om these words of Jesus Christ and the Apostles that it is the
work of the Holy Spirit to bear witness concerning Jesus Christ. We find
the Holy Spirit's testimony to Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, but beside
this the Holy Spirit bears witness directly to the individual heart
concerning Jesus Christ. He takes His own Scriptures and interprets them
to us and makes them clear to us. All truth is from the Spirit, for He is
"the Spirit of truth," but it is especially His work to bear witness to
Him who is the truth, that is Jesus Christ (John xiv. 6). It is only
through the testimony of the Holy Spirit directly to our hearts that we
ever come to a true, living knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor. xii. 3).
No amount of mere reading the written Word (in the Bible) and no amount of
listening to man's testimony will ever bring us to a living knowledge of
Christ. It is only when the Holy Spirit Himself takes the written Word, or
takes the testimony of our fellow man, and interprets it directly to our
hearts that we really come to see and know Jesus as He is. On the day of
Pentecost, Peter gave all his hearers the testimony of the Scriptures
regarding Christ and also gave them his own testimony; he told them what
he and the other Apostles knew by personal observation regarding His
resurrection, but unless the Holy Spirit Himself had taken the Scriptures
which Peter had brought together and taken the testimony of Peter and the
other disciples, the 3,000 would not on that day have seen Jesus as He
really was and received Him and been baptized in His name. The Holy Spirit
added His testimony to that of Peter and that of the written Word. Mr.
Moody used to say in his terse and graphic way that when Peter said,
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts ii.
36), the Holy Spirit said, 'Amen' and the people saw and believed." And it
is certain that unless the Holy Spirit had come that day and through Peter
and the other Apostles borne His direct testimony to the hearts of their
hearers, there would have been no saving vision of Jesus on the part of
the people. If you wish men to get a true view of Jesus Christ, such a
view of Him that they may believe and be saved, it is not enough that you
give them the Scriptures concerning Him; it is not enough that you give
them your own testimony, you must seek for them the testimony of the Holy
Spirit