Testimony of Jesus

“ Suppose Jesus Christ and his Apostles and prophets all agree in bearing testimony, and foretelling the very order of things which we find to exist; also, its final end or termination, and the restoration of his Church and the reign of his Saints? Would not our own observations of what actually exists, confirmed by the prophetic declarations of such a host of witnesses, all testifying that it would be so, be a double assurance that we had opened our eyes to a snare in time to escape, and cause us to leap forward with a thrill of joy and faith to that which is to come? ”

“ If you call for testimony to substantiate this, we can give the highest, the testimony of Jesus Christ. He said to his ancient servants, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." ”

“ This significant phrase is characteristic of the Revelation,532 and we find in it a key to the general interpretation, a principle to be applied throughout, viz. that the mysteries of the Old Dispensation find their only proper solution and fulfilment in the clearer teaching of the New. “The testimony of Jesus” is the witness for the truth borne by Christ in the world, which gathers up into one and gives expression to the essential and animating thought of all prophecy. ”

“ That a Christian man shall be able to stand up and say, 'I know this because I live it, and I testify to Jesus Christ because I for myself have found Him to be the life of my life, the Light of all my seeing, the joy of my heart, my home, and my anchorage'—that is the witness that is impregnable. And there is no better sign of the trend of Christian thought to-day than the fact that the testimony of experience is more and more coming to be recognised by thoughtful men and writers as being the sovereign attestation of the reality of the Light. ”

“ It is impossible to keep a man silent who is filled with the testimony of Jesus. I would as soon undertake to shut up fire in dry shavings, as to shut up in that man's heart the good news, for he has his mission, which is to preach the Gospel to those that were and are in darkness. ”

“ Know assuredly, dear brethren, that it is for the testimony of Jesus that we are in bonds and in prison. But we say unto you, that we consider that our condition is better (notwithstanding our sufferings) than that of those who have persecuted us, and smitten us, and borne false witness against us; and we most assuredly believe that those who do bear false witness against us, do seem to have a great triumph over us {227} for the present. ”

“ Wherever the Elders of this Church have gone and lifted up their voices in humility, in meekness, calling upon the inhabitants of the earth to repent—and they have gone to many lands and spoken in many languages—and the people have repented and sought unto God in the name of Jesus Christ for a testimony of the truth, there has never been a single instance where they have failed to receive that testimony ”

“ For instance, what evidence and testimony have the present generation and the generations that have lived during the last seventeen centuries that Jesus Christ, the great Redeemer of the world, arose from the dead? You have the testimony of four individuals, and no more, provided that their testimony has not been corrupted, altered, and mutilated in the oldest manuscripts now known. Who are they? Matthew, John, Paul, and Peter. The other four writers of the New Testament have not said a word about seeing Jesus after his resurrection. ”

“ The testimony of Moses and the prophets, of Jesus and the apostles, of Joseph Smith and his associates, may not thus be put out of the reckoning. The character of these witnesses, their service to mankind, what they suffered and sacrificed for their testimonies, make them worthy of belief; and, since in the nature of things there is nothing which makes their testimony improbable, but, on the contrary, much that makes it very probable, is it not beneath the dignity of scientists to refuse to accord to their statements a patient investigation and belief? ”

“ The discrepancies between the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, or between the accounts of the Resurrection, can be attributed "neither to any defect in our capacities nor to any reasonable presumption of a hidden wise design, nor to any partial spiritual endowments in the narrators." The orthodox arguments which lay stress on the assertion of witnesses as the supreme evidence of fact, in support of miraculous occurrences, are set aside on the ground that testimony is a blind guide and can avail nothing against reason and the strong grounds we have for believing in permanent order. ”

“ Now I am willing to acknowledge to you, sir, and to all the world, that I can make no sense of the above testimony without applying it to all mankind. In the apostle's observations in the close of the 8th of Rom. of nothing being able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, there is a perfect analogy with the foregoing testimony. The love of God which is in Christ Jesus, was commended to a sinful world in that Christ tasted death, by the grace of God, for every man. ”

“ The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 351the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." [337]
Under a fair trial, in daylight, with full freedom of defense to the accused, abundant evidence could have been secured of the miraculous powers of Jesus and of the truthfulness of His pretensions to a divine origin. Testimony could have been introduced that would have been not only competent but entirely satisfactory. The New Testament narratives tell us of about forty miracles that Jesus performed during His life. ”

“ If Jesus rose from the dead, the fact was susceptible of proof to his disciples. It was susceptible of proof to those who believed it on the testimony of his disciples. It is susceptible of proof to one to whom that testimony is transmitted. Assuming his resurrection to be true, it would be more wonderful than a miracle, if all means of a rational belief in the fact were the exclusive property of his immediate disciples; and their contemporaries and all after them, to the end of time, be compelled in the exercise of right reason to reject it, notwithstanding it is true. ”

“ Of course the witnesses must have been more numerous, who could testify to the reality of the miracles of others, than of those of Jesus; and we ought certainly to believe the testimony of a large number rather than the testimony of a few. ”

“ Yes, as true as that God reigns in the heavens; and there are thousands more in the Church who know it is true. The testimony of brother Grant and other men is just as true, and will be valid just as much as the testimony of Peter, James, and John, for they speak the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. ”

“ Thus we see that twelve individuals saw the plates before the contents were placed before the world, and before they were called upon to believe in them. Is not this a sufficient testimony and evidence? If the world would not believe twelve men who have seen the originals, handled them with their hands, beheld the engravings upon them,—four of whom had seen the angel of God and heard his voice;—if they would not believe this, would they believe the evidence and testimony of ten thousand individuals? Jesus declares—"In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established." ”

“ Although neither Matthew, Mark nor Luke (in his gospel*) speak of Jesus’s being seen but once by his immediate disciples after his death, yet John says that he was seen by a part of them at three different times. Let us see whether it were so.
I have before said that no number of witnesses, however respectable themselves, and however direct and positive their testimony, would be sufficient to convince us that any man but Jesus ever rose from the dead. ”

“ Having recorded the testimony borne to Jesus by the Baptist, and having cited instances in which the overmastering personality of Jesus elicited from simple-hearted and godly men the acknowledgment of His majesty, John now proceeds to relate the homely incident which gave occasion to the first public act in which His greatness was exhibited. Testimony comes first; inward and intuitive recognition of the greatness declared by that testimony second; perception that His works are beyond the reach of human power comes last. ”

“ Indeed, how could the apostles be assured of the reality of what they saw? A being who has the power of changing the course of nature, can destroy all the rules by which we judge of certainty: how then could they ever be certain of having seen Jesus after his resurrection?
John speaks of several appearances of Jesus to his disciples, of which no mention is made by the other evangelists: hence we see that his testimony destroys theirs, or that theirs destroy his. As to the apparitions of Jesus which Paul mentions, he was not a witness of them, and knew them only by hearsay ”

“ He declared that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God in heaven. He was therefore an eye-witness of our Lord’s glory in heaven. 3. On account of this testimony he suffered a violent death, bearing witness with his own blood to the Divinity of Jesus, and being therefore a martyr for his faith. ”

“ Nevertheless, the following attempted explanation of the alleged miracles of Jesus will not insist upon these arguments, but will proceed upon the supposition that human testimony can be sufficient evidence of the reality of a miracle—assuming, however, the soundness of this principle, viz: that we are not to believe a miracle on human testimony, so long as we can [Editor: illegible word] discover an inconclusiveness in that testimony, or can detect a possibility of mistake or falsity in the witnesses. ”

“ Yet it is almost entirely this kind of hearsay testimony, such as would be scouted at in a Court of justice, if offered for the purpose of proving the most common and natural events, upon which men believe in occurrences vastly more improbable than any that ever resulted from natural causes.
One argument, that is frequently alluded to in support of the reality of the miracles of Jesus, is perhaps worthy of a notice here, in addition to what has been said. This argument is, that even the opposers of Jesus acknowledged that he wrought true miracles. ”