(avg. read time: 3–6 mins.)
Testimony is, of course, by no means a foolproof strategy of conveying messages. Testimonies can be incomplete or mistaken, or worse, in areas where neither of these factors apply, pernicious lies. Testimony has its proper effect when we are dealing with a trustworthy witness, but because of the pervasiveness of false testimony throughout human history, witnesses cannot simply be assumed to be trustworthy. This is why it is best to appeal to multiple witnesses, multiple testimonies. This is why ethos is crucial in rhetoric. This is why oaths have traditionally been used in courts. And this is why perjury, a most devastating violation of trust in a justice system, has been regarded so severely, though not always practically treated in a commensurate fashion. Several foundational statements of legal values—such as the Ten Commandments, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Twelve Tables—explicitly condemn false testimony as a form of injustice perpetrated against the courts that are supposed to seek justice.
As trust is crucial to accepting testimonies, it appears that another factor in God’s insistence on working through testimonies is building trusting relationships among humans. God seeks not only reconciliation and shalom with humans, but he also aims to establish shalom among humans as they are reconciled to him. Greater conformity to the purpose for which we were created as image-bearers of God through our love with God ought also to lead to love of our neighbor—our fellow image-bearers—as ourselves. As a good relationship with God involves reflecting the faithfulness he shows us, so too do good relationships among people necessitate a bond of trust, where trust given is positively correlated with trustworthiness.
As with our previous entry, we will focus on examples from each Testament to illustrate this point. First, one must remember that the ninth of the Ten Commandments prohibits bearing false witness against one’s neighbor (Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20). This is popularly taken as a prohibition of lying, but that is rather an extended application of what is said here than what is actually said, as even when this commandment is often quoted it is shortened to a prohibition against false witness rather than false witness against one’s neighbor. The language more specifically is prohibiting false testimony in a court setting (hence “false witness” and “against one’s neighbor”), as such an action fundamentally undermines the pursuit of justice, and thus the integrity and holiness of God’s covenantal community. This commandment being stated as one of the most fundamental values of the covenantal community also signifies the importance of inculcating values, virtues, and obligations of truth-telling and trustworthiness in this community. The consequences of doing otherwise are severe, including capital punishment when false testimony is given in capital cases. Such violation of trust represented not only a deep fracture in the community and its obligations of faithfulness, but also between the perjurer and God, as testimony in court would entail swearing an oath invoking God’s name, which meant that perjury was a violation of the third commandment as well (Exod 20:7; Deut 5:11). (For more on this whole subject, I would recommend the work of Keldie Paroschi who presents her work here. Also see here for brief follow-up.)
Second, one must note the weighty significance that Paul attaches to the apostolic testimony given to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 15. I have written an article that is forthcoming in Restoration Quarterly on the key segment of vv. 12–19, which I will just summarize here. As Paul makes clear, what made the Corinthians the community of faith that they are was mediated through the apostolic proclamation of the gospel, which Paul summarizes in vv. 3–7. This included citing testimony of the Scriptures to Christ’s death and resurrection, none of which are cited here because Paul is providing the gist rather than the variety of texts that were employed for this point, as we see in Acts, for example. But also, as in Acts, this proclamation includes testimony of the apostles to whom Jesus appeared. Paul essentially brings a howitzer to an archery range as he not only reaches the target threshold of citing two or three witnesses, but obliterates the threshold with his superabundance of 500+ witnesses (and “all the apostles” may be an even larger group, but it is hard to say). But the Corinthian resurrection deniers, in denying the general resurrection, would undermine the apostolic testimony to the resurrected Christ. There is an inextricable link between the vision of the Christian life as union with Christ—which Paul has presented throughout this letter—with the narrative of the gospel events—including Jesus’s resurrection—and the resurrection of the dead. A denial of one aspect entails a denial of all of these things. In this hypothetical scenario in which there is no resurrection of the dead, and thus no resurrection of Christ, the apostles would thus falsify the testimony of Scripture and would be falsifying their own testimony as people the resurrected Christ appeared to. Ultimately, their testimony that was supposed to be in God’s name would ultimately be false testimony against the God they falsely claimed raises the dead.
This is precisely the force of v. 15, the central consequence of what it would mean that there is no resurrection of the dead, from which all else follows. It was under the influence of this text and the severity of consequences attached to it that Julius Africanus in a letter to Aristides (Ep. Arist. 1) and Augustine in a letter to Jerome (Ep. 28.4) express the severity of judgment for being false witnesses in the name of God. Augustine even says that to assert a falsehood on God’s behalf is equally wrong as—if not in fact more wrong than—speaking ill of the truth of God. After all, the former is blasphemy by applying the imprimatur of God to a falsehood, which here would include that God raised the Christ, that God fulfilled Scripture in doing so, and that there is any hope of God doing anything for others who are in union with the resurrected Christ. All that there would be to expect for the false witnesses and those they deceived is not only death, but utter oblivion forever. There is no hope to be found for those who would remain in their sins (as Jesus’s death would have simply been another death), who would have a faith with no substance, and who would believe in a God who will do nothing for them.
That is an Atlas-ian burden of truthfulness and trustworthiness to place upon the apostolic testimony and those who continue the testimony of the gospel to this day. And that is precisely the significance Paul assigns to these qualities. Everlasting consequences rest on the truthfulness and trustworthiness of the testimony, so that any admixture of perjury would have utterly devastating results. At the level of human interaction, when trust is broken, it is incredibly difficult, sometimes practically impossible, to regain. Such is the irreplaceable value we put on relationships of trust, and such illustrates the value of truthfulness in maintaining trust and being a trustworthy person. These things also indicate why God—in his grand purposes of restoring, reconciling, renewing, and transforming creation—works through testimony to instill and restore by practice the virtues of truthfulness and trustworthiness in the creatures who bear his image.