IT is expected of a witness in English courts of justice to speak “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” in regard to the matters on which he is examined. These matters are often stich as to involve questions of life or death. The liberties of the nation have sometimes been dependent on truthful witness-bearing; but the subjects to be treated of in these pages relate to more important interests still. Eternal life or everlasting death, the salvation or perdition of your never-dying souls, is what depends on your understanding those subjects aright, and on your being rightly affected concerning them. Or, if already saved, our fruitfulness to God and usefulness to man will be in exact proportion to the degree in which we understand the word of God and are subject to it and filled with it. On such subjects it would be a bold undertaking to speak “the whole truth.” “The truth” we do trust through God’s mercy these pages will exhibit; and that, by His blessing, “nothing but the truth” may be permitted to appear; but the subjects to be gone into are so vast and so important that more than any mortal’s tongue or pen could say would be required to express “the whole truth” thereupon.
Happily for us we have something better to rest upon than the witness of men; and happy shall we be if our pages should be used of God to bring His testimony into contact with the souls of our readers. God Himself has become a witness, and to believe his testimony is deliverance indeed. It is life from the dead. It is certain salvation. Who so worthy to be believed as God who cannot lie? “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” And we do receive the witness of men every day of our lives. We could not pass through life, or attend to the simplest affairs without believing our fellow-men. And shall we not believe God Himself? And if any reader should say, “Yes, but I am no scholar; these things are too deep for me,” will that reader turn from the page before him to the First Epistle of John, the fifth chapter and eleventh verse? We give the words, but would far rather you turned to the place and saw them for yourself in God’s blessed word. “And this is the record (literally, the witness) that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”
Can you not understand this? Could it be more simply told? Where is there a poor man in trying circumstances who could not understand if a friend should say to him, “Here is a sum of twenty pounds? It is given you by one who feels greatly for you, and it is contained in this letter. In receiving the letter you will receive the sum that it contains”? Where is the person so situated who would not instantly put forth his hand, and with hearty thanks receive the gift held out to him? It would be but the affair of a moment or two, and take less time than the writing or reading this description of it requires. Dear friend, as God is true, he holds out to you, not a paltry sum of money but, eternal life. It is not contained in any packet or cover, as the money might be; “this life is in his Son.” To believe God’s witness; to take Him at His word; to welcome the gift of His Son and of eternal life in Him; to believe that it is ours, because God thus gives what we in our hearts thus receive; this is to be saved, to pass from death unto life. This mighty change takes place the moment we believe God’s witness that He hath witnessed of His Son. May you, dear reader, if as yet a stranger to these realities, undergo this change before you lay this paper aside.
“But if it be so easy to be saved, why do so many live and die unsaved?” It is indeed enough to astonish heaven and earth that such love should be rejected, such blessedness despised and refused. But returning to the case we supposed; the poor man to whom the money is held out, instead of thankfully receiving it, might reply, “No, I don’t believe that anyone cares so much for me. There is some treachery in it, and I won’t have anything to do with it.” Or, he might say, “No, I have always worked for my living, and I will not be indebted to any one for such a gift. I will go to prison and starve, and see my family starve, rather than accept your gift.” Or, again, he might reply, “Why do you insult me by supposing me so poor? I have my own reasons for the appearances which lead you to think me in need. Pray, keep your gifts to yourself.” Once again, he might say, “No, I dislike the giver, and though I might have accepted relief from another, I will not accept it from you. I disdain both the giver and the gift.” Or, last of all, he might make a difficulty of the way in which the gift is bestowed. “If I might have the enclosed sum without the letter which is said to contain it, I should not object. Show me the money apart from the letter, and I will be glad of it. But I don’t like to touch that letter. I don’t believe it contains any such sum.”
Thus you see, dear reader, in how many ways a man might reject the witness of his fellow man in an affair affecting his present temporal interests. True, there are not many who would act thus; for men are wise about the things of this life, however they may treat their souls and God’s wonderful provision for them. Are you on any ground or in any way similar to those we have supposed rejecting God’s witness to His Son? The world has deceived you, and you have deceived yourself, and your heart has got suspicious of everything and everyone. Oh! do not suspect the sincerity and freeness of God’s love. “Let God be true and every man a liar.” Do not cherish the pride which would rather have eternal life as wages than as a free gift. “The wages of sin is death,” and this is all that we have earned; but “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Can anyone be ashamed to receive life as a gift from Him to whom we already owe everything? Work as hard as possible in gratitude to this bounteous Giver, when once you have received eternal life. But in this He must be the Giver. We can be receivers only. Happy to be such, we might well suppose. Or are you really unconscious of your need? Have you no sins to be forgiven? no soul to be saved? Can you do without eternal life? God grant you to consider your state, and no longer to disdain His bounty and His love. We do not forget that, left to ourselves, we are all “haters of God.” But that which alone overcomes this hatred is the love of God in the gift of His well-beloved Son. Do not, we beseech you, turn this love, this gift, into a stumbling-block, and spurn the life God gives because He gives it in His Son.
Alas! there are many who do thus reject God’s witness and refuse the life, the eternal life, held out by Him to poor perishing souls. If they could have it through ordinances, or works, or human merit, or in any way apart from Christ, they would not be sorry. But for self and man to have no place; to receive eternal life in Christ, only in and through Christ, having none but Christ in whom to glory or to boast; this is the stumbling-block to human pride. But to think of the patient love which still bears such scornful refusals from the myriads of mankind, and continues to press on men’s attention “the witness of God, which he hath testified (witnessed) of his Son!” May this love break the heart of any reader who has not yet believed this witness, and believing it at once through grace, may he rise from the perusal of this paper to fall on his knees and adore the God of all grace for having given him His Son and given him eternal life in Him.
W.T.