UNIMPEACHABLE TESTIMONY TO THE MISSION OF JESUS.
By M. C. W.
"It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me." John 8:17, 18. THESE are the words of our Saviour with reference to his divine mission. It is an unimpeachable testimony not of one, but of two. And this witness of two is not like the false witnesses who were suborned to condemn our Lord; "for neither so did their witness agree together." The witnesses which God gives witness with each other. This twofold witness has ever been a divine law. In the Levitical dispensation, no one was condemned except at the mouth of two or three witnesses. After the manner of the East, these witnesses were examined sometimes, if not always, separately to see if there was collusion between them (See History of Susanna, in the Apocrypha); and their testimony must further be confirmed by the witnesses against the criminal being foremost in putting him to death. See Deut. 19:15; and 17:6, 7. If any accusing witness was proved to be false, he was dealt with as he thought to deal with his brother, or he would receive the same punishment due to the crime that he thought to fix upon the one he accused. Deut. 19:16-20. Thus the lives of men were guarded. It was a righteous law, and the same principle holds good in the New Testament. Willingness to adjust difficulties must be established under two or three witnesses. Matt. 18:16. The sinners in the Corinthian church must expect this just law to decide their cases. 2 Cor. 13:1. No accusation is to be received against an elder of the Christian church except at the mouth of two or three witnesses, so sacred was their reputation in the sight of the Lord. It is too often the case now, however, that mere rumor is sufficient to blast the reputation of member or officer in the church of Christ. Those who originate it, or who circulate it, would not dare to bring it as a charge, would not talk it over with the individual; but slanderer like, they strike in the dark, give surmises for facts, and insinuate more than they say. Selfishness and envy lie at the root of all such work. Nothing should be held against the character of an individual unless it is established by evidence. The same law holds good with reference to the mission of Christ. When God sent his Son into the world, he sent him with unimpeachable testimony to his divine mission. In fact, he gave a twofold witness, besides John the Baptist. The latter's testimony might be doubted, as it could be argued that there was a possibility of collusion between him and Jesus. It alone was worthless. John himself even wavered as to whether Jesus was the Christ, and was only assured by the twofold testimony of the mission of Christ, "the greater witness than that of John." This witness, or more properly, these two witnesses are brought before us in the words of Christ at the head of this article. These are the witnesses, the Father and the Son. How did they bear witness? We quote from John 5:37, 39:— "And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me." "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me." It is in the Scriptures of truth that God hath testified, or borne witness, of his Son, by patriarch and by prophet, from Enoch, the seventh from Adam, to Malachi, the messenger of the Lord of hosts. How Christ bears witness is shown in the following:— "But I have greater witness than that of John; for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me." Verse 36. Now notice the positive assurance which we have in this twofold witness, or these two agreeing witnesses. First, we have the Father's testimony in the Scriptures, which had been written from fourteen hundred years to four hundred years before Christ was born. Those scriptures had predicted of what tribe Christ would come, where he would be born, when he would be given his mission, what his work would be, and what its character, even to the death upon the cross, and the victory over the grave. All this testimony was ultimate authority with the Jews. They could not say that Jesus the son of Joseph had by artifice deceived them by writing or tampering with the sacred writings. They had existed among the Jews for hundreds of years; there was no doubt concerning this; and Jesus was "not yet fifty years old." Here was one infallible witness. But secondly, Jesus was in harmony with all these prophecies, not in words alone, but in deeds, in character, in the whole history of his life. Here was absolute agreement between the unchangeable witness of the recorded truth of God and the testimony of the work and life of Christ. And when the Spirit of God had predicted these things of the Messiah, and then when Jesus had met them all in his own life, the conclusion would be unavoidable that God had given him these works to do, and that his mission was divine. This absolute agreement with the infallible Scriptures made another infallible witness to the Messiahship of Jesus, the two together being absolutely unimpeachable. The Scriptures of truth that testify of Christ before he came compose now the Old Testament. The writings which record his works compose the New Testament. These two are the living and unshaken testimony to the divinity of our Lord. They are the two witnesses to the truth of Christianity which stand before the Lord of the whole earth, and ever will stand. Rev. 11:3-12. Praise God for the sure evidence. No other system can furnish the same; no other prophet or teacher could or can present such credentials. Seemingly humble in origin of person and mission, both came from the highest heaven. Dying an ignominious death as a criminal, condemned by the Jews as a blasphemer and by Pilate as a traitor, he seemed to lay a poor foundation for his few followers to build upon, but it was the eternal and undying rock of all truth. Faith can there fold her wings and rest.