In my personal daily Bible study, I have been going through the book of Jeremiah. I’m pretty far into the book now and God has finally pronounced judgment upon the people of Judah for their wickedness, their evil, their refusal to trust God, coupled with their insistence on trusting in man, and worshipping false gods, even to the point of sacrificing their own children. The vast majority of the people were carried off to exile in Babylon, but God left a remnant behind in Judah. This remnant asks the prophet Jeremiah to pray on their behalf to God:
Then all the commanders of the forces…and all the people from the least to the greatest, came near and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Let our pleas for mercy come before you, and pray to the Lord your God for us, for all this remnant — because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us — that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.” Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to the Lord your God according to your request, and whatever the Lord answers you I will tell you. I will keep nothing back from you.” Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us. Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.”
Jeremiah 42: 1-6
Spoiler alert — they wind up disobeying and not believing the word that Jeremiah brings them from the Lord, and they go off to Egypt directly against God’s command, further refusing to put their trust in Him for their protection. However, what I wanted to point out was only the phrase “true and faithful witness.”
In church this past Sunday, we went through the letter to the church in Laodicea from Revelation 3. The seven letters in the book of Revelation were written by John (the same John who wrote the gospel of John) as commanded by Jesus, and meant to offer guidance to seven churches in Asia Minor in the first century. Some of the churches received rebuke and correction, others received praise and encouragement, and some received both. Jesus opens each letter with an introduction that includes one of His many titles:
| Church Location | Jesus’s Title in the Introduction |
| Ephesus | Him who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands |
| Smyrna | The first and the last, who died and came to life |
| Pergamum | Him who has the sharp two-edged sword |
| Thyatira | The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze |
| Sardis | Him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars |
| Philadelphia | The holy one, the true one, who has the Key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens |
In the final letter, to the church in Laodicea, Jesus introduces Himself as follows:
And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation…”
Revelation 3:14
This is the exact same title that the remnant of Judah used to describe Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God of Judah, in the passage from Jeremiah 42, many centuries before Jesus was born. The titles that Jesus uses for Himself in the letters to the churches in Revelation are all consistent with the kinds of claims that Jesus made about Himself when He was on earth.
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
John 10: 24-33
Many people I have talked to in the past are skeptical about whether or not Jesus actually claimed to be God. My Muslim friends, for example, point to the gospels and say that Jesus never claimed to be God, challenging the Christian to point to a verse where Jesus says, “I am God, worship me.” While there is no such verse that says exactly that in those very words, there is plenty of support in scripture for the fact that Jesus claimed to be God. The religious leaders of Jesus’s day certainly knew what kinds of claims He was making. They charged Him with blasphemy and attempted to stone Him. They even plainly said it — “because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
I thought it was awesome have come across “the true and faithful witness” in Jeremiah 42 right around the same time that we went through Revelation 3 in church. Had the timing been any different, I likely never would have made that connection. Praise the Lord.
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