The Spirit is the witness because the Spirit is truth.
1John 5:6b
An empty tomb. The accounts of the resurrection found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The testimonies of witnesses found in those gospels. Paul’s testimony, and others in the Bible. All that falls under the category of evidence to the resurrection and glorification of Jesus. None of it is proof.
Evidence can be debated. There may still exist the empty tomb in Jerusalem that actually was the tomb from which Jesus arose, but Christian tradition notwithstanding, nobody really knows where it is. Evidence can be interpreted in various ways, depending on the opinion of the individual observing the evidence. Were the authors of the gospels stating facts concerning the resurrection, or were they speaking of the resurrection of Christ as a metaphor, to communicate a profound spiritual reality? Was Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus a real event, or was it a psychotic episode produced by a troubled mind? No evidence is above debate or beyond question.
Proof, on the other hand, is conclusive and irrefutable, and there is only one thing that is absolute proof that Jesus’ resurrection was real and that he ascended into heaven and was glorified by God to sit at His right hand, and that is the proof God alone gives: the baptism of the holy Spirit.
John the Baptizer proclaimed that the baptism of the Spirit would be the credentials of the Messiah. He told those who came to hear him, “I baptize you with water upon repentance, but after me is coming one who is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to remove. He will baptize you with holy Spirit!” (Mt. 3:11). And shortly after Jesus’ disciples received that baptism from Christ in Acts 2, they boldly said to the Sanhedrin,
Acts 5
30. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed, hanging him on a tree.
31. This man God has exalted to His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.
32. And we are his witnesses of these things, and so is the holy Spirit, which God has given to those who obey Him.
Jesus’ disciples are all gone; they are no longer among the living on earth. They left us some writings, and so, they, themselves, are no longer witnesses for us. The writings they left are evidence for the Lordship of Christ which can be, and are, interpreted in many different ways. However, the holy Spirit has gone nowhere, and it is the only proof of Christ. It was the Spirit which made the disciples, and has made many others since, witnesses of Jesus.
It is understandable that we might doubt and demand confirmation when we hear testimonies of humans. Humans have the capacity to lie, or to be mistaken. But not God. The Spirit is God’s witness to His Son, and it is evil not to believe Him:
1John 5
9. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this [the Spirit] is the witness of God that He has given concerning His Son.
10. He who . . . does not believe God has made Him a liar because he has not believed in the witness that God has given concerning His Son.
It is not the mere existence of the Spirit that is proof of the resurrection and glorification of Christ; the Spirit existed before Jesus was even born. The proof for each of us that the gospel of Christ is true is the experience of receiving the Spirit which God gives to those who believe in and obey His Son Jesus (Acts 5:32). That experience, the baptism of the Spirit, of which John the Baptizer spoke, is God’s irrefutable proof that Jesus is Lord, sitting in heaven at the right hand of the Father.
Now, when an individual who believes in Jesus is blessed by receiving the Spirit, he may truly know – because God has given him His witness of it – who Jesus is. Some who hear that person’s testimony will doubt it (because it is a human who is talking), but if God touches a person’s heart, he will believe that testimony. And if he believes, he will receive the testimony God gave to man to His Son. Jesus said so:
John 7
37. On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!
38. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water!”
39a. But he spoke this about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were going to receive.
