Inner Testimony of the Spirit

As believers, the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives to provide us with assurance of salvation:

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:16, ESV).

In historical theology this is sometimes referred to as the inner testimony of the Spirit, or, to use the Latin phrase, Testimonium Spiritus Sancti. The question is, what does it mean to have the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we belong in the family of God? 

1.  The inner testimony is not a feeling.

For starters, the inner testimony of the Spirit is not a mystical feeling believers get in order to confirm their place in God’s household. Feelinsg are fleeting, unreliable, and originate within our own inner man. This does not mean that feelings are bad and should be avoided. Emotions are an inevitable and God-given function of our inner man that helps us to know what is truly happening in our hearts. The more our hearts are submitted to the influence of the Spirit, the more Christ-like our emotions will be. That said, God did not design how we feel to be the barometer of our relationship with Him or the basis of our assurance. The testimony of the Spirit is not some kind of undefined emotion you should be waiting on before you can be certain you are saved.

2.  The inner testimony is not new revelation.

The testimony of the Spirit is not additional revelation believers should anticipate some time after their salvation. As Christians, we have received everything that we need for life and godliness when the Spirit granted to us the promises of Scripture, brought us into union with Christ, and liberated us from our sin nature. As Peter puts it:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire (2 Pet 1:3–4, ESV).

There is nothing more that we need to rest secure in Christ! We don’t need more revelation to tell us that we are the children of God when, by faith, we already possess the Gospel which actually makes us the children of God.

3.  The inner testimony results in our faith.

So what does Romans 8:16 mean when it says that the “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” The Greek word translated “bears witness” communicates the idea of confirming or supporting a truth claim. In other words, to bear witness about something means to demonstrate that it is true, which is exactly what the Spirit does with the Gospel for us. The Spirit testifies to our inner man that we are God’s children by convincing us of the truth of the Gospel.

Interestingly, the only other two times this word is used in Romans it refers to being convinced of something in your conscience (Rom 2:15; 9:1). So, if you are convinced of the truth of Christ, it is because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit on your inner man. Or to put it even more simply, the presence of genuine faith in your life is the result of the inner testimony of the Spirit.

4.  The inner testimony confirms our salvation by convincing us of the truth.

Faith in the truth is the substance of the Spirit’s witness in our hearts. As Article XVII of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy puts it: “the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God’s written Word.” The New Testament identifies several specific truths of which the Spirit convinces and assures believers: 

• The Spirit testifies to our inner man by convincing us to recognize the lordship of Christ in our lives (1 Cor 12:3).
  
  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3, ESV).

• The Spirit testifies to our inner man by convincing us to trust in the graciousness of the Father to adopt us as sons (Gal 4:6).
  
  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal 4:6–7, ESV).
  
  
  • The Spirit testifies to our inner man by convincing to turn away from our enslavement to sin (Rom 8:14-15).
    
    For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:14–15, ESV).

These three areas of the Spirit’s inner testimony are particularly helpful because they play a vital role in assurance. If you want to grow in the certainty of your conversion, the place to start is with your submission to the lordship of Christ, your appreciation of the character of God, and your separation from your old life of sin. If you see fruit in these areas you can be confident that the Spirit is at work in your heart and that you are truly saved.

There are certainly other truths that the Spirit confirms in the hearts of believers. In fact, apart from the ministry of the Spirit it would be impossible for God’s people to accept any truth:

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:14–16, ESV).

Through the Spirit we have the “mind of Christ,” which is another way of referring to the inner testimony of the Spirit. He is graciously at work in our hearts, persuading us of the truth and providing us with the faith that we need to be right with God.

5.  The inner testimony is part of the Spirit’s saving work.

The Spirit testifies to our inner man that we are God’s children by convincing us of the truth of Scripture and thereby empowering us to recognize the lordship of Christ, trust in the graciousness of the Father, and turn away from our previous enslavement to sin. In other words, it is the Spirit’s influence over our hearts that makes a relationship with God possible, and through the Spirit’s witness in our hearts we can enjoy the blessings of this miraculous new communion with God. The Spirit brings us into union with Christ through faith in the Gospel, He keeps us in union with Christ by preserving our faith in the truth, and He bestows the personal benefits of union with Christ upon us by growing the strength of our faith in the promises of God. In all of this, the “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Paul Shirley is a graduate of The Expositors Seminary and has served as the pastor of Grace Community Church in Wilmington, Delaware since 2011.