The Assurance of Sonship

The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.—Romans 8:16.

The subject is the Witness of the Spirit; and we may ask these questions about it—

What is the Spirit a Witness to?

  II.  Why is the Witness of the Spirit needed?

  III.  How does the Spirit make this Witness?

  IV.  Are there any ways of confirming the Witness?

I

To What is the Spirit a Witness?

1. In answer to this question the words of St. Paul are quite explicit. The witness is to our Sonship—“The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.” “The Holy Spirit,” says Swete, “enables the members of Christ to realize their consecration by creating in them a sense of their filial relation to God, and opening and maintaining communication between God and the individual life. The Spirit in the human heart is ‘the spirit of the adoption’ which corresponds with the spirit of sonship in the Christ, and cries in us as in Him, Abba, Father.”1 [Note: The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 346.]

2. The witness of the Spirit, then, is given to assure us of the fact of our sonship. Being adopted into the family of God we receive the Spirit of adoption, and in that Spirit we are able to express our filial desires; we cry, “Abba, Father.” But we need fuller, more sure, more abiding confirmation of our position as children. And the same Spirit of adoption provides it. For not only is His presence a witness to our adoption, but one of His very offices, if we may use the word, is that of suggesting and confirming the witness of our own spirits. Without that suggestion and confirmation we should have little confidence in our approach to God, and little joy in our Christian life.

A religious life dependent for its confidence on mere inference would always be exposed to those fluctuations which constitution and temperament encourage. Some impressions of the mind are healthy; some are morbid; some are presumptuous. In some cases the premises on which the soul founded its judgments would be false; or the process of reasoning would be unsound; or the reasoner himself prejudiced and incompetent. For, as a rule, no man is an infallible judge of his own feelings or actions. A tender conscience, a diffident estimate of one’s own character, a morbid tendency, would rob the truest soul of peace; while, on the other hand, a native buoyancy of disposition, a sunny temperament, an indulgent conscience, would interpret the most equivocal evidence in its favour.1 [Note: R. N. Young.]

I would remind you that this is not a luxury, such as when one lies listlessly on one’s body by the Mediterranean, basking in the sunshine. God does not afford us privileges merely to increase the luxuriousness of the Christian life. I do not for a moment say that there is no life where this witness of the Spirit is not recognized and rejoiced in, but I do say there is no real Christian life where that witness is not. Wherever there is adoption, and adoption responded to, there is the witness of the adopting Spirit. Continually we come across people who are in a state of restlessness and perplexity, because they know nothing of the inner witnessing of the Spirit; and it may be after frequent interviews, when one seems baffled and beaten, that one drops some sentence which awakens a response, and the hearer says, “Oh, if that is what you mean, I know it already.” All believers know it, only they do not know they do. It is true you may be in a state of real living union with Christ and yet experience perplexity. But you will never come to be all that a Christian should be until this inner witness is clearly yours, and until you can say with full utterance, without any stammering whatever, “Abba, Father.”2 [Note: Canon G. Body.]

II

Why is the Witness of the Spirit needed?

1. The Witness of the Spirit is needed to enable us to enter into perfect communion with God. This is the necessity and glory of Christian life; but until we feel His power possessing us, until we see the smile of the Father behind every sorrow, we shall fear Him, and flee from His presence; not until then can we perfectly commune with Him. In some natures, particularly in the stages of infancy and youth, God’s presence seems to address itself to the emotions. There is an instinctive yearning for a perfect and absolute object of love, trust, worship. A vast void waits to be filled with the apprehension of infinite excellence, infinite sympathy, infinite friendship. The heart cannot rest away from God. Till some unknown secret of love is distilled there, stabs of sudden pain are felt, grievous and incurable wounds, strain and distress of the sensibilities. The peace of home, the accord of marriage, the wealth of far-ranging friendship, only palliate the trouble for a time. At last a strange power of loving God springs up within the fevered, distraught, and half-famished affections. That implies and guarantees an accomplished reconciliation. The persuasion comes by the pathway of these tender, sensitive, love-craving conditions of temper, and seems to grow out of them. But it is the great Spirit Himself who witnesses in and through the affections. The heart-chords respond to some vibration in His own nature. A God who irresistibly makes Himself an object of love must be a God who is already reconciled. An assurance wrought in this way is just as authoritatively Divine as though proclaimed by a voice from the skies.

Wisest of sparrows that sparrow which sitteth alone

Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest:

Wisest of swallows that swallow which timely has flown

Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest:

Wisest of sparrows and swallows,

If I were as wise!

Wisest of spirits that spirit which dwelleth apart

Hid in the Presence of God for a chapel and nest,

Sending a wish and a will and a passionate heart

Over the eddy of life to that

Presence in rest:

Seated alone and in peace till

God bids it arise.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

2. We need the Witness of the Spirit in order to realize our spiritual inheritance. You know the feeling of sadness which comes when gazing at night into immensity—the thought that this short life will soon be over, and we shall be swept away and forgotten, like withered leaves before the drifting winds of autumn. Then how grandly comes the witness to our sonship, saying, “Thou cast down? Look up into immensity, it is all thine, fear not, thou art a child of the Infinite.”

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,

And I said in underbreath,—All our life is mixed with death,

And who knoweth which is best?

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,

And I smiled to think God’s greatness flowed around our incompleteness—

Round our restlessness, His rest.1 [Note: Elizabeth Barrett Browning.]

3. And we need the Witness of the Spirit in order to comprehend the glory of suffering. Mark the connexion in Paul’s words between the sufferings of this life, and the glory to be revealed hereafter, as if he had said,—“as the suffering is great, so also shall be the glory.” None but the man who has the “witness of the Spirit” is able to look through the sorrow to the blessedness hereafter.

The paper you sent me speaks of the deteriorating effect of pain. I most entirely recognize the accuracy of the observation. It is one of the most terrible features of suffering. But then it must be remembered that anything, not only pain, may be deteriorating—either by fault of the will, if health and faculties are unimpaired, or, as is, we hope, often the case in illness, by failure of that physical organization through which the will acted soundly and loyally when the man was in health. And how terribly deteriorating is the effect sometimes, not merely of success, but of a simply quiet, undisturbed life. We are poor creatures, and yet we have in us the making of heroes and saints.2 [Note: Life and Letters of Dean Church, 276.]

III

How does the Spirit bear Witness?

“The Spirit himself,” says the Apostle, “beareth witness with our spirit.” The verb which he employs denotes a joint testimony. The cry, “Abba, Father,” is a human cry. It expresses our consciousness of a filial relation to God. But it is also superhuman. For it is prompted by the Spirit of God, “in whom we cry, Abba, Father.”

1. Now observe here, first of all, that Paul distinguishes between the Spirit of God and our “spirit.” For “the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.” His witness to our sonship is distinct from our personal consciousness of sonship. Again, “we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” What He desires for us He must know; and there are times when He is able to draw us into perfect and intelligent sympathy with His own thought and His own longing; but there are other times when the great things that He desires for us transcend our vision and our hope; and then the Spirit who dwells in us carries on His intercession for us alone; He is too near to us, too intimately one with us, for us not to be conscious of the energy and earnestness of His desires; and we ourselves, as the result of His energy and earnestness, may have a vague and even a passionate longing for some infinite good, but what it is we cannot tell.

2. There are therefore two witnesses to our sonship. As two witnesses were required, under the Law, to establish a charge that was made against any man; so, under the Gospel, we have two witnesses to establish our claim to be the children of God,—first, the witness of our own spirit, and then the second and far greater Witness, the Holy Spirit Himself; and by the mouth of these two witnesses shall our claim be fully established. If our own spirit were our only witness, we might hesitate to receive its testimony, for it is fallible and partial; but when the infallible and impartial Spirit of God confirms the unfaltering witness of our own heart and conscience, then may we have confidence toward God, and believe without hesitation that we are indeed the children of the Most High God.

As you look at the clock in the tower of some great public building, you remember that behind the gilt letters of the dial there is an elaborate mechanism which moves the fingers. But you also remember that, after all, everything does not rest upon the exact weight and rhythm of the pendulum that swings there, or the faultless going-order of the well-cleaned wheels. It is possible for the local mechanism to be at fault and to vary in its time-keeping virtues, and the citizens are not left to the mercy of its supposed inerrancy. At noon a gun is fired or a ball made to fall, or some other delicate adjustment is brought into play by an electric current sent direct from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the centre of scientific precision and faultless and authoritative reckoning. There is local mechanism fairly trustworthy in its way, but that is guaranteed and controlled by the message of absolute astronomical truth.1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]

3. These two witnesses must agree. Notice the words: “the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit.” It is not so much a revelation made to my spirit, considered as the recipient of the testimony, as a revelation made in or with my spirit considered as co-operating in the testimony. It is not that my spirit says one thing, bears witness that I am a child of God; and that the Spirit of God comes in by a distinguishable process, with a separate evidence, to say Amen to my persuasion; but it is that there is one testimony which has a conjoint origin—the origin from the Spirit of God as true source, and the origin from my own soul as recipient and co-operant in that testimony.

To produce a perfect chord in music two things are necessary. The things brought into play must be attuned to each other. Unless there is this perfect adjustment when the notes are struck, instead of the faultless chord you will have jarring, dissonance, torture. So our wills must be brought into agreement with the will of the Spirit. We must forsake all sin, and give ourselves up to His skilful modulation and adjustment.

I saw on earth another light

Than that which lit my eye

Come forth, as from my soul within,

And from a higher sky.

Its beams still shone unclouded on,

When in the distant west

The sun I once had known had sunk

For ever to his rest.

And on I walked—though dark the night,

Nor rose his orb by day,—

As one to whom a surer guide

Was pointing out the way.

’Twas brighter far than noonday’s beam,

’Twas duty shone within,

And lit, as by a lamp from heaven,

The world’s dark track of sin.1 [Note: Jones Very.]

(1) From the teaching of this passage, or from any of the language which Scripture uses with regard to the inner witness, it is not to be inferred that there will rise up in a Christian’s heart, from some origin consciously beyond the sphere of his own nature, a voice with which he has nothing to do; which at once, by its own character, by something peculiar and distinguishable about it, by something strange in its nature, or out of the ordinary course of human thinking, shall certify itself to be not his voice at all, but God’s voice. That is not the direction in which we are to look for the witness of God’s Spirit. It is evidence borne, indeed, by the Spirit of God; but it is evidence borne not only to our spirit, but through it, with it The testimony is one, the testimony of a man’s own emotion, and own conviction, and own desire, the cry, “Abba, Father.”

(2) Again, there are those who conceive that a certain feeling of assurance suddenly rises in the Christian, which is a conviction of his election, and that this feeling is the witness of the Holy Spirit. Hence, men have waited for it with anxiety. Many of the most earnest have prayed in tears of agony for its dawning. They have wasted many a darkened hour by the fear lest this feeling should never come, and have longed, like men watching for the morning, for the moment when it should suddenly flash across the darkness of the soul and light it with confident joy. Now, we need not dispute the fact that a sudden emotion may come, but this is certainly not the assurance of which Paul is speaking here. For he speaks of a Divine Spirit witnessing with our spirit; to rely on any emotion as certainty is to rely upon our own spirit bearing witness with itself; for if we trust to any feeling in us we are not trusting to the Spirit of God.

The substance of the conviction which is lodged in the human spirit by the testimony of the Spirit of God is not primarily directed to our relation or feelings to God, but to a far grander thing than that—to God’s feelings and relation to us.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

IV

How is the Witness confirmed?

The confirmation of sonship is the spirit of a son. There is no evidence that can supersede the actual recognition of God as Father, the actual filial affection which prompts the cry, “Abba, Father.” And so, there is no evidence of the Spirit and no confirmation of His witness to be compared to the fact that we are in our daily life bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit. But there are three ways in particular to be noticed here in which the evidence of the Spirit can be confirmed. They are the ways in which St. Paul is showing the operation of the Spirit.

1. Have we obtained deliverance from a carnal mind? “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” The carnal is not always the sensual; it includes those temptations into which a man’s spirit has infused a charm. Freedom from this is the first sign of sonship. Here, then, is the witness: the old affections are being uprooted; a deep desire is being created after perfect purity; the chains of sin are being snapped. The heart with its love, the head with its understanding, the conscience with its quick response to the law of duty, the will with its resolutions—these are all, as sanctified by Him, the witness of His Spirit; and the life with its strenuous obedience, with its struggles against sin and temptation, with its patient persistence in the quiet path of ordinary duty, as well as with the times when it rises into heroic stature of resignation or allegiance, the martyrdom of death and the martyrdom of life, this too is all (in so far as it is pure and right) the work of that same Spirit. The test of the inward conviction is the outward life; and they that have the witness of the Spirit within them have the light of their life lit by the Spirit of God, whereby they may read the handwriting on the heart, and be sure that it is God’s and not their own.

2. Have we the spirit of Prayer? Sometimes the Christian prayer transcends all words. The heart’s wounded affections—blighted hopes—unexpressed longings—all burn in one deep impassioned cry. This spirit of prayer possessing us is a sign of adoption.

3. Have we the spirit of Aspiration? “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” This is a sign of sonship—life’s imperfectness the ground of hope. The feeling that here there is no rest—the whole life becoming one prayer for more light, greater power, deeper love—not, mark, the cry for happiness, but the cry—

Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee!

Even though it be a cross

That raiseth me.

That aspiration, possessing the soul, forms the power of the Christian, and is a witness to his sonship of the Father.

An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust, and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be spiritually rich.1 [Note: Robert Louis Stevenson, El Dorado.]

The white doves brood low

With innocent flight.

Higher, my soul, higher!

Into the night!—

Into black night!

Beyond where the eagle

Soars strong to the sun.

Nought hast thou, if only

Earth’s stars be won—

Earth’s stars are won.

Beyond, where God’s angels

Stand silent in might,

Higher, my soul, higher!

Into the light!—

Straight to God’s light!1 [Note: Maarten Maartens.]

The Assurance of Sonship

Literature

Beet (J. Agar), The New Life in Christ, 72.

Daviea (J. Ll.), Spiritual Apprehension, 16.

Denio (F. B.), The Supreme Leader, 100.

Evans (E. D. P.), in Sermons by Unitarian Ministers, ii. 27.

Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 253.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year, Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, 259.

McIntyre (D. M.), Life in His Name, 215.

Maclaren (A.) * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] Creed and Conduct, 39.

Maclaren (A.) * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] Expositions of Holy Scripture, Romans, 136.

Maclaren (A.) * [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 54.

Martineau (J.), Hours of Thought, i. 45.

Patton (W. J.), Pardon and Assurance, 18.

Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 175.

Walker (W. L.), The Holy Spirit, 61.

Young (R. N.), The Witness of the Spirit, 1.

Christian Age, xliii. 309 (Cuyler).

Christian World Pulpit, xxi. 138 (Beecher); xxix. 181 (Brierley); xlviii. 156 (Rawnsley); lxviii. 333 (Cuyler).

Churchman’s Pulpit (Eighth Sunday after Trinity), xi. 54 (Mackay), 57 (Moore).

Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, iii. 325 (Tasker).

Pulpit Encyclopædia, i. 327 (Maclaren* [Note: It is one and the same sermon by Dr. Maclaren that is found in all these places.] ).