It is written of John the Baptist “John did no miracle” (Jn. 10:41) but John testified of the Messiah – “behold the Lamb of God.”

There is neither sign, nor wonder, nor miracle recorded of the apostle Paul AFTER the Act 28:28 Dispensational Boundary … in which Paul ‘testified’ to the important New Doctrinal Truth For Us Today.

Note that that each one of the lists of human ‘witnesses’ were “martyrs,” including John the Baptist who was then beheaded. The Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. Peter was forewarned by the Lord as to the death he should die and spoke of the near approach of his decease in his second epistle. Paul wrote his second epistle to Timothy in view of his approaching death which tradition says, as well as the evidence of the epistle, was by execution. They were ‘witnesses’ by both their words and experience. It cannot be too strongly emphasized therefore that only in a secondary sense can any one of us today be called ‘witnesses.’

Consider JOHN THE BAPTIST – How far was he an eye-witness?

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto Him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. THIS IS HE OF WHOM I SAID …  and John bare record (‘martureo’ same word ‘bear witness,’ John 1: 7), saying I SAW the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not; but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon Whom thou shalt SEE the spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” (John 1:29-33).

Jesus’ Twelve Apostles to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”: How far were they eye-witnesses?

“Wherefore of these men which had COMPANIED with us ALL the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, BEGINNING at the baptism of John, UNTO that same day when He [Jesus] was taken up from us, MUST one be ordained to be a WITNESS of His resurrection” (Acts 1:21-22).

PETER - “He [Jesus] was seen of Cephas [Peter]” (I Cor. 15: 5).

PAUL - “[God] have Chosen thee [Paul]to see that Just One [Jesus] and hear His voice” (Acts 22:14).

As we trace the unfolding purpose in the New Testament, we observe that at each age, a ‘witness’ is raised up. ‘Witnesses’ to Pentecost and its message of ‘offering the Kingdom’ were many in the early Acts period.

With the call and commission of Paul, however, as the New Witness appears, indicating another dispensational change. Paul was given several titles, such as “a chosen vessel” recorded in Act 9. Paul was to “bear the name of the Lord before the Gentiles, and Kings and the children of Israel.” Note how “the Gentiles” occupies first place even as they do in the prophetic utterance of Simeon (Luke 2:32). The emphasis upon the Gentiles in these passages, cannot be disassociated from God’s foreknown withdrawal of favour from Israel.

“It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you [Israel]; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, … We Turn To The Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).

From Acts 22:6-15 we learn more fully the commission given to Paul following his conversion on the road to Damascus: “For thou shalt be His witness unto all men of what thou hast SEEN and HEARD” (v15) and referring to Paul’s first ministry which ends with the shadow of prison in Acts 20, he summed it up as “testifying (or ‘witnessing’) both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ” (v21). In his defence, the Apostle more than once linked the two sections of his ministry by the word that is translated either “witness” or “testify.” “As thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem [to the Jew], so must thou bear witness also at Rome” [to men of all races equally] (Acts 23:11).

In like manner, Paul’s Post-Acts ministry, the ministry that unfolded the new ‘dispensation of the mystery,” the ministry that finds its explanation in Paul’s Prison Epistles of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon and II Timothy, these epistles too are a “witness” or a “testimony” to ‘the truth for our times.’ Paul’s first ministry, during the Acts-period, actually comes to an end with Acts 20 and his new ministry is foreseen. Referring to the prophecies that spoke of his bonds and afflictions Paul said:

“But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, To Testify the Gospel Of The Grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

This implies something more than preaching the gospel as an ‘evangelist,’ it includes this, but it gives meaning to the emphasis which is laid on “the grace of God,” for in the Prison Epistles we read that “the dispensation” which had been given to the apostle as “the Prisoner of Christ Jesus for you GENTILES,” which was “the Dispensation of The Grace of God” (cf. Eph. 3:1-2).

Again, in his defence before Agrippa the apostle Paul spoke of his Twofold ministry, again using the word translated either “witness” or “testimony” for the “Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee.”

“But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; ¹⁷ Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,” (Acts 26:16-17)

The apostle Paul’s prison ministry is called “the testimony (or witness) of our Lord” and of Paul “His prisoner” (2 Tim. 1:8). The special teaching which Timothy was enjoined to commit to faithful men, was a teaching which he had heard of Paul “among many witnesses” (2Tim. 2:2). So, in his first epistle to Timothy, Paul speaks of the great message concerning the “One God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all,” he adds “to be testified in due time” (1Tim. 2:5-6), (our translation: “The Testimony In Its Own Peculiar Seasons”. Immediately following this most discriminating claim, he adds:

“Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle [a sent one] (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity [truth]” (1Tim. 2: 7).

The words translated “in due time” in 1Tim. 2:6, which could be rendered “in its own peculiar seasons,” are the Greek words idios and kairos in the plural dative. ‘Idios’ means something peculiarly one’s “own,” and is so translated in 1Tim. 3:4-5, 12. Also similarly translated in the KJV as found in Titus 1:2-3:

“In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before age-times (pro chronon aionion); but hath in due times (Gk. kairois, idiois) manifested His word through preaching, which is committed unto me [Paul] according to the commandment of God our Saviour.”

Thus, here also we have the message “committed” to Paul in harmony with a “commandment of God,” which is but another way of saying “whereunto I am ordained” (I Tim. 2:7a).

The “revelation of the mystery” (Rom. 16:25) and the “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:9) that concerned “the church, which is His body” was especially committed to Paul the Prisoner with its accompanying “Gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

Its teaching concerned the “one Mediator” (1Tim. 2:5) Who “gave Himself a ransom For ALL” (1Tim. 2:6). Thus it is distinct from the more limited reference seen in Matt. 20:28, in which He was “to minister and give His life For MANY.” Paul’s new ministry was a ‘testimony or a witness’ that had “its own peculiar season” for its announcement and manifestation. Every fresh unfolding of the dispensations has been accompanied at its inception with such a specially equipped and commissioned ‘witness,’ such as Paul.

Dispensational truth, like all other aspects of truth, can be supported, illustrated, and enforced, by comparison in study by every other legitimate means, but it is an occasion for thanksgiving to have seen that its discovery does not depend upon the witness of man, but rather it stands solidly and unassailably upon the WITNESS of God. From the days of John the Baptist until the end of time, each and every dispensational change could be heralded with the words used by Paul a testimony ‘in its own due time’ (1Tim. 2:6).

- Dispensational Truth is “Attested Truth.” - Dispensational Truth is “Truth for the Times.” - Dispensational Truth is “The Key of Knowledge.”

Largely drawn from and adapted from Charles H. Welch