X. The Strength for Confession
CHAPTER X
The Strength for Confession Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. - 1 Cor. 12:3.
What is impossible with man, is however, possible with God. From Him is all our ability. All true confessing comes forth out of the faith of the heart, which is a gift of God, a fruit of the work of the Holy
Spirit.
Although Christ had fulfilled everything, still would it have been fruitless, if, after His ascension to Heaven, He had not sent the Holy
Spirit, who leadeth in all truth. For the whole world of itself stands in opposition to Christ and loves darkness rather than light. But the Holy Spirit has come to witness of Christ in the midst of the world.
He is the only but also the almighty witness of Christ. All scorn Christ but the Holy Spirit glorifies Him. All condemn Christ but the Holy Spirit justifies Him. All reject Christ but the Holy Spirit stands up for Him and pleads His cause at the consciences of men. All call
Christ accursed, but the Holy Spirit says that He is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
He witnesses of Christ in the Word, which through prophets and apostles He has written. He witnesses of Christ in the world, which He convinces of sin and righteousness and judgment. He witnesses of Christ in the church who acknowledges Him to be her Lord and her God. He witnesses of Christ in the heart of every believer, who thereby knows that he is a child of God and cries "Abba Father." And against that testimony of the Holy Spirit, in short, no child of man can stand. As soon as the Holy Spirit accompanies the proclamation of the Word of God with His Almighty power, then, the hardest heart is broken, the most stubborn knee is bowed; the loudest mouth is
stopped. In the face of His testimony all our thoughts and considerations are of no significance, they burst as a bubble. No one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and everyone that has received that Spirit confesses Him as his Lord and Savior.
But even then, when faith has been implanted in the heart, in the face of the various temptations to unfaithfulness, the working of the Spirit, which makes faith to reveal itself in word and deed, always remains necessary. For it is God who worketh in us not only to will but also to do His good pleasure. From Him we receive both the power of faith and the boldness to confess.
Therefore David prayed that God might not take his Holy Spirit from him, and might strengthen him with a free and bold spirit. When
Peter and John once stood before the great counsel, and afterwards, being released, told the brethren their experiences, they all together lifted up their voices to God saying: Now Lord look upon the threatenings of the adversaries and give unto Thy servants to speak
Thy Word with all boldness; and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word of God with boldness. Even a Paul requested the prayers of the church that utterance might be given unto him, that he might open his mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel.
For the minister of the Word in the first place, but then also for every believer this boldness to speak and testify is indispensable. It consists in the unembarrassment to give testimony to the truth of God in Christ, in a firm, trusting faith, openly and freely before each and everyone. It is founded in the blessed assurance of the remission of guilt, in the liberty to approach the throne of grace and to ask everything of Him in prayer. And it is strengthened in us by the many examples of brave and unshakable confessors of whom both
Holy Writ and history make mention.
There is, first of all, the example of Christ. He was in Himself the Word, the Truth, the Perfect Revelation of God. And He came into a world lying in sin and in bondage unto deceit. His appearance alone, with nothing more, was a protest that was bound to awaken the hatred and enmity of the world. She could not tolerate Jesus. His existence was her judgment. And therefore she strained every muscle to banish this righteous one from the earth. But Jesus remained faithful unto His Father and became obedient unto Him, even unto the death of the cross. He withstood every temptation. He bore all enmity, before the Jewish Sanhedrin He verified His divine Sonship, and before Pontius Pilate He made the good confession. Thus He revealed Himself to be the true and faithful witness, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, who has left us an example that we should walk in His steps.
Then furthermore there are the many thousands of angels unto whose communion the believers have come in Christ Jesus. They also exhort us to perseverance in the fight. For they accompanied Christ upon all His ways, and ascended and descended upon the Son of Man all the days of His earthly sojourn. They follow the church upon her way through the world and are sent out in the service of them who shall inherit salvation. They are desirous of looking into the mysteries of salvation and rejoice over every sinner who repents.
Because of their perfect obedience, they are given unto us for examples in the very perfect prayer and through us they must be made acquainted with the multifarious wisdom of God.
Then again we have the great cloud of witnesses, with whom we are encompassed about, the whole church triumphant, whose numbers, although they do not behold our battles as eye witnesses, nevertheless by their example as witnesses of the faith encourage us and exhort us to imitate them. They have, for a part at least, tasted of scourging and derision, and also of bonds and imprisonment. But they were not ashamed of the good confession and remained faithful unto the end. And daily their number is being increased. A multitude which no man can number is now already formed by the spirits of the
perfect righteous, who have been taken into Heaven, and are become our leaders and examples in the faithful confession of Christ.
And finally there is also the church militant upon earth, which, by holding fast to the unshakable confession of hope, strengthens us. In very truth, it has been said, that every Christian should believe so firmly that, although all others should fall away, he would still remain standing firm and unshakable. But notwithstanding this is true, in general, man is not set aside for neither able to endure such a seclusion. To be sure, God is able to grant such a strong faith that we, though forsaken by all yet proceed upon our way with rejoicing. But generally God keeps us standing in and through the communion of saints. For even as we in one body have many members, and these members have not all the same work, so also are we many, one body in Christ, but we are each others members. And as such all believers have communion with the Lord Jesus and all of His treasures and gifts, and each one must feel that he is obliged to use, willingly and gladly his talents and gifts for the benefit and to the salvation of the other members.
Thus the confessors of Christ are hardly ever alone. Sometimes in a certain place and at a given time they may feel themselves forsaken and alone. But also then it is very often revealed that there are yet thousands who, with them, have not bowed the knee to Baal. And when they arise out of the anguish of their souls and look about, over the whole world and throughout the ages, they realize that they are members of a communion, which from the beginning to the end of the world is gathered, in unity of faith, out of the whole human race, by the Son of God and by Him likewise protected and preserved. The Church of Christ is the kernel of humanity, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Whosoever is a living member of her counts among his brothers and sisters, the best and greatest and noblest of our generation; prophets and apostles and church fathers and martyrs and reformers. And at their head stands the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead, the Sovereign of the Kings of the earth.
Especially in our fatherland (The Netherlands) there is no reason whatever why we should despondently withdraw and lock ourselves up into obscurity. For, Christians are no where and never a sect; although they are opposed and contradicted everywhere, but they are this the least in the Netherlands, whose national existence was born or brought forth by the Reformation. The Christian character is, in this land, genuinely national, and the confessors of the Reformed
Faith are not strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens and members of the household, children of those fathers who, with their possessions and blood, fought victoriously for truth and liverty against error and the binding of their consciences.
When we remember all these things, what examples ought we not then to be in faithful confessing and holy walk! To be sure, the power of faith is necessary to row up against the stream and to bear that all men speak evil of us, although it is deceitfully and for the Gospel's sake. From the multitude there proceeds a magical influence upon the individual. In every circle the danger is so great that we submit to the number and adjust ourselves to the majority.
But in opposition to this, the believers can derive encouragement for themselves from the thought, that they all together are come unto
Mount Zion, and unto the City of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to the Mediator of the new covenant.
Therefore then, we have nothing to fear, for they who are with us, are more than they which are with them.