<p>12:9 <i>But he that denies me- </i>The whole purpose of the true church is to be a light to the world- &ldquo;the only cooperative society in the world that exists for the benefit of its non-members&rdquo;, as William Temple put it. The Lord will tell some in the last day that He never knew them, He will deny them; and yet He will deny those who never confessed Him before men (Mt. 8:23; 10:32,33). These people will have prophesied in His Name i.e. preached to the ecclesia, and done &ldquo;mighty works&rdquo; for Him; but the fact they didn&rsquo;t confess Him before men is seen as not knowing Him; for to know Him is to perceive that we are intended to confess Him before men. This, perhaps, is our greatest danger. The presence and witness of God is no longer in a tent in the Sinai, nor in a Jerusalem temple. God reveals Himself through the group of ordinary, mixed up folks who comprise the ecclesias. For the watching world, we present proof that Christ is indeed alive; we provide the visible shape of what God and Jesus are really like. This is how vital is the matter of witness. It is utterly fundamental to the whole purpose behind our having been called. If we deny Christ, we deny that Jesus is the Christ (1 Jn. 2:22); and yet we deny Christ if we don&rsquo;t preach Him (Mt. 10:33). It follows that if we really believe that Jesus was not just Jesus of Nazareth but the Christ of God, therefore we won&rsquo;t deny Him but will preach Him. This is why there is connection between confessing Jesus as Christ and preaching Him (Jn. 9:22; Acts 18:5; Phil. 2:11). A grasp of who the Lord Jesus really is and the height of His present exaltation will naturally result in a confession of Him to the world, as well as a deep personal obedience to His word and will (Heb. 2:1).</p><p>There are at least three Biblical examples of people denying Jesus- the same Greek word is used- and yet repenting. Peter denied the Lord &ldquo;before all&rdquo; (Mt. 26:70), and yet was restored. The entire crowd around Jesus, including the healed woman, initially &lsquo;denied&rsquo; they had touched Jesus (Lk. 8:45); but the woman then came out into the open and confessed Christ before all. The Jews &lsquo;denied&rsquo; Christ (Acts 3:13,14) but then repented and were baptized publicly. The point is, that in the moments when we deny Him, He denies us; but we can change the situation.</p><p>It&rsquo;s tempting to wonder whether all this talk of confession and denial is only really relevant to those standing trial for their Christian faith, with the threat of death before them and the possibility of saving their life if they make some symbolic denial of Christ. But the words for confessing and denying occur together in Tit. 1:16 about those within the ecclesia who &ldquo;Profess s.w. &lsquo;confess&rsquo; that they know God, but in works<i> deny</i>&nbsp;Him&rdquo;. We can make the profession of faith before men, and in the public confession of baptism- whilst effectively denying the faith in our lives. There were some within the ecclesias of the first century who &lsquo;denied&rsquo; the Lord (2 Pet. 2:1). External membership can appear as &lsquo;confession&rsquo;, but the point is that it isn&rsquo;t necessarily. It can actually be a front for denial of Him&hellip;</p><p><i>In the presence of men shall be denied in the presence of the angels of God</i>- The Lord Jesus in the last day will confess, or witness to in a legal sense, for His people &quot;before the angels of God&quot; (Lk. 12:8,9); and yet He uses the same language to describe how right now, He confesses us in Heaven in the presence of His Father (Mt. 10:32). Thus when we witness- or don't witness- to our relationship with Him, the Lord Jesus either confesses or denies knowledge of us before His Father. Right now. And this, therefore, is a foretaste of the final judgment. And we face these foretastes day by day in human life, as we encounter the choices of confessing or denying our Lord.</p><p>There is a direct correlation between our attitudes to witnessing before men now, and the attitude of the Lord Jesus about us in Heaven &ldquo;before&rdquo;, or &lsquo;before the face of&rsquo;, the Father. Witnessing is essentially personal, each of us individually &ldquo;before men&rdquo;. As modern life progresses in reducing relationships to online abstractions, we must remember this. An individual may press the right keys on their keyboard, send money online to a preaching organization- and yet never be making any witness about Christ before the faces of men. Indeed, those with whom the person does have face to face relationships may well be totally unaware he is a Christian. It&rsquo;s this kind of thing which the Lord is addressing in such demanding terms- our witness&nbsp;<i>before men</i>, not in some anonymous world of avatars, is related to how we witnesses about us&nbsp;<i>before the face of God in Heaven</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>So whoever denies the Lord before men will be denied before the Angels. Two words are used here, the first weaker than the second. If we deny Jesus, He will utterly deny us before the Angels- what we do now on earth is even more strongly reflected in Heaven and at judgment day. The Heavenly response to our words and actions is out of proportion to our words. This surely inspires us in our daily words and decisions.</p>