God’s Two Witnesses

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Apr 25, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 17.

God’s Two Witnesses

What Is Your Witness?

ONCE more we call our readers’ attention to the Bible law of witness as applicable to individual experience. There are thousands who are professing Christianity who have no other assurance than uncertain feeling, or an experience of perhaps years ago, when God would have us know by His own reliable twofold witness that we are children of God. Let us take home the questions to heart and be honest with ourselves and God!

Are we the Lord’s? Is He our personal Saviour? Do we know this to be a fact? If so, how?

“Why,” says one, “I have the blessed inward consciousness that this is so. I have the witness within myself. What more do I need?” But you do need more. An “inward consciousness” of our own, apart by itself, however “blessed” it may seem to us, is of little worth. Thousands have been deceived before us, and we may be just as surely deceived. Such witness at best is only a human, fallible witness.

“But how may I know?” do you ask? You may know. God would have you have a better witness. The law of the Word of God in the matter of witness is that “at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.” Deut. 19:15; Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1. Even our Lord’s mission was thus established. John 8:18. And He Himself declared, “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.” John 5:31.

But did He not bear witness of Himself, and was not His witness true?—Yes; but its truth was confirmed by even greater witness, witness which would appeal to minds far beyond any claim which Jesus of Himself could make. Further, Jesus did not put forth His “inner consciousness” as a witness. Of course He possessed an inner consciousness that made His own heart glad. But the two witnesses were these:

Witness in Jesus

I am one that bear witness of Myself. John 8:18. 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. John 5:36.

Witness of the Father

The Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me. John 8:18. Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify [bear witness] of Me. John 5:39.

For all the hundreds of years in the past from Moses to Malachi, God had by His Spirit in His Word borne witness to His Son. Unchanged that witness had remained through all the centuries. Every phase and characteristic of Christ’s time and life and work had been foretold.

When Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the eternal Logos, came to this world, God gave Him His Spirit without measure. That Spirit wrought out in Jesus Christ just what God had foretold in His Word. The Incarnated Word agreed with the written Word, and thus did God establish Christ’s mission to all men.

That written God-breathed Word comes down to us to-day. It is the voice of the Spirit of God speaking to the children of men. It is the infallible witness of the ages. No man living can say that any contemporaneous man wrote it, or has altered it to suit his purpose.

Our human soul comes to that Word. It hears God speak. It yields to His voice. That Word declares the soul a sinner; the soul says, “It is true, Lord.” He agrees with God. That Word says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The soul responds with joy, “Amen, Lord.”

But the soul listens further; the Word tells him that he may have the love of God through the Spirit of God, that God is willing to give that Spirit, that by that Spirit that soul will obey God, and keep all His commandments. Rom. 5:5; 1 John 5:3. And the soul again and at all times responds: “Amen, Lord. To Thee be the dominion of my heart, for Thine is the glory and the power. O, how love I Thy law! I delight greatly in Thy commandments.”

If we have come to that experience, then it is true that the Spirit “beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Rom. 8:16. God’s Spirit bears witness in His Word; our regenerated spirit witnesses with His Spirit. Whenever God speaks we hear. Whenever His Spirit witnesses in His Word, His Spirit in our heart responds in perfect agreement.

Then we need not be deceived. We know the spirit within us is right, because it is in harmony with the Word. We do not judge the Word by our spirit, as does the New Theology; but we determine the spirit that actuates us by the expression of God’s Spirit in the Scriptures. We have heard His voice; and with Him we are agreed. We know that He is right; and agreeing with Him, we know that we are right with Him. We have complied with His conditions, and He declares we are forgiven and accepted in the beloved; and we accept it and are glad.

This is God’s witness to us that we are His. It is His witness to you, to me. But our witnessing is not to ourselves or of ourselves; it is to the world of the goodness and power of God to transform character, save to the uttermost, and do all that He has promised.