Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit

1 John 5:6b, 9-10

"…And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth… We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son."

How do you know Christianity to be true? That is quite a different question from how do we show Christianity to be true. I believe this crucial distinction is at the root of some difficulties in sharing the Gospel to skeptical non-believers and at times when we have our own doubts about our faith. We show or demonstrate Christianity to be true to others by way of our own testimony, arguments and evidence for God and for the authenticity of Jesus Christ's message and the Bible. Our own testimony, however, is built on the foundations of how we experience Christ/God through what is called the Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit (1 John 5:6b, 9-10, Rom 8:16). This is how we know for ourselves the truth of our Christian Faith. This is very amazing to me and I do think we take it for granted sometimes that God is ever-present in our daily lives through the Holy Spirit. The fact that apart from evidence and arguments, God can be immediately known and experienced. Philosophers of knowledge (epistemologists) categorise this as "properly basic beliefs" – These aren't based on some other beliefs; rather they are part of the foundation of a person's system of beliefs. Other examples of properly basic beliefs would be (1) the belief in the reality of the past, (2) the existence of the external world, and (3) the presence of other minds like your own. When we think about it, none of these beliefs can be proven. Christian philosopher William Lane Craig notes that "there's a danger that arguments for the existence of God could actually distract one's attention from God Himself," as GK Chesterton also once remarked "as if God has nothing else to do but to exist." I like this idea because, if you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His presence evident to you: "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (Jam 4:8). For those who listen, God becomes an immediate reality in their lives. We can invite our friends to seriously look into the Christian faith and taste for themselves that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8), to read/hear the Gospels (John, to start with) and find out more about Jesus and they might really be, as CS Lewis said relating to his own conversion, surprised by joy. Furthermore, for us Christians, the Holy Spirit witnesses to us. There is nothing like this in the major world religions. He witnesses to us the truth of the existence of the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth, Who is the Messiah—the culmination of the message of the Scripture, and also importantly, the blessed assurance of our Salvation—a loving relationship with Him.

"God was known to them as a dynamic will interacting with their own wills, a sheer given reality, as inescapably to be reckoned with as destructive storm and life-giving sunshine… They did not think of God as an inferred entity but as an experienced reality. To them God was not… an idea adopted by the mind, but an experiential reality which gave significance to their lives." —Dr. John H. Hick

~13.11.2015