But people say, 'Oh, well... you see, it is rather convenient... we must have these things. They are not in the Word, of course. Still, we must make the best of things.' The Word of God is just 'made of none effect'. But if we take the Word, and say, 'Lord, we stand for what You have revealed: make it real in us as a people' - then trouble begins all round. We do not want anything for ourselves, we only want what is in the Word of God; but the trouble begins all the same. The Word of God made real causes trouble.
We will not stay longer on that, but let us note it. There is a battle for the REALITY of the Church: the saints dwelling together in true spiritual oneness, knowing Christ as their one Life and Head in the power of the Holy Spirit. But THAT is God's mind about it all, THAT is the Word of God which needs to be made real and expressed. So there is a battle about THAT! The enemy hates the real thing. He says, 'Do keep it theoretical - just bring it down to earth a bit, so that we can fit in with people's ideas.' But God's Word says, 'No!'

(2) THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS

(a) The Character of Christ

We come briefly to the tremendous second factor - "the testimony of Jesus". 'Testimony' means spontaneous or unconscious witness; it is thus not just the witness TO Him, but the witness OF Him - that is to say, it is Jesus embodied and expressed in terms of life. We are only a testimony in the measure that Jesus is manifest. It is not certain people expressing themselves in terms of doctrine or opinions or preachings. No, it is a life manifest. Paul says: 'I bear about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifest' (2 Cor. 4:10). It is Jesus expressed. How? - by His character. The enemy is not interested in characterless Christians, Christians without character. We are speaking, of course, of Christ's character, not our own. Unless there is something of the mark of what is Christ about us, we have no impact.

What is His character supremely? I think we can bring it down to one word - meekness: and meekness is very near to selflessness. But WE cannot bring that about; it is only the Lord in us who can do it. For us, the Christian life is impossible. Only Christ can live it. You have to say, 'Lord, I give it up - but please go on with me', and you get through. And by His grace HE will get through, His beauty will be seen upon us because He is there. And let us have a positive note: He IS there! Praise His Name, 'Christ in us' is 'the hope of glory'; and if Christ is in us, then His meekness is in us, and we can trust Him for its manifestation. And not only His character, but His Cross will be there: yes, it is a crucified life, the Jesus life. The name Jesus speaks of His humanity and of His humility and of His suffering. That is the kind of person the Lord is trying to make us, is it not? That is the testimony.

(b) The Cross of Christ

And what a painful way it is! Whatever we are going through of trial, it is in order that the Jesus testimony may be manifest. I was speaking to a brother recently who has been going through great trials, and I said to him. 'Well, how are things? Are they any better? Have they changed?' His answer made me rejoice. He said, 'Well, no, they haven't; but we have changed!' Praise the Lord! And the Lord keeps us in the fire which we want cooled off. He keeps us in the fire because He says, 'I want to change you'. Yes, it is the Jesus life He wants. That is the testimony; and wherever it is, God is well-pleased, and wherever it is the enemy is annoyed. Do not let us worry about annoying the enemy. It is going to happen.

(c) The Crown of Christ

And thirdly, not only His Cross but His crown. Yes, one evidence of Him is that His Name, the Name of Jesus, is above every name. We have the KING dwelling within! Beloved, we are to "reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:17). The Lord Jesus is triumphant, victorious and glorious, and He is the One who is in us; and as our faith rests on that, counts upon it, the testimony, will begin to be evident that He is Lord, that He is our life, that He is our character. The testimony is not just some ideas or teachings, or some association. It is a real thing. It is the Word of God made real; it is the life of Christ made an actuality. Yes, it is Christ made manifest: a people and an humanity according to God: God's beloved Son expressed.

GOD'S GOAL: REALITY

Now, all this is very searching, very testing, but we want to sum it up. God has spoken in His beloved Son: His whole Word is a speaking of Christ; and that which matters to God is His mind revealed to us and realized in us - the Word of God made real. Do you ever test yourself? Take a well-known word: "You will keep him in perfect peace..." (Isa. 26:3). Well, am I in perfect peace? And consider some of the promises, such as: "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). Well, walking by the Spirit will fully extend us, will it not? One verse, one fragment of the Word of God, is a terrific challenge. What an accumulation of theories we have! The Lord wants, little by little, to turn every bit of it into reality, so that we ARE the thing - the mind of God revealed and realized. Our prayer should be: 'Lord, I know so little of all this in realization - I want it to be realized in me.'

And then the "testimony" is God's Son embodied and expressed. That is, Jesus, not us; not a lot of well-meaning Christians, but people out of the way, so that the Son of God can be seen. That which is precious to God is a reality: with that God is satisfied. We must not be surprised that things happen from the enemy's side, but we must go on unashamed, rejoicing, keeping our eyes on Him.

The Coming Purification and Rapture of the Church

Because of what is coming soon to our nation, I believe it is important to briefly review a topic discussed in an earlier blog - the context of the rapture of the church as taught in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. We need to dissect the word “remnant” (i.e. in verses 15 and 17, “we who are alive and remain” is literally, “the living ones who survive”). I will try to give a summary of this principle here.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 17 “perileipomai” is normally translated “remain”. Though partially correct, this translation leaves us with a very limited understanding of the extensive history and meaning of this word. It should be translated “survive” or the “surviving ones”: (Note: Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary summary below). Here is an overview of this concept based on its use in various contexts:

• Survivors of a catastrophe (e.g., as Lot survived Sodom).
• A group of non-Israelite survivors (e.g., "the remnant of Edom" Amos 9:12).
• Israelite survivors of the Assyrian invasion in 721-718 BC.
• Jewish survivors of the Babylonian invasion in 585 BC.
• The remnant of Jews who returned to Judah from Babylon.
• The remainder of physical Israelites and Jews after the Great Tribulation.

There is a pattern in the Holy Spirit’s use of this principle: Perileipomai refers to a small number of people who survive a catastrophic event which has killed the majority of this same group. As Isaiah put it,

“Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant,
we should have been like Sodom and we should have been like
unto Gomorrah.” (Isaiah 1:9; see also Isaiah 10:22)

It’s always a small number among a larger population. The majority is destroyed while the remnant, by God’s grace, escapes. The rapture is not simply a convenient air-escape in times of calm waters; it is an escape for the “living ones” in times of intense fire.

As we near the end of this age and the coming of our Lord, the church (globally) will come under the fires of persecution. The chaff will be burnt off, the gold will be refined. The surviving ones (“perileipomai”) will be “caught up to meet the Lord in the air”.

Following the destruction of the lukewarm church (Revelation 3:16b) and the “catching up” of the remnant, the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit will be removed (2 Thessalonians 2:7) to make way for the revelation of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:8) and his subsequent rise in power to begin his seven-year rule before the return of Christ to the earth when He will destroy His enemies, bind the Adversary and establish His millennial reign.

In his comments on the end times in 1 Peter 4:7ff, in vs. 17 Peter writes,“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God. . .” Judgment begins with us (the body of Christ). Then it will spread to the nations during the tribulation period in fulfillment of the prophecies related to Daniel’s 70th week (Revelation chapters 4-19). What judgment comes to us? God purifies His people to prepare them for the completion of the fullness of His will (1 Peter 1:5-8; 2 Peter 4:17). This testing also happened at the end of the Exodus generation when Caleb and Joshua comprised the faithful remnant and were ready to enter Canaan - the rest were destroyed (Ex. 14:1-29).

God has allowed the fires of persecution to sweep over three fourths of the world. Millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ are already in the midst of testing and suffering. They are being refined, matured, and strengthened. It’s now time for the church of the West (Europe and the United States) to join them. Believers who are lukewarm will be killed. Believers who are awake, alert, and spiritually alive (the “living ones”) will be protected and ultimately raptured.

This is the full meaning and implications of “perileipomai”; the New Testament encapsulation of remnant theology. The following passages illustrate God’s dealings with the faithful remnant of any generation during a time of judgment:

Genesis 6:8, 9:1
Isaiah 1:2-9
1 Corinthians 10:1-12 (compare with Hebrews 3:15-19)
Revelation 3:10
Revelation 12:6,13-16

We are on the verge historically of the judgmental “spewing out” of that which represents Laodecia (Revelation 3:14-16) and the honoring and exaltation of that which represents Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13)

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Baker's Evangelical Dictionary on “Remnant Theology”

Remnant

Leftovers or remainders, whether of daily food (Ru 2:14,18), food at the Passover (Le 7:16,18), anointing oil (Le 14:17), or even and especially people who survive a major disaster. A remnant of people is what is left of a community following a catastrophe (e.g., Noah's family after the flood, Gen 6:5-8:22; Lot's family after the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen. 19 those who remained in the land after the deportations of 597 b.c., Ezra 9:8; Jer 24:8; 52:15; those left behind under Gedaliah, Jer 40:6, 11, 15; or the Jews who came out of exile Ezra 9:8, 13; Zech 8:6, 11-12). Terms for remnant in the Old Testament derive from six roots and occur some 540 times (forms of Heb. sr, ytr, plt, srd; Gk., leimma, hypoleimma, loipos, kataloipos). Remnant, frequently in the sense of residue or refugee, takes on theological hues when it becomes the object of God's address and/or action.

Sociologically the remnant could be described variously as refugees, a community subgroup, or a sect. Canonically one may find language of remnant in the Pentateuch, in historical books (e.g., of groups subjugated or not yet subjugated), in the prophets, and in the New Testament. Historically, an illustration of remnant are the seven thousand in Israel who in times of apostasy of the Ahab/Jezebel era had not defected from the Lord (1 Kings 19:9-18). Theologically, remnant language clusters in several Old Testament books, the authors of which lived at some hinge point in history: Isaiah (37:31-32) and Micah (4:7; 7:18) near the time of Israel's collapse; Jeremiah (11:23; 50:20) and Zephaniah (2:7-9) near the time of Judah's fall; and Paul near the time of the emergence of the church (Rom 11:5). Remnant language is associated with both judgment and salvation.

Remnant and Judgment

The language of remnant in announcements of judgment was used to emphasize the totality of the judgment—whether of non-Israelites or Israelites—so that no trace, no remnant would in the end remain. Obadiah, whose book targets Edom, asserts, "There will be no survivors from the house of Esau" (v. 18). Damascus will become a ruinous heap, and the remnant of Syria will cease (Isa 17:3). Most conclusive is the statement against Babylon, which combines the ideas of reputation (name) and remnant, perhaps as an idiom for total destruction: "I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors (sa'ar)" (Isa 14:22; cf. 2 Sam 14:7). For Israel especially language of remnant was also invoked to disabuse any who might consider themselves exceptions to the predicted casualties. Should there be temporary survivors of a catastrophe, such as Nebuchadnezzar's siege, they would ultimately not be spared (Jer 21:7). Such news of total destruction was evidence of God's determination to proceed in judgment, but the news was intended to persuade vacillating persons to spare their lives by defecting to the Babylonians (Jer 21:8-9).

The name Shear-Jashub ("a remnant will return, " Isa 7:3), often thought to be seminal to the prophets' thought on remnant, is, even in context, ambiguous in meaning. Did the expression portend misfortune, or did it convey that all was not lost? The expression, "a remnant will return, " when applied later to Israel, became, even if marginally, a message of hope (Isa 10:20-23; 37:31-32; = 2 Kings 19:30-31).

Remnant and Salvation or Deliverance

Oracles of salvation may follow immediately on the heels of announcements of judgment, and paradoxically, both entail a remnant. In Amos 9 the destruction is said to be total (vv. 1-4, 10b); still there is a glimmer of hope: "I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob" (v. 8b). One frequent proposal at reconciling these opposites is to resort to the theory of editorial splicing, which softens the severity of the message but does not deal with the theological dissonance. A more acceptable answer takes God's justice into account. God will destroy the sinful kingdom—not a territory, but the aggregate of wicked leaders. All these shall perish. But not all the populace is equally guilty, and while the pious do not escape the effects of the destruction, God in his justice spares them; they become the remnant. Paradigms for wholesale destruction in which some are nevertheless spared exist in the story of Noah's family in the flood and Lot's escape from Sodom.

Since acceptance with God is not based on merit, one dimension of remnant theology is its message of God's grace (Isa 1:9; Amos 5:15). Judgment, whereby all is destroyed, is not the last word. Beyond judgment is God's readiness, because of his loyal love, to continue with his people. It is too mechanical to think of wrath and grace within God vying with each other for the upper hand, but given that hypothetical scenario, the message is that God's grace triumphs in the end.

The remnant is future-oriented. What prospects has the remnant that becomes, as in the exile, the carrier of God's promise? The prospect was for the exiles to be gathered together and to return to the homeland (Jer 23:3; 31:7-9; Micah 2:12-13; 4:6-7). The exodus from the exile, like the exodus from Egypt, was accompanied with miracles (Isa 11:11-16). The solution to the tension between God's earlier unchangeable promise and Israel's sad history lies in the remnant. Those returning with Zerubbabel (Hag 1:12, 14; Zech 8:6, 11, 12) and those returning at the time of Ezra (Ezra 9:13-15) regarded themselves as that remnant. Isaiah had graphically depicted the Assyrian takeover with the image of God cutting down the tall trees and lopping off boughs with "terrifying power" (Isa 10:28-34; NRSV ). Equally graphic was to be the recovery as "the outcasts of Israel" and the "dispersed of Judah" would be gathered together. Also, there would emerge a shoot (remnant?) from the stump of Jesse (Isa 11:1). Upon this shoot, customarily interpreted as the Messiah, rests the sevenfold spirit (vv. 2-3a) with the promise that he would rule in righteousness (v. 5). The eschatological picture of the cessation of all hostilities among humans and among animal leans on the existence of a remnant. In the prophet's mouth, remnant language for Israel is hope-engendering.

The remnant was the recipient of other promises: granting of pardon (Mic 7:18-20); God's everlasting love (Jer 31:2); taking root (2 Kings 19:30; cf. Isa 37:31-32); removal of enemies and becoming established like a lion in the forest (Mic 4:7-9); the Lord's promise to be a garland of glory for the remnant (Isa 28:5-6); and a grant by God for the people to possess all things (Zec 8:6).

The texts announcing salvation for the remnant raise the question of the relation of the remnant to its base group. Jeremiah addresses this question for his situation: God's future lay with those who had been taken to Babylon (the good figs), not with those who stayed in the land (the bad figs, Jer. 24). The Qumran community saw itself as the "remnant of thy people [Israel]" (1QM14.8-9; cf. CD 2.11). Paul clarified the relationship between the remnant, those who accepted the gospel, and the larger body of unbelieving Jews, by noting: (1) that the remnant represented the ongoing activity of God with the chosen people, "a remnant chosen by grace" (Rom 11:5) since it is the spiritual Israel; (2) that the function of the Jewish remnant, to which are not attached the Gentile believers, is to serve as a vehicle of retrieval or recovery for the larger Jewish community; and (3) that the exclusion of the larger is for a limited time (Rom 11:11-32).

One might ask, of course, how it is that God holds with the remnant, which is usually the small rather than the large body, the minority rather than the majority. Where is God's ultimate triumph? One answer is to examine the larger sweep of salvation history. The story of the primeval history was discontinued in favor of the election of Abram, a remnant, so to speak, from the larger group. Similarly the New Testament story discontinued the story of mainstream Israel and related the story of the faithful remnant. This remnant, however, received from Jesus a mission that was world-embracing (Matt 28:18-20). The remnant was called to redemptive activity. The Book of Revelation depicts, as does the primeval history, a great diversity of people, people now in God's presence. The remnant has accomplished God's purpose. Questions on the order of majority/minority may be misplaced. By God's measure, more on the order of righteousness, his triumph is not in doubt (Zep 3:11-13). The doctrine of the remnant is in part that failure of a larger body will not impair God's purposes.

Because the criterion is not ethnicity but righteousness, the Scripture applies "remnant" language to peoples other than Israel. In a pivotal text Amos speaks of a remnant of Edom, interpreted by James as referring to all humankind, which will come under the saving umbrella of David (Amos 9:12). Philistines, like Judah, are envisioned as a "remnant for our God."