The Voice of The Spirit

The Story Of An Eyewitness

Sometimes God inspires the prophets to describe events or circumstances that they themselves have witnessed. The classic example in the Scriptures is the experience of the apostle John. His first epistle to the churches begins by saying: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.... We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard” (1 John 1:1-3). VOTS 56.3

John, along with the other disciples, participated in the events of Christ’s ministry, His death on the cross, and His resurrection and ascension. He had the opportunity to witness gleams of glory at the transfiguration and to be astonished by the miracles, healings, and resurrections from the dead. He saw the angels sustaining his beloved Lord in the garden of Gethsemane and guarding the empty sepulcher. As far as these events are concerned, the apostle had no need of a vision to know their history, because he himself had been part of that history. VOTS 57.1

However, the apostle John, as well as Matthew—the two disciples of the Lord who wrote Gospels—did need divine revelation to interpret the events they witnessed. It would not have been possible for the apostle John to perceive, behind the Teacher they followed, the eternal Son of God “Through (whom) all things were made” (John 1:13), if it had not been for a divine revelation. The same is true of Peter. He could not have recognized in Jesus “the Christ, the Son of the living God” if it had not been for the fact that, as Jesus told him: “this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16, 17). VOTS 57.2

As in the rest of the Scriptures, the personal testimony of the prophet or of the apostle is guided by the divine presence in his mind, not only to help him remember accurately what he saw as an eyewitness but to help him interpret the events correctly. VOTS 57.3