The personal experience which becomes a test of faith is full of energies and activities in the soul which are not self-derived, but which mark the entrance of a Stronger than the Strong Man. “If the Tempter should persuade a man to doubt whether the Gospel be true,” says Richard Baxter, “he may have recourse into his soul for a testimony of it, for thence he can tell the Tempter by experience that he hath found the promises of the Gospel made good to him. Christ bath there promised to send His Spirit into the souls of His people, and so bath He done to me; He hath promised to give light to them that sit in darkness, to bind up the broken-hearted and set at liberty the captives, and all this He hath fulfilled upon me. . . . The helps which He hath promised in temptations, the hearing of prayer, the relief in distress, all these I have found performed, and thus I know that the Gospel is true.” These sentences, in concrete and moving phrase, embody the Reformation doctrine of “the testimony of the Holy Spirit.” [Note: Calvin, Institutes 1. vii. 4.]
For as God alone can properly bear witness to His own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit?
By the Testimony of the Spirit I mean an inward impression of the soul whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me and given Himself for me, that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God. [Note: Wesley, Sermons, x., xi.]
Little is said by Roman Catholics upon the grace of assurance and the other works wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. That indeed is not to be wondered at; for the lay member of the Church is treated as though he were a mere minor or infant, and had no need to pry into the stamps and signatures and title-deeds which concern his settlements, but must accept implicitly the oral asseverations of executors and trustees. The assurance of the Spirit and the sponsorship of the priest inevitably conflict with each other, and the one or the other must be more or less depreciated by the competition. If the priest is in truth a surety for the absolution of the penitent who unreservedly commits his cause into official hands, and the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is an unconditional pledge and an indestructible substratum of salvation, the importance of this witness is sensibly minimized. Why should I be jealous over my inner life, and cherish tempers of fine spirituality, so that I may be in a condition to enjoy this witness, if I may have a rough and ready assurance upon much easier terms? And, on the other hand, if God Himself becomes a witness of salvation within me, why should I not be free to think of an official priesthood as of comparatively limited and subordinate importance? As we possess this inward witness, the needlessness and impertinence of all sacerdotal pledges and guarantees will become more and more obvious. [Note: T. G. Selby, The Holy Spirit and Christian Privilege, 107.]
1. The chief passage of Scripture to which the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s witness refers is Rom_8:16 : “The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.”
(1) This text is so clear that (even if it were the only text) we can assert that the testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are God’s children is a reality. That the Spirit witnesses with or to our spirits that we are children of God is just as certain as that there is such a state as sonship to which we may be introduced or that there is such a being as the Spirit of God to bear witness of it. These great facts all stand or fall together. And that is as much as to say that no Christian man can doubt the fact of the testimony of the Spirit that we are children of God. It is accredited to him by the same authority which accredits all that enters into the very essence of Christianity. It is in fact one of the elements of a full system of Christian truth that must be acknowledged by all who accept the system of Christian truth.
(2) It is just as clear from the text that the testimony of the Spirit is not to be confounded with the testimony of our own consciousness. However the text be read, the “Spirit of God” (Rom_8:14) and “our spirit” (Rom_8:16) are brought into pointed contrast in it, and are emphatically distinguished from one another. Accordingly, not only does Meyer, who understands the text of the joint testimony of the Divine and human spirits, say: “Paul distinguishes from the subjective self-consciousness, I am the child of God, the therewith accordant testimony of the objective Holy Spirit, Thou art the child of God”; but Alford also, who understands the text to speak solely of the testimony of the Spirit, borne not with but to our spirit, remarks: “All are agreed, and indeed the verse is decisive for it, that it is something separate from and higher than all subjective conclusions”—language which seems, indeed, scarcely exact, but which is certainly to the present point. It is of no importance for this whether Paul says that the Spirit bears witness with or to our spirit; in either case he distinctly distinguishes the Spirit of God from our spirit along with which or to which it bears its witness. And not only so, but this distinction is the very nerve of the whole statement, the scope of which is nothing other than to give the Christian, along with his human conclusions, also a Divine witness.
The witness of the Holy Ghost is something other than, additional to, and more than the witness of our own spirit; and it is adduced here, just because it is something other than, additional to, and more than the witness of our own spirit. The whole sense of Paul’s declaration is that we have over and beyond our own authority a Divine witness to our childship to God, on which we may rest without fear that we shall he put to shame. [Note: B. B. Warfield, Faith and Life, 183.]
(3) The witness of the Spirit is thus a witness which is not to be identified with that Divine life which is said to be present in the universe and in the soul of man. It is distinct and personal. The apostle is apparently carrying on the analogy of the legal process of adoption, and he summons, as it were, two separate witnesses to establish the mighty fact that the alien has been received into the family of God. The independence of their testimony is essential to the idea which he endeavours to express. And this becomes apparent when we remember what it is for which the Spirit stands in the thought of the Apostolic Church. To them the Holy Spirit was not simply the universal Life which breathes in all creation and stirs in the personalities of men. No doubt they would have assented to the words of the Book of Wisdom, which declares that God’s “deathless spirit is in all things.” But as Christians—and this is the important point for us to remember—it was through Jesus Christ that they had been brought into contact with Him. The Spirit of which St. Paul speaks is the Spirit of Jesus, whose relationship with the Giver of life was so intimate that the apostle could even say, “The Lord is the Spirit.” So interchangeable do the terms become that to speak of being filled with the Spirit and of being found in Christ is to use two different modes of expressing a single experience.
If you ask what it is that makes the essential difference between the catholic gospel and all mystical methods of approaching God, it is here that you will find it.. The Spirit bears this witness to the Father in the great public universal fact of Christ. There is no aristocracy, intellectual or spiritual, in the Christian apprehension of the eternal world. Faith is the one condition, and faith is as democratic as conscience, as popular as Nature itself. The heavens declare God’s glory. His law converts the soul. And in Jesus of Nazareth the Word hath breath. He works with human hands, yet with the Divine finger, casting out demons and establishing the Kingdom by the Spirit. Christ is the pledge that we are God’s children. His voice is the testimony of the Spirit. His mighty working, not only in the history of the past, but in the preaching of His messengers, the ministration of His Sacraments, the lives of His followers, the continuance of His society, is the assurance that God has not left Himself without witness. A world which includes Christ is no treeless Sahara. An environment which embraces Christ’s Cross is no dry and sandy tract. A land where He builds His Church is a home for the lonely. The wilderness and the solitary place have become glad for us; the desert has rejoiced and blossoms as the rose.
Rainy agreed with Pfleiderer, as with Martineau, that the inward spiritual witness is the true revelation. Still this is by no means always clear and conclusive. How do I know I am not misled by my own feelings and confusing God’s revelation with my own way of thinking? It is here, said Principal Rainy, “that the concurrence of the outward and the inward has a peculiar effect of assurance.” “The divine within me and the non-divine are inextricably mixed, perhaps; but the finger of God without is wholly independent of me.” [Note: P. C. Simpson, The Life of Principal Rain, ii. 136.]
2. How is the witness of the Holy Spirit conveyed to the human spirit? The question recalls a long history of controversy. It is enough now to notice that God fulfils Himself in many ways. The Spirit will bear its witness to each spirit of man or woman according to their individuality. The risen Lord Himself, during the forty days of His resurrection life, came under great variety of circumstances, and with every differing kind of evidence of His presence, to each and all of His disciples. First He came to the loving hearts of women, whose words—the first Easter-Day sermon —seemed only “idle tales” to the apostles themselves; and then with logical demonstration to the cold reasoning intellect of Thomas; now to individual disciples walking on the common highway, who saw Him only when He broke and blessed the bread, and it revealed to them why their hearts bad so burned within them on the way; and then to the assembled Church with words of benediction and of peace. And thus still the Holy Spirit’s witness comes—now to some tender soul who cannot reason, but can only love, with simply an angel’s message, which not only the world but the Church may for a moment think but an “idle tale”; and again to some consummate, lordly intellect, which is at last convinced by touching the nail-print and the riven side. Now He comes to solitary individuals on the dusty highway of life, who know not whence sprang every earnest pulsation of their burning hearts, till some day, perhaps in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, they see at last that it must have been He that was with them; and again He is present to the assembled Church when in some hour of danger it has shut the door, and then found that He is with them in the midst.
(1) The Quaker doctrine of the Inner Light, in its customary form, lays stress more on the giving of a message than on the confirmation of faith, but it never fails in its acknowledgment that the primary activity is of Christ. “I knew not God but by revelation,” says Fox himself,” as He who hath the key did open.” “I came to my knowledge of Eternal Life,” says William Dewsbury, “not by the letter of Scripture, nor from hearing men speak of God, but by the inspiration of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who is worthy to open the seals.”
Thirteenth fifth month, 1757.—Being in good health, and abroad with Friends visiting families, I lodged at a Friend’s house in Burlington. Going to bed about the time usual with me, I awoke in the night, and my meditations, as I lay, were on the goodness and mercy of the Lord, in a sense whereof my heart was contrited. After this I went to sleep again; in a short time I awoke; it was yet dark, and no appearance of day or moonshine, and as I opened mine eyes I saw a light in my chamber, at the apparent distance of five feet, about nine inches in diameter, of a clear, easy brightness, and near its centre the most radiant. As I lay still looking upon it without any surprise, words were spoken to my inward ear, which filled my whole inward man. They were not the effect of thought, nor any conclusion in relation to the appearance, but as the language of the Holy One spoken in my mind. The words were, CERTAIN EVIDENCE OF DIVINE TRUTH. They were again repeated exactly in the same manner, and then the light disappeared. [Note: The Journal of John Woolman, 84.]
(2) But there is a more common way of witness than that of the Inner Light. The Spirit witnesses to our spirit by His work of faith in us and by His work of joy.
(a) His work of faith.—Hiswork of faith is the tidings which He imparts, the matter of those tidings is forgiveness. This is good cheer, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee” (Mat_9:2). “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col_1:14). “Through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins” (Act_13:38). “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God” (Rom_5:1). “Agree with thine adversary,” (Mat_5:25) said Christ. God is the adversary to all impenitent sinners, but He is a placable adversary, “we are in the way with him.” That way is the Lord Jesus. He has put us in that way, He “hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa_53:6). But to be at peace with Him we must agree with Him, that is, fall in with His conditions. These are confession of our sins, hearty repentance, and also a true and sincere faith to believe in that living “way” and that all that God has said thereof is true. This is enough to give us peace with God, but it is not enough to give us the peace of God. There is such a thing as believing in the truth of God’s Word and not believing in it in its relation to ourselves. There is such a thing as believing in God’s salvation as a complete salvation, but though it is so for others it is not so for me. Now such a frame of mind, though it is not inconsistent with faith is inconsistent with peace. But until faith can appropriate God’s promises, there may be salvation, but not present peace. If I will have peace I must believe that Christ’s salvation is my salvation, that my sins are forgiven.
(b) His work of joy, which is His seal. To be sure of a general offer is one thing, to be sure you have closed with it is another; the two things are carefully distinguished in Scripture. “After ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Eph_1:13); and what is the consequence of that seal, or what does it consist in? A living realization of the objective of the proposed believing, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (Eph_1:18). This is “the earnest of the inheritance,” the Pisgah view of the landscape, the breadth, the width, the grasp and the appreciation, the delight in the opened landscape, the complacence and joy and satisfaction in it, this makes up the assurance.
Here take notice that the soul of a Saint consists of sacred riddles, and holy contradictions: “Rejoice (saith David) before him with trembling”: if rejoicing, how can he tremble? if trembling, how can he rejoice? Oh, that is an unhappy soul which cannot find an expedient betwixt these extremities that cannot accommodate these seeming contrarieties: Rejoicing, when he looks on a gracious God; trembling, when he beholds a sinful self: Rejoicing, when looking upward on God’s promises; trembling, when looking downwards on his deserts. Ever triumphing that he shall be saved; and ever trembling lest he should be damned: ever certain that he shall stand; and ever careful lest he should fall. [Note: The Collected Sermons of Thomas Fuller, D.D., 1631-1659, i. 485.]
