Witnesses to Truth

by Edward Hoare

But it is not in the understanding only that we require to be armed, for I believe there is no armour like the heart’s experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus. The happy, consistent, thankful believer, he is not afraid of the scoffer. He knows whom he has believed, and he is persuaded that he is able to keep that which he has committed to Him against that day. He pities the scoffer, therefore; but he is not afraid of him except for the harm that he may do to others. He has felt the strength of the rock under his feet, and he is not going to be driven from it on to the shifting sands of unsettled infidelity. Oh, may God grant to every one of us strong assurance in the grace wherein we stand! May He keep us in the hearty enjoyment of an abiding union with Christ Jesus our Lord! that so, strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, we may stand fast in Him; redeemed by His blood; born again by His Spirit; called by the Holy Ghost; justified in His righteousness; forgiven through His atonement; and made heirs according to the hope of eternal life! If that be granted, we can afford to be scoffed at; and if that be ours, we should be stirred in the very depths of our soul to fresh energy as the witnesses for Christ. The scoffer himself is a witness to Him, inasmuch as he is a living, speaking, visible proof of the fulfilment of the prophetic Word. But it is not so that we must bear our testimony. He is a witness to truth by his denial, we by our confession; he by his insult, we by our reverend faith; he by denying the coming of our Lord, we by expecting it; he by the assertion of his own will, we by the surrender of ourselves to the will of the Lord. So it is that we may realize the full meaning of the words of our Lord, “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”

THE SACRAMENTS.

It was one of the principles of the ancient Jewish law, that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” I have already exceeded that requirement in having brought before you no less than five “witnesses” to establish the truth and inspiration of the Scriptures; but I propose, if God permit, to conclude my series with two more:

They shall be very simple witnesses, and to the eye of man quite insignificant. They shall not have in themselves any apparent power of testimony; but yet I believe they are intended to speak in words of irresistible argument to all thinking men, and I trust will carry home to the hearts of those who are not “willingly ignorant” the most conclusive evidence of the truth of God. I refer to the two Sacraments of the Lord’s appointment—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In 1 John v. there appears to be a distinct reference to the Jewish rule, and there are three witnesses mentioned as bearing testimony upon earth—“the Spirit, and the water, and the blood.” The passage is not an easy one, and it behoves us to speak with caution. But I cannot help believing that by “the Spirit” is meant the testimony of the Holy Ghost in His inspired Word; and by “the water and the blood,” the two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It is to the testimony of these two latter witnesses that I now propose to refer; but we must remember there is nothing in either of them of a conspicuous or ostentatious character. In neither one nor the other is there anything like a material monument, nor anything to attract the attention of “the world;” there is no erection of granite or marble, nor any inscription like those on the stones from Nineveh; but they are both simple acts of the simplest possible character. A little water is all that is visible in the one, and a little bread and wine in the other; and yet, though so simple, so insignificant, and so absolutely without any visible monument, for the last eighteen hundred years they have been bearing their testimony as “witnesses” for Christ. Let us then conclude our series by the examination of their evidence, and let us consider two points: (1) Their present position; and (2) When and how did they acquire it? May God so bless our study by the Holy Ghost as to bring home conviction to all our hearts and understandings.

(1.) Their present position.

In order to realise this we must not confine our thoughts to our own personal enjoyment of our own sacred privileges. We may come to the Lord’s table as individuals, and find in the sacred feast such “a strengthening and refreshing of our souls” as may be to us the most conclusive and satisfactory evidence of the certain reality of the grace of God; but our personal experience would be no evidence to others, and our own enjoyment would not be regarded by the sceptic as a proof; it would be evidence to ourselves, but not to him, nor to the world at large. We must therefore take a wider range, and consider only such evidence as lies within the cognizance of all observing men. For this reason I have selected their position in the Church of Christ at this present time. I am not about to ask you to consider past history, but present facts; facts that may be tested by every one, facts belonging to this enlightened nineteenth century; and what I ask you to do is quietly and patiently to investigate facts.

Taking then our standpoint in this year of our Lord, 1883, we find that the Church of Christ has been extending for just 1850 years, and that throughout that time it has been spread by countless agents, and in countless manners, in every direction throughout the world. Starting as it did from Palestine, it has now taken root on every continent, and it has borne the sacred Name of our blessed Saviour into every quarter of the globe.

But while there has been this world-wide spread of Christianity, and while there is at this present time this widely-extended acknowledgment of the Name of the Lord Jesus, it is at the same time perfectly obvious that there are within the Church of the baptized immense diversities both of creed and practice. There are different Churches standing aloof from each other. There is the Church of Rome in conflict with what is called the Greek Church on the one hand, and with us Protestants on the other. What is commonly called the Greek Church consists again of many branches, or is rather an aggregate of many independent Churches not united under any one head. There is the original Greek Church, the Russian, the Syrian, the Coptic, and the Abyssinian. So in the Church of Rome there are various orders, besides the great division between the secular and regular clergy; while we all know, to our heartfelt sorrow, how those who are united in their love for the great Scriptural principles of Protestant truth are still divided into various denominations. Thus, looking at the Church of Christ as a whole, we find it spread into so many places that it encircles the world; and broken up into so many sections that it is hard to trace what we may term any visible corporate union. There is separation as to place, and divergence as to Church organisation.

But now we come to the wonderful and indisputable fact that, notwithstanding all this separation and all this divergence in all countries and many systems, wherever we find the name of Christ there we find His own two Sacraments; and wherever we meet with Christianity there we are sure to meet with Baptism and the Holy Communion, God’s two witnesses to His inspired truth.

This is sufficiently wonderful if you think merely of the geographical extension of the Church. The visible Church is spread amongst different nations, in different climates, and with different habits; some of which are leading the way in civilization and science, while some are sunk in barbarism; some leading the thoughts of the world, and some apparently never thinking at all; some absorbed in trade, and some so completely without trade that they have not even a currency. In some there are old churches that have existed for centuries, and in some churches of modern formation recently called into being through colonization and missions; and yet, though the two Sacraments are so perfectly simple that there is nothing in themselves to spread or perpetuate themselves, wherever you go you find them. Place and space have made no difference. Go to Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, it makes no difference; wherever you go there you find God’s two Sacraments essentially bound up with the Christianity of the people.