(text in conjunction with Joh_16:1-4):--In this we see
I.
THE SPIRIT OF GODLY HUMILITY. It comes only from the Lord, and serves the Lord only (Joh_15:26). Do not trust your own talents and power, but implore heaven’s blessing. Otherwise you will be in the case of Gehazi with the prophet’s stick. The witnessing must be concerning Him, not concerning us, our zeal, wisdom, or success.
II. SINCERE TRUTH. It comes from the heart and goes to the heart (Joh_15:27).
III. FEARLESS COURAGE (Joh_16:2). Stephen and the martyrs of everyage had this. If an unfriendly world has persecuted the Master, His followers must not expect to escape, although it may only take the form of a smile or a sneer.
IV. HOLY LOVE--a love for men that says, “They do not know the Lord” (Joh_15:3). He prayed for His enemies because they knew not what they did. It is not all malignity which meets us in the shape of evil at the hands of our fellow creatures--much of it is folly, blindness, and infirmity. (C. Gerok, D. D.)
Witness bearing for Christ
I. ITS NATURE. To witness is to give testimony: and testimony is a statement of facts within the knowledge of the witness.
1. The facts. Christ risen; alive; living in the witness; saving the witness now. The facts relate to a present experience, and not to what may have been realized years ago.
2. A knowledge of the facts. No court will admit a desire, hope, belief, as evidence. So the Christian witness must know that Christ is able to save.
3. A statement of the facts known. A holy life is necessary not only to salvation, but to give credibility to testimony; but it cannot of itself bear testimony. We must declare Christ as the source of our excellencies and joys, and confirm our statement by a consistent life.
II. ITS OBLIGATIONS. The text is imperative. It is not a matter of option whether we bear witness or not.
1. It is demanded by the constitution of things. Science, art, and enterprize, etc., are largely dependent on testimony for success. And so the gospel is spread by the testimony of those who enjoy it as a living power in the soul.
2. It is one of the ordained weapons for the conquest of the world. Our Lord did not burden His soldiers. One coat, a pair of shoes, and two weapons--the Word and the testimony--made up their outfit. They preached Christ from the prophecies and then charged upon the enemy by their testimony. “They testified and preached.” Paul was made “a minister and a witness.” The secret of many failures is a want of true and deep experience which enables the preacher to join clear and definite testimony to the Word.
3. Its power to stir and overcome the wicked one. Witness the success of evangelists of very limited ability. (S. Baker.)
The witness of the Church to Christ
It is in truth one of the most serious things in life to be called upon solemnly to bear witness before our fellow men and with the invocation of the presence and help of God, even to one’s own observation, experience, conviction. To speak out simply and fully, without regard to consequences, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of those matters on which our testimony may be required, involves a simplicity of mind, a straightforwardness, and a courage which are probably less common than we are apt to suppose. How much more awful the duty of bearing witness for God, of representing to the world His thoughts, His words, His life! And yet this is the duty of all who know Him. It was the work to which He called that ancient people whom He separated from the idolatrous nations of the earth, and recorded His incommunicable Name among them. But even He, the Holy Ghost, is not alone in the work of testifying of Jesus; for He adds, “And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.” The members of His mystical body are to be fellow workers with God, and organs of the Divine Spirit. And what is the nature of the witness which they were to carry to the world.
1. They were to testify to His Person. “Bear witness--not merely of My doctrine, not merely of My works but--of Me.” It is the one most marked peculiarity of our blessed Lord’s teaching. Other teachers and leaders had been contented to have followers who would receive and disseminate their doctrines. And the true witness must also direct men to Him, as the God man, the Redeemer, the Prophet, Priest, and King of humanity.
2. They were to testify to His work. They had been with Him from the beginning, and had heard His words and seen His deeds of truth and love and power. The testimony to His work is the completion of the witness to His Person. What He has done for us must explain what He is to us.
3. But they were also to testify to His life. It was in His life that the nature of His person and the character of His work were most fully disclosed. His
Divine greatness, His moral sublimity, His redeeming power all shone out in the unequalled, unapproachable grandeur of His life. It declared itself to be unearthly, superhuman, from God. This, then, is the very core of our witness for Christ--not merely a better life than the life of the world: it will of course be in all respects a better life, but that is not all: it must be another life, drawing its origin from a higher source, animated by a higher principle, directed towards a higher end. It is not difficult to account for the profound impression produced upon men of all ages and lands, and of the most various culture, by the grandeur and sublimity of the character of Jesus Christ. Men could not help being struck with the absolute self-renunciation, the entire spirit of self-sacrifice which pervaded, like an atmosphere, His every thought, and word, and deed. It was a thing, a thought so absolutely new to the world. Obedience more or less ready and willing to the command of a superior they were not unacquainted with. But the complete, voluntary, and a cheerful surrender of a will to God, so complete and entire that there was no hesitancy, no momentary effort at self-assertion, was a phenomenon unexpected and startling, which revealed a kind of spiritual force which they had never seen in operation. Can we wonder that, when men have seen the disciples of Jesus fond of worldly display, greedy of honour, ambitious of place and of power, craving for earthly distinction, they should have found us false witnesses for God, and laughed us to scorn? Can we wonder that some, not caring to mark the startling contrast between the Master and the scholar, should have blasphemed the Holy Name by which we are called? Mark another element in the superhuman life of Christ: His ardent and unquenchable love of souls. They who would be witnesses for our Lord must first be deeply convinced of the unworldliness of the life of Christ, they must have heard and received His testimony to Himself and to them: “Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” And yet again, we do not learn from the example of our Lord that ours need not be, ought not to be, an unsympathetic unworldliness? The light of Christ was not the clear cold, hard moonlight of a winter’s night; but the bright, soft, warm sunshine of a summer’s day. The unworldliness of the Son of God was not that of a stern asceticism which refused to own relationship with those who could not rise to its level. It was on the contrary gentle, tolerant, winning. The life of unworldliness of which we have spoken, as the true witness for” Christ, is beset with great and peculiar difficulties in our own day. (W. R. Clark, M. A.)
