The Witness of the Spirit
with me this evening, and to carefully note the context in each instance.
These are the texts: first; Heb. 10: 15; “The Holy Ghost also is a witness TO us.” 2nd, 1 John 5: 10; ‘He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness IN himself.” 8rd, Rom. 8:16; “The Spirit itself beareth witness WITH our spirit, that we are the children of God.”
I am very desirous to be used of God this evening to lead some bewildered soul out of confusion and perplexity of mind into the blessedness of settled peace with God. I am persuaded that there are few subjects on which Christians, generally, are so bewildered as the teaching of Scripture concerning the witness of the Holy Spirit. Many think of it as an emotional experience, a happy feeling, a spiritual exhilaration, an. ecstatic state of mind, or a vision of some kind, to do for them what in their estimation the word of God alone cannot do, namely, give them a knowledge of acceptance in Christ. But all of these are wrong, and while some such subjective experiences may result from and follow the witness, none of these, nor all of them together, constitute that witness.:
In order to introduce my subject in a practical way, let me fell you a true story. Some years ago I was frequently invited to a certain western city to hold gospel meetings, and on each occasion I was
I HAVE three texts which I desire you to read entertained by a dear, godly family, of which the husband and wife were both earnest and happy Christians, though both saved only a few years before. It was always a joy to meet them, and to share with them in the precious things of Christ.
But the last time I was at their home I was only in the house a few minutes when I saw that something was wrong. The wife was no longer the joyous believer she had been. Her face was gloomy and downcast. She was plainly worried and anxious, and naturally her trouble was reflected in the face of her husband. The next morning, after he had gone down to business, she asked me if I would bring my Bible to the living-room and go into a question that was greatly exercising her; which I was, of course, glad to do. She looked nervous and distressed, and for a few moments did not speak. Her very fingers twitched, as a nervous person’s often do. Then she suddenly blurted out the question with intense vehemence, ““Have you the witness of the Spirit?” Iwas surprised, but replied calmly, “That is easily answered. J have had the witness for many years. Otherwise I would not dare preach to others as I do.” “Well,” she said sadly, ‘I haven’t, and I never realized it till recently. I have lost all my joy and I am afraid I am not saved, for I have never received the witness.”
“This is very remarkable,” I said, “for I have heard you say many times you trusted Christ and rested on His word, and I have noticed how happy you were. How did you come to your present state of mind?”
She then related an incident that had happened but a few weeks before. A peddler had come to her door, offering some kind of household ware, which she however did not need. But just as he was leaving she offered him a gospel tract. Upon noticing its title he exclaimed, “Oh, a tract! Thank you. Let me give you one of mine,” and he handed her a paper on some so-called Pentecostal experience, adding, as she accepted it, “Have you the witness of the Spirit, sister?’ She was confused by the question and hesitated; then said, “I am not sure that I understand you. I know I am saved through the testimony of the Word of God. What do you mean by the witness?”
“Do you mean to tell me you are a Christian and you do not understand about the witness?” he said. “You are deceiving yourself. If you had the witness you would know it, and if you haven’t it you have never been converted.”
He spoke so positively that she became greatly troubled, and she asked, “Well, what do you mean by the witness? How did you get it?’ Then he related a very stirring experience. According to his testimony he had been a professing Christian and a church-member for many years, but with no assurance of salvation. Recently he had attended some very wonderful meetings conducted by a Spirit-filled woman who wrought marvelous healings, and had much to say of the witness and of the baptism of the Spirit. He became convinced that what he lacked was “the witness;” so he went forward, fell on his knees with a throng of seekers at the close of the preaching, and prayed earnestly for the missing thing. He did not obtain it at the meeting, but late at night, on returning home, he was so agitated he went out to his barn, and there spent several hours crying out to God for the witness. “Suddenly,” he declared, “I got it.”
“What did you get?” she gently inquired. “TI got the witness. It came like a ball of fire through the roof, and hit me in the breast and burned like fire. It burned out all the doubts and all the sin from my heart, and I knew then it was the Spirit, witnessing that I was a child of God. I have not had any desire for sin since, nor any sinful thought. Did you ever have anything like that?”
“No,” she said, “I never have.” ‘Well,’ said he, “You must not think you are a Christian, then. What you need to do is to seek the witness, and don’t stop till you receive it.”
She had been unhappy ever since, she said, and filled with doubt and uncertainty; and though she had prayed for “‘the witness” she did not get it. Then turning her anxious eyes on me, she exclaimed, ‘‘Did you have anything like that when you received the witness?”
“No, thank God, I did not!’
“Thankful you did not! What did you get then?’
“(Pll tell you; I received something much better than that. If a ball of fire had hit me I never could have been certain whether it came from God or whether it came from Satan. But I have a witness
that is unmistakable, and I will gladly tell you about it. But which do you want first? Do you want the witness to you, or the witness in you, or the witness with you.”
“Why,” she exclaimed, “I did not know there were three of them. Which comes first?”
“A very good question,” I said, “and we will seek the answer in the word of God.” I then turned her to the 10th chapter of Hebrews, and put before her what I now want to bring to your attention. You will perhaps remember the theme of this precious portion of the Bible. Having first established Christ’s superiority over angels, prophets and leaders of the old dispensation, the apostle then shows the transcendent character of the new covenant of grace, and of the one sacrifice of the cross as compared with the by-gone covenant and the many sacrifices of the old dispensation. He points out that those offerings could never perfect the conscience of the person who brought them, because it is impossible that the Ba of animals should cancel sin.:
“Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away its stain.”
In those sacrifices offered year after year continually, there was but a remembrance,a calling to mind again and again, of sins from year to year. They could not purge the conscience, as David says in Ps. 51: “Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it
..Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
All that the legal sacrifices could do was to bring the sin to mind. That is, when an Israelite brought — his offering he thereby confessed that he had sinned, that his sin was an offence against the divine law, and required propitiation. All these sacrifices but — pointed to Him that was to come — to Christ.
Suppose you are in debt. Your creditor right- — fully demands payment, but you are unable to settle. The best you can do is to give your note for the amount. But does a note pay the debt? No; but the note is a calling to mind of the debt. If the note is renewed from year to year, the debt is uncancelled. It is a “remembrance again,” an acknowledgment made every time you give a new note. So with the sacrifices of old. But the face of the note constantly increases, owing to the unpaid interest, and the debt becomes larger all the time.
Now, suppose a wealthy friend endorses the note for you. He pledges himself to pay, if you cannot. Ah, that changes the whole thing. When the note becomes due, your creditor collects from him, and you are free.
My friends, Jesus did that very thing. He said, “Lo, I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of Me) to do thy will, O God.” By that He said, “I will be responsible. I will endorse all those notes. I agree to pay.” And He did! On Calvary’s cross He settled in full for every one who believes in Him. Old Testament believers looked forward to His coming. We look back to His cross. But all alike are “justified freely through His grace by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” He settled the sin question. He did the will of God, and we read, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Thus every charge is cleared away; all iniquity is purged; for, “By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Now observe, it is of this blessed fact that the Holy Spirit witnesses.
Of this offering of Christ to cancel the debt of our sins we read thus: “‘Whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness to us,’”’ and the apostle quotes from the prophet Jeremiah this new covenant, with its grand culmination, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” This is the Spirit’s witness. It was He who caused Jeremiah to thus testify. The Scriptures are His testimony. He therein witnesses to us; we receive His witness, and thus have the assurance that our sins are gone, our conscience is purged, and our souls are free. Who would exchange God’s sure witness for a vision, a dream, or an emotional experience?
And, observe, you do not need to pray and plead with God to give you this blessed witness. It is there in the Word for you to believe.
I am glad to tell you the lady with whose story I began, saw the truth of it, and she exclaimed, “Why, then I have had the witness for some years! How foolish 1 was to doubt.”
I want to tell you of another case, sadder than this one. I was asked to call on a nearly distracted young mother who had the notion that she had committed the “unpardonable sin.” If I diagnosed her case correctly, she was really a believer; but some cloud had come in between her soul and God, and she had fallen into darkness. Unconfessed sin will often produce this effect. I probed her to find out if this were the case. She said she had sinned, but had confessed all to God. Only, she could not get her joy back. Though she had prayed for six weeks the Lord would not answer, and she felt He had cast her off because she had no faith. She did not believe in Him, and He would not hear her cry.
I tried to help her by turning to many scriptures, but she could not seem to fix her attention on any of them, and I began to feel it was a case for a physician rather than a preacher. Finally, I felt utterly cast down myself, for I could not seem to do anything for her. Then I cried to God. My heart said, “Lord, what more shall I say to this woman?” Quick as a flash I thought of a new line of approach. I said, ‘“You tell me you don’t believe in Jesus, and so He won’t hear you, though you have been praying to Him for six weeks for help?’ She assented and added, “I want to believe, but I can’t. I don’t know how to get faith. I am afraid I have committed the unpardonable sin.”
“Well,” I suggested, “if He has given you up, why don’t you try someone else?”
‘““Why, who else is there to try?” she asked.
“Why not try the blessed Virgin Mary for a while at least? I have a Roman Catholic friend who says he never goes to Christ direct, but always to His blessed mother; hers is a tender woman’s heart, and he asks her to plead for him, for no one has so much influence with a son as his mother.”
The lady was aghast! I knew she thought my words sacrilegious, but I wanted to rouse her, and I succeeded. ‘‘Why do you tell me to pray to the Virgin Mary?’ she sternly interposed. “She is only a woman. I cannot go to her. A human being can not save me.”
“Ah! I see you feel the need of superhuman help. Then why not try the Archangel Michael? He is the great prince that stands for Daniel’s people. He is a very powerful being, and is the one who is going to drive Satan out of the heavenly places. You might pray to him for at least a week, and see if he will not help you.”
She sprang to her feet with indignation, exclaiming, “I don’t understand you at all. I don’t believe in the Virgin Mary or in the Archangel Michael. They cannot save me. I would not pray to them.”
“But,” I added, “you don’t believe in Jesus either.” Before I could finish she cut in, “Why, of course I believe in Him! What a foolI have been! There is no one else in all the universe I would think of going to but to Him. Oh, I see it now, I thought I had no faith, but I know I have, for I trust in Jesus only.”
Together we dropped on our knees, and as the tears rolled down her cheeks she thanked Him for dying for her, and told Him she trusted Him alone. It was easy, then, to give her some precious portions of the Word to clear away her remaining difficulties. She received them in all simplicity, as the Spirit’s blessed witness.
But I must now turn to the consideration of the second phase of my theme. Scarcely had the one of whom I told you first, seen the truth of the witness to us, when she looked up inquiringly and asked, “But is there not a passage that says the Lord will put the witness in us?” For reply I turned her to. 1 John, chap. 5. This is another very wonderful portion, and again the great theme is the work of Christ. “It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” And to what does He bear witness? To the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ: not by water only, but by water and blood.”
John was standing by the cross when the soldier pierced the Saviour’s side. “He that saw it bare witness,” he says. And it is he who recorded the striking fact that blood and water gushed forth. Years had gone since that memorable day, but the blood and the water had ever been associated in the apostle’s mind: blood for judicial, and water for moral cleansing. Now as he writes his epistle of light and love, he proclaims the power of the blood to cleanse from all sin before God, and the application of the water of the Word to cleanse from all defilement day by day. And of this, he tells us, the Holy Spirit bears witness,
It is important to observe that there are three words, “witness,” “record,” “testimony,” used in our Authorized Version in this fifth chapter, which are but various renderings of one Greek word. Read the entire passage using the word “witness” in each instance. How plain it becomes. God by the Spirit has borne witness to the atoning work of His Son. Then He tells us in verse 9 that if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. Now, we do receive the witness of men. We believe what men tell us concerning things we have no means of proving, or searching out for ourselves. How much more should we receive and rest upon the witness of Him who cannot lie.
Some object that, as it is written, “All men have not faith.” But it is sin persisted in that makes it impossible for men to believe God. ‘Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” That is why we are told, “By grace ye are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” There must be divine testimony before there can be faith. And if God has sent His Word to you, you are responsible to believe it. Nay, you sin against light, and insult God to His face if you do not believe. The witness of God is that which He has witnessed by His Spirit in the Word concerning His Son.
“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar because he believeth not the witness that God gave of His Son.” Now, look at this, and weigh it well. You either have the witness in yourself that God has given concerning His Son, or you are making Him a liar! Fearful alternative, yet terribly true!
A Sunday-school teacher once asked her class of boys, “Is there any thing God cannot do?” All, save one, responded, ‘‘No, God can do everything.” She agreed to this, and was proceeding with the lesson when one lad exclaimed, “But, teacher, I know two things God cannot do!” “Oh, no,” she sweetly answered, “God is all powerful. There is nothing He cannot do.”
“But,” the boy persisted, “I know two things He cannot do.”
“Well, what do you think God cannot do?” she asked. Confidently came the answer, “God cannot lie, and He cannot see my sins since they are covered by the blood of Jesus.”
Sometimes people say after listening to a gospel address, ‘I will try to believe.” Try to believe whom? Do you dare to talk of trying to believe God? What sinful impudence! What downright impertinence! He who cannot lie gives you His witness concerning His Son, and you tell Him you will try to believe! You either do believe Him, or you do not; and if you do not believe you make Him a liar. You treat His testimony as though it were unworthy of credence. “This is the witness, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” If you believe the message, you have eternal life, and you have the witness within, for God’s testimony is written in your heart.
It is this engrafted word, received by faith, that produces the new birth. We are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and endureth forever. ..and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” To believe the gospel is not simply to give mental assent to the facts recorded in the four Gospels, but it is to trust your soul to.the Christ of whom they speak.
I cannot put my sin away, but the Spirit’s witness tells me that “Jehovah laid on Christ Jesus the iniquity of us all.” I see myself included, and I rest upon that word. Thus I have the witness in myself. Who would exchange this unimpeachable witness for a vision of “a fiery ball,” or even of angels descending from heaven to assure him of salvation? Could I trust the word of an angel more than the word of the living God? And how could I be sure that the angel was not Satan himself transformed as an angel of light to deceive me? But the word of God can never mislead. It is a witness that cannot fail. I believe it, and I have it in my heart.
But now I ask you to consider our third text. We turn to Romans, eighth chapter — that high table-land of truth — where I learn that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, and no separation from the love of Christ that met us in our need and will never surrender to destruction the one that has fled to Him for refuge.
In this chapter I am taught three marvelous truths; I am in Christ Jesus; the Holy Spirit dwells in me; and God is for me. Thrice-blessed am I since all these are true.
The Holy Spirit, a divine Person, eternally one with the Father and the Son, comes to dwell in the believer. By Him I am sealed unto the day of redemption. He claims me for Christ, and by Him I enter into communion with God. Apart from His indwelling I am not a member of Christ — “If anyone have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.” But, having received Him by faith, He now abides within me. He is the anointing, and by Him I am led into the knowledge of the word of God. He opens up the treasures of divine truth. He takes up the things of Christ and shows them unto me. “He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.” But how? Is it by producing happy feelings, or ecstatic experiences? Again, No!
Look at what follows: “And if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” Now, how do I get this knowledge? By the Spirit’s wit- — ness. But how, or where? Once more we come back to the same truth we have seen before — by believing the word of God. I might fancy that my happy feelings witnessed that I was a child of God; but will happy feelings tell me I am an “heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ?” No. It is only the word of God that can make these blessed facts known to my spirit. The Holy Spirit who indwells. the believer opens the Word to my spirit, and thus I am made to understand my present relationship to the Lord, and my high destiny. I learn that I, who once was an alien and an outcast, am now, through infinite grace, a child of God and joint-heir with Christ, for He says, ‘‘All things are yours, and ye are
Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”” Blessed witness this, filling my soul with exultant gladness and giving me songs in the night.
By the Spirit I cry, “Abba, Father.” The indwelling Spirit produces within me a sense of filial responsibility and privilege. Once I was afraid of God, now I love Him and delight to be in His presence. I say with David, “It is good for me to draw near unto God.” And I know what David could not know in a past dispensation — that God is my Father and I am His child. But it is the Word that the Spirit uses to lead me into this blessedness. And the better I understand the Word, the more I will enjoy communion with my Father in the Spirit’s power. For by the Spirit I am able to look in God’s face and cry, “Abba, Father,’”’ knowing I have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and born of the Word and the Spirit.
I have used the first person singular in these closing words. May you, my hearers, each be able to do the same, thus rejoicing in the witness of the Spirit!