WHAT IS YOUR WITNESS?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 42.

WHAT IS YOUR WITNESS?

ARE you the Lord's? Is he your personal Saviour? Do you 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 your own, apart by itself, however "blessed" it may seem to you, is of little worth. Thousands have been deceived before you, and you may be just as surely deceived. Your 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 which made his own heart glad. But the two witnesses were these:—

Witness of Jesus. | Witness of the Father.

"I am one that bear witness of myself." John 8:17. | "The Father that sent me, beareth witness of me." John 8:17.

"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. | "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 other 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, "Amen, Lord." It 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 again says, "Amen, Lord." He 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. 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."

Has not that soul a witness?—Yea, verily. The spirit which is in him agrees with the Spirit of God in the Word; and therefore he knows (1) that the spirit in him is the Spirit of Christ, and (2) that he is indeed the Lord's, for the Lord says it, and with it all he is agreed. O brother, this is the witness God desires you to have that you are his child! It is his witness to you. But your witnessing is not to yourself, or of yourself, it is to the world of the goodness of God, of God's power to transform character, and to do all that he has promised.