THE WITNESSING OF GOD by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 5, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 30.

THE WITNESSING OF GOD

By Editor

THE BASIS OF OUR CONFIDENCE

XII. Has God a Living Witness in the Gospel Age?

HAS God a living witness to His word, His gospel, now? Does He leave such a witness upon which we may depend, one to which we can invite the wanderers on life's sea so they can find their bearings?

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be such a witness as this. She declares that she has existed the one living witness from the days when our Lord walked upon earth to the present time. She declares that our Lord's word to Peter recorded in Matt. 16:16-19 was the founding of that church upon Peter, and that that church has been a living witness ever since.

In proof of this she presents the “unity,” the “holiness,” the “catholicity,” the “apostolicity,” the “perpetuity,” and the “infallible authority” of that church. Surely these qualities and prerogatives, if possessed by any religious body, demand attention. Such astounding claims are worthy of consideration.

We freely admit that the Roman Catholic Church is great, and wields tremendous influence in the world. She possesses a kind of unity of coercion and compulsion which holds together her great mass of people. She has existed for centuries. But is she God's witness? Does she meet the test of a twofold unimpeachable witness?

It does not seem to us that she does. For the place and position she assumes, she has only her own declaration.

She declares that our Lord's words to Peter apply to her and constitute her infallible. That is to say, she accepts this record of our Lord as fact, and assumes they apply to her. But if they apply to her, she is infallible. The second assumption logically follows the first. Assuming both of these to be true, she infallibly declares that the words do apply to her, and that she is the infallible church, and can not fail. But do you not see that these claims and declarations rest on one witness only — her own? Not to misrepresent her, we quote from the Catholic Mirror, at that time the organ of Cardinal Gibbons. In its issue of April 29, 1899, the editor attempts to prove that Catholics do not reason in a “vicious circle.” Here are his conclusions:

“We have availed ourselves of the writers known as evangelists as contemporary witnesses of what they narrate, as mere men, as would any thoughtful profane historians in their narration of facts when fully accredited as such.

“Through them, presupposing our common belief in the divinity of Christ, we reach with infallible certainty the existence of an institution [the church] created and formed by the Son of God, endowed with attributes which, if the Son of God speak the truth, place her above the possibility of ever teaching falsehood, thereby betraying the purpose of her existence. We here accept her as God who created and endowed her. We feel convinced that the abiding presence of the Creator and the Holy Spirit with her, while time lasts, precluded the possibility of her being smirched by contact with error. Hence we glory in the discovery of an infallible guide and teacher, whose deliveries are to us the teachings of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“But this newly found, infallible teacher now informs us that the historians whose truthful narration of the Son of God are not only truthful historians, but were inspired by the Holy Spirit to furnish the world with what they have written as the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit in the premises. Thus after we have reached the church of Christ with all her divine prerogatives, through human writers endowed with the attribute of truth, we now learn from the church, as the mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost, that these writers were not actuated by merely human motives in their biographies of Christ, but were under the direct influence of the Holy Ghost in the prosecution of their narratives. Through them, as truthful human historians, we reached the infallible church of Christ, who in turn, by virtue of the permanent abiding of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit within her, pronounces the (to us) human writers as under the divine influence whilst indicting. . . .

“Hence the charge against the church of reasoning in a vicious circle has no foundation, when she proves the infallibility of herself from contemporary human, but fully accredited veracious historians, and then the inspiration of the same historians from the authority of an infallible tribunal, namely, herself.” (Bold-face ours.)

What Is Assumed

But these historians did not say that Jesus spoke of the Roman Catholic Church.

Our Lord does not say that His words referred or applied to the Roman Catholic Church.

It is pure assumption to say that they so apply, without clear evidence that they do.

It is assumed that our Lord's words picture such an institution as the Roman Catholic Church claims to be.

Then the assumption is taken as fact, and this assumed infallible church declares that the words do apply to her and that she is infallible.

According to this editor's own showing, the Roman Catholic Church has only her own “infallible”(!) testimony that she is the church of God.

For the testimony of apostles and evangelists, contemporaries of Jesus, merely speaks of a church, or the church, without designating what church.

A mere claim of being that church is not sufficient evidence. Mormonism claims that the true church is that of the Latter-day Saints; the Orthodox Church of Russia makes the same claim. Such claim is of itself, apart from other absolutely conclusive evidence, utterly worthless. Matthew may declare that Christ spoke of a church which should endure, which should not be conquered, with whom the Lord would be to the end; but Rome's claim to be

that church, must, to stand, have a more substantial basis than a mere claim.

The claim of Roman Catholics rests, it seems to us, on the same basis that the Mormon claim rests on — themselves. Of course, each claims that the Bible proves the claim; but with the Roman Catholic the church, whose status is involved, must interpret the testimony of the Bible, and exercise her power, if necessary, to change its very teaching. Her position is that of a claimant before a court for an estate demanding that only such witness should be presented as met his approval, and that should be understood according to his interpretation. Evidence will be given of this hereafter.

Mormonism is the same in principle. Those scriptures which disprove her claim she sets aside as imperfect, and substitutes a revelation of her own, built upon collusive testimony.

Neither does the proof of the inspiration of the Scriptures rest upon the declaration of any church. There is stronger evidence than this.

A Reversal of the Divine Method

The above Roman Catholic mold of reasoning or proving, reverses the divine procedure. God has substantiated all His word in the word itself. That is, by that word and in that word God will prove its infallibility to any one who will comply with its conditions, conditions withal so simple that any or all may put them to the test.

God's witness, let us repeat, is twofold at least, and the witnesses never collusive. 'In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.' To put it in another way, God writes His word at least twice concerning everything of which He has spoken, in fiat, in precept, in promise, in prediction; and again in fulfilment; and the first must prove the second; the second is the complement of the first.

Our Lord did not say, 'The prophets as mere men spoke of Me, predicted My coming; and now I am the One they predicted, and I declare they prophesied of Me by inspiration.' Such a claim would have been worthless.

Jesus gave the two witnesses. One of these was the written word, covering a space of over two thousand years, the canon closing more than three centuries before, as a babe, He saw light in Bethlehem. He could say to the Jews, 'Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of Me.'

This witness had been recorded for centuries. The man Jesus could not have given it nor altered the scrolls of the prophets. He could not, nor did He wish to, interpret this witness to fit Himself. He came to do God's will, and God would supply the second witness in the One whom He sent. '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.'

Here are the two witnesses: God's word written in Moses, in the Psalms, in the prophets; God's word written in the life, the character, the works of Jesus Christ.

The two witnesses thus testifying need no infallible court to appeal to the candid mind. They are absolutely unimpeachable — God's word first, and then the witness which demonstrates the second writing of that word in character, in event, in life.

God has also testified concerning His church. He has spoken through our Lord, and prophet and apostle, of her origin, her character, on what conditions she should remain His, the vicissitudes through which she would pass, her prominence and obscurity, her prosperity and adversity, to the final triumph.

We continue this study in our next.