The
Holy Spirit Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ.
When our Lord was talking to His disciples on the night before His
crucifixion of the Comforter who after His departure was to come to
take His place, He said, “But
when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the
Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,
He shall bear witness of Me: and ye also bear witness, because ye
have been with Me from the beginning” (John
xv. 26, 27, R. V.), and the Apostle Peter and the other disciples
when they were strictly commanded by the Jewish Council not to teach
in the name of Jesus said, “We
are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost” (Acts
v. 32). It is clear from these words of Jesus Christ and the
Apostles that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to bear witness
concerning Jesus Christ. We find the Holy Spirit's testimony to
Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, but beside this the Holy Spirit
bears witness directly to the individual heart concerning Jesus
Christ. He takes His own Scriptures and interprets them to us and
makes them clear to us. All truth is from the Spirit, for He is “the
Spirit of truth,” but
it is especially His work to bear witness to Him who is the truth,
that is Jesus Christ (John xiv. 6). It is only through the testimony
of the Holy
Spirit directly to our hearts that we ever come to a true, living
knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor. xii. 3). No amount of mere
reading the written Word (in the Bible) and no amount of listening
to man's testimony will ever bring us to a living knowledge of
Christ. It is only when the Holy Spirit Himself takes the written
Word, or takes the testimony of our fellow man, and interprets it
directly to our hearts that we really come to see and know Jesus as
He is. On the day of Pentecost, Peter gave all his hearers the
testimony of the Scriptures regarding Christ and also gave them his
own testimony; he told them what he and the other Apostles knew by
personal observation regarding His resurrection, but unless the Holy
Spirit Himself had taken the Scriptures which Peter had brought
together and taken the testimony of Peter and the other disciples,
the 3,000 would not on that day have seen Jesus as He really was and
received Him and been baptized in His name. The Holy Spirit added
His testimony to that of Peter and that of the written Word. Mr.
Moody used to say in his terse and graphic way that when Peter said, “Therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that
same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts ii.
36), the Holy Spirit said, ‘Amen’ and
the people saw and believed.” And
it is certain that unless the Holy Spirit had come that day and
through Peter and the other Apostles borne His direct testimony to
the hearts of their hearers, there would have been no saving vision
of Jesus on the part of the people. If you wish men to get a true
view of Jesus Christ, such a view of Him
that they may believe and be saved, it is not enough that you give
them the Scriptures concerning Him; it is not enough that you give
them your own testimony, you must seek for them the testimony of the
Holy Spirit and put yourself into such relations with God that the
Holy Spirit may bear His testimony through you. Neither your
testimony, nor even that of the written Word alone will effect this,
though it is your testimony, or that of the Word that the Holy
Spirit uses. But unless your testimony and that of the Word is taken
up by the Holy Spirit and He Himself testifies, they will not
believe. This explains something which every experienced worker must
have noticed. We sit down beside an inquirer and open our Bibles and
give him those Scriptures which clearly reveal Jesus as his atoning
Saviour on the cross, a Saviour from the guilt of sin, and as his
risen Saviour, a Saviour from the power of sin. It is just the truth
the man needs to see and believe in order to be saved, but he does
not see it. We go over these Scriptures which to us are as plain as
day again and again, and the inquirer sits there in blank darkness;
he sees nothing, he grasps nothing. Sometimes we almost wonder if
the inquirer is stupid that he cannot see it. No, he is not stupid,
except with that spiritual blindness that possesses every mind
unenlightened by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. ii. 14). We go over it
again and still he does not see it. We go over it again and his face
lightens up and he exclaims, “I
see it. I see it,” and
he sees Jesus and believes and is saved and knows he is saved there
on the spot. What has happened? Simply this,
the Holy Spirit has borne His testimony and what was dark as
midnight before is as clear as day now. This explains also why it is
that one who has been long in darkness concerning Jesus Christ so
quickly comes to see the truth when he surrenders his will to God
and seeks light from Him. When he surrenders his will to God, he has
put himself into that attitude towards God where the Holy Spirit can
do His work (Acts v. 32). Jesus says in John vii. 17, R. V., “If
any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.” When
a man wills to do the will of God, then the conditions are provided
on which the Holy Spirit works and He illuminates the mind to see
the truth about Jesus and to see that His teaching is the very Word
of God. John writes in John xx. 31, “But
these are written (these things in the Gospel of John) that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing
ye might have life through His name.” John
wrote his Gospel for this purpose, that men might see Jesus as the
Christ, the Son of God, through what he records, and that they might
believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that thus
believing they might have life through His name. The best book in
the world to put into the hands of one who desires to know about
Jesus and to be saved is the Gospel of John. And yet many a man has
read the Gospel of John over and over and over again and not seen
and believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. But let the
same man surrender his will absolutely to God and ask God for light as
he reads the Gospel and promise God that he will take his stand on
everything in the Gospel that He shows him to be true and before the
man has finished the Gospel he will see clearly that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and will believe and have eternal life. Why?
Because he has put himself into the place where the Holy Spirit can
take the things written in the Gospel and interpret them and bear
His testimony. I have seen this tested and proven time and time
again all around the world. Men have come to me and said to me that
they did not believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
many have gone farther and said they were agnostics and did not even
know whether there was a personal God. Then I have told them to read
the Gospel of John, that in that Gospel John presented the evidence
that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Oftentimes they have told
me they have read it over and over again, and yet were not convinced
that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Then I have said to them, “You
have not read it the right way,” and
I have got them to surrender their will to God (or in case where
they were not sure there was a God, have got them to take their
stand upon the right to follow it wherever it might carry them).
Then I have had them agree to read the Gospel of John slowly and
thoughtfully, and each time before they read to look up to God, if
there were any God, to help them to understand what they were to
read and to promise Him that they would take their stand upon
whatever He showed them to be true, and follow it wherever it would
carry them. And in every
instance before they had finished the Gospel they had come to see
that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and have believed and
been saved. They had put themselves in that position where the Holy
Spirit could bear His testimony to Jesus Christ and He had done it
and through His testimony they saw and believed.
If you wish men to see the truth about Christ, do not depend upon
your own powers of expression and persuasion, but cast yourself upon
the Holy Spirit and seek for them His testimony and see to it that
they put themselves in the place where the Holy Spirit can testify.
This is the cure for both skepticism and ignorance concerning
Christ. If you yourself are not clear concerning the truth about
Jesus Christ, seek for yourself the testimony of the Holy Spirit
regarding Christ. Read the Scriptures, read especially the Gospel of
John but do not depend upon the mere reading of the Word, but before
you read it, put yourself in such an attitude towards God by the
absolute surrender of your will to Him that the Holy Spirit may bear
His testimony in your heart concerning Jesus Christ. What we all
most need is a clear and full vision of Jesus Christ and this comes
through the testimony of the Holy Spirit. One night a number of our
students came back from the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago and
said to me, “We
had a wonderful meeting at the mission to-night. There were many
drunkards and outcasts at the front who accepted Christ.” The
next day I met Mr. Harry Monroe, the superintendent of the mission,
on the street, and I said, “Harry,
the boys say
you had a wonderful meeting at the mission last night.” “Would you
like to know how it came about?” he
replied. “Yes.” “Well,” he
said, “I
simply held up Jesus Christ and it pleased the Holy Spirit to
illumine the face of Jesus Christ, and men saw and believed.” It
was a unique way of putting it but it was an expressive way and true
to the essential facts in the case. It is our part to hold up Jesus
Christ, and then look to the Holy Spirit to illumine His face or to
take the truth about Him and make it clear to the hearts of our
hearers and He will do it and men will see and believe. Of course,
we need to be so walking towards God that the Holy Spirit may take
us as the instruments through whom He will bear His testimony. |