Jesus' own ministry is total. It is not a special gift or partial ministry. The ministry of the Body of Christ also is total, not fragmented. Every member of the Body is an integral part of the Light of the world, the Bride of the Lamb, the Temple of God.

We are not implying that the need for gifts and ministries is past. Rather, it is our point of view that during the current and future latter-rain witness, the gifts and ministries will be poured on the waiting saints in unprecedented abundance.

Our emphasis is, however, that the Body of Christ is being brought to maturity in order to accomplish the several parts of God's eternal purpose in Christ, and that one of the first parts will be the great end-time testimony of the coming of the Kingdom of God as symbolized by the "two witnesses" of Revelation, Chapter 11. The end-time, latter-rain testimony of the saints is a total ministry to the peoples and nations and tongues and kings of the whole earth.

Each member of the Body of Christ is to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God in order that he or she may be a Divinely empowered witness to all persons everywhere.

Speaking of the Servant of the Lord, who is Christ—Head and Body, the Spirit announces:

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. (Isaiah 43:10)

Notice, in the above passage, that God's witnesses, His corporate Servant, "know and believe" God. It is the people who know their God who will "be strong and do exploits" in the last days (Daniel 11:32).

Notice also the singular, and then the plural. The Servant (singular) whom God has chosen is made up of many witnesses (plural). The Servant, who Is Christ—Head and Body, consists of many witnesses.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

We can see that the witness always is of the Lord Himself, especially of His atoning death and triumphant resurrection ("the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow"—I Peter 1:11). "Witnesses unto me"! This is why the saints must come to know God Himself; why the Lord spends so many years teaching us while we are anxious to go out and "do something."

The prophet of God, God's witness, always must stand in the Presence of God and proclaim God—His Person, His glory, His will, His ways, His purposes in the earth.

The ministry of the anointed witness is part of the external, corporate ministry of the Body of Christ in which every member of God's elect shares.

Unlike the purpose of the several gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit, which is to build up the Body of Christ itself, the purpose of the corporate, external witness of the Body is to awaken the peoples of the earth to the Presence and will of God.

To be continued.