The Divine Witness (Romans 8:15-16)

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:” (Romans 8:16, KJV 1900)

Many people who have made a prayer of faith often later will ask the question, am I truly saved? While this question needs a lot of commentary, more than I have time for in this devotional, there is one certain witness to a person’s eternal relationship to the Father. Paul states that the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. To be a child of God one must be born by the Spirit of God. This is exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus when He said to him, “You must be born again.”

It is the new birth in which the Holy Spirit of God moves in the true believer’s life to bear witness with a person’s spirit that he or she is a member of the family of God. What are the evidences of this witness? I have already discussed some of these in previous posts. One of the strongest is the transformation of a person’s inner desires. While formerly seeking only to please the flesh, the new believer has “holy affections,” a desire for the things of God and His righteousness. The new believer desires to please God.

Here Paul indicates another witness of the Holy Spirit. In verse fifteen, the true believer cries out to God, “Abba, Father!” This is an expression of intimate relationship of a true Father to a true son or daughter. While formerly, the believer was a slave to sin and fearful of God as judge, now through the working of the Spirit, the believer, being born into the family of God, comes confidently to God as Father, without fear.

The Spirit of God witnesses with our Spirit in the assurance of our eternal relationship as a son or daughter of God. In short, we know it and thus desire to respond in accordance with the family to which we belong. We have an inward assurance that is accompanied by outward manifestations of spiritual fruit, wrought by the Spirit in our life.