The Witness of the Spirit

When certain Christians speak of the Spirit’s witness (usually citing Romans 8), this sort of understanding of the expression is fairly common:

“God’s primary method of leading us in matters the Bible does not specifically address (such as which job to take or which person to marry), is the inner witness, which is a knowing communicated by the Holy Spirit to our spirit. It is not a voice, but an inner knowing.”

I am left with the obvious question: how is an “inner knowing” any more reliable or less subjective than hearing voices in my head? Is this really what the New Testament writers mean by the Spirit “witnessing”?

Jonathan Edwards points out that using the phrase “witness of the Spirit” in this charismatic sense, to describe the impression of a personal, private, extra-scriptural direction from God, is a significant error, and leads to an interpretation of reality built on a false foundation.

Here, Edwards says, is how many go wrong:

“They have not noticed how the words ‘witness’ and ‘testimony’ are often used in the New Testament, where they often signify not just a declaration or assertion of something being true, but also providing evidence from which something can be argued and proven to be true. For example, in Hebrews 2:4, God is said to ‘bear witness with signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.’ These miracles are called God’s witness, not because they are assertions, but because they are evidence and proofs.”

That is an excellent point, and Edwards cites Acts 14:3 (the ‘witness’ of signs and wonders) and John 5:36 with 10:25 (in which the works of Christ ‘bear witness’) as similar cases in which “witness” means evidence and proofs, not mere claims. Again, in 1 John 5:8, two of three witnesses are visible and tangible, water and blood. They are proofs and evidences. They back up an assertion already present in scripture that needs reinforcing in the believer’s heart. They do not introduce anything novel or personal to which the scriptures do not already repeatedly testify.

In Romans 8, the Spirit does not bear witness with our spirit about debatable matters such as whom we ought to marry or which job we should take. The Lord may have a preference about such non-moral issues of life; then again, he may not. Rather, the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, a much more significant matter, and one about which we certainly need to be confident.

But how does he do this? Through the words of Christ in John 1:12. Those who have received Christ by faith become God’s children. That is the power or right he has given us. Paul is not suggesting our spirits are making any kind of new, personal, unproven claim to a family relationship, but relying on one to which the Lord Jesus repeatedly referred whenever he used the expression “your Father” to his disciples. The Spirit of God is simply impressing on our hearts personally a truth that he has previously broadcast to the entire world.

Even where the NT writers use word “witness” to mean merely a claim, the Law of Moses famously required not merely a single testimony but two or three witnesses, plural: multiple claims of fact that agree. It is highly unlikely the Lord, who required such stringent proof as part of a legal system he was imposing on his people, would fail to testify to the truth in the same manner to his very own children.

This is how the NT teaches disciples to recognize direction from God, not by subjective impressions of fact or “inner knowings”, but by the word and work of Christ. When the Spirit is witnessing, he does not do so debatably.