When the Lord established the law through Moses for the nation of Israel, He included this:
By the mouths of two or three witnesses [a] matter shall be established” – Deuteronomy 19:15
This rule requiring two or three witnesses to establish whether a claim was true is similar to the requirement in our, and other judicial, legal systems. It prevents a party from successfully making a claim against another without supporting evidence. That’s a good thing. I only wish we, as individuals – each of us acting as judge in establishing matters in our own heart for ourselves – would be so prudent in drawing our conclusions. We often decide what we’re going to believe after exposure to the first claim somebody makes, especially if we want that claim to be true. But here’s how ridiculous it is to make decisions so prematurely:
Imagine you’ve been falsely accused of hurting someone, so you lawyer up and go to court to defend yourself against the accusation. The judge announces that he will hear your case and invites your accuser to state the charges they’re bringing against you. Your accuser’s attorney stands up and makes his opening statement. After that attorney finishes his statement, the judge thanks him, announces recess for deliberation, bangs the gavel and exits the courtroom posthaste. Baffled, you ask your attorney why the judge didn’t give your counsel a chance to speak. Is the judge really going to decide the case after hearing only one side? Your attorney is as puzzled as you are. The judge soon re-enters the room and returns to the bench. He hammers the gavel and calls the court to order. Then he announces that he finds you, the accused, guilty of the charge and hands down your sentence.
As preposterous as that scenario is, it happens everyday as people run across information. Thus, false news is having a field day. My favorite president, who, himself, had a pretty good understanding of both the law and how gullible people can be, gives us some timely advice:
That’s funny. But what isn’t funny is that many people have concluded that Jesus Christ isn’t worth considering to have risen from the grave. The cultural currents testify against Jesus being who the Bible says He is, so it’s as easy to assume Him to be a fraud as it is to believe a person’s guilty by reading about accusations against them on your news feeds. Here’s what Jesus said to His twelve closest disciples not long before He surrendered to Jewish and Roman officials for crucifixion:
John 15:26-27
“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
Jesus was, essentially, calling His disciples to the witness stand in the trial we each would hold in our heart to decide what we’ll do with Jesus. Jesus also said the Holy Spirit would testify. The New Testament is the testimony of the disciples, each book having been written by either an apostle or a person writing for an apostle. So when we read the Bible (the New Testament shedding light on the Old Testament), we are getting the testimony of the apostles. That’s the first witness. And the second is the Holy Spirit. As we seek the truth of God in His Word, the Holy Spirit bears witness of it in our hearts. The Spirit of God speaks to our most inner self, and He speaks in a way that we unmistakably understand the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden for us in God’s Word. I love the way the Spirit of God opens my eyes to see and understand something God is saying specifically to me for that moment. The Holy Spirit lets me know without a doubt who Jesus is. He corroborates the testimony of the apostles. As each of us holds court in the chamber of our heart, we have two corroborating witnesses to help us know the truth. But remember, God gave Moses the requirement of two or three witnesses. The third witness may or may not be needed from case to case. I believe the third witness, as people seek to know the truth about Jesus, is a person (or people) who came to know Him after He walked on the earth. So the original apostles, the Holy Spirit, and contemporary disciples – that’s the three witnesses as people judge who Jesus is and how to respond to Him.
My prayer is that Jesus is being established in the hearts of more and more people by these two or three witnesses.
