God's Testimony Concerning His Son

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The Witness Requirement in Deuteronomy and Church Discipline

Well, as we sometimes do, we'll begin in 1 John by going somewhere else. I had you turn in 1 John, but we'll put our fingers there and go with me for a moment to Deuteronomy chapter 19 as well. In the book of Deuteronomy, we find a scene that tells us about Moses, that ancient deliverer of God's people.

When the book of Deuteronomy was inspired, or at least given for the first time, Moses was there standing before a great crowd of Israelites, numbering in the millions. As he stood before that people of God on the east side of the Jordan River, he recounted the words of the law that God had given to his people during their wilderness wanderings.

In fact, the word Deuteronomy comes from two different words put together, deuteros, namos. It's the second law, or the second reading of the law. As Moses stood before that great congregation offering a second reading of God's law, he recounted to the people all that they were to know in order to love God, to obey God, to worship God, and to execute the justice of God in the land that they were to inherit.

And as Moses came to the point in his address that we find in Deuteronomy chapter 19, he recounted the laws relating to legal cases and the admission of witness testimony. How it were to receive the testimony in matters of crime or in legal cases.

And in Deuteronomy 19, in verse 15, he declared this before that congregation. He said this, a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed.

Only on the evidence of two or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. Now perhaps you will agree with me, I hope you will, what a wise law this is. That it safeguarded the innocent against vendettas of a single false witness.

That it protected the accused from the errors of an incompetent witness. And it ultimately held those to account who were rightfully charged and found guilty, who needed to be found guilty for their crimes.

This law, when it was rightly followed and applied, provided the legal and moral basis to condemn one to death, if appropriate, or to fully exonerate and set free those accused of committing even the most serious crimes, if they were found not guilty.

It was, Deuteronomy 19, verse 15, a law of tremendous consequence. And the wisdom of this law, I think, can be seen further by the fact that it still informs many of the judicial laws that we see in Canada and in other countries.

For instance, this law, like our laws today, operated on the presumption of innocence. That if we could not gather two or three, that we had to let the person go. This law, like our laws today, required concrete evidence and eyewitness testimony.

This law, like our laws, depended on corroborating evidence to prove one's guilt. It wasn't enough to have one witness, but you needed to have a corroborating witness. You needed to have more than one, two, and if possible, three or more.

And therefore, we should not be surprised that we find this law not only repeated in our Old Testaments, not only repeated in our culture today, but found articulated as well in our New Testaments. In the case of church discipline, if you'll think with me for a moment, in Matthew chapter 18, we're told that before the instance of a man's sin, unrepentant sin, is brought to the church, who must first go to that man or to that woman?

Two or three, to reason with and to bear witness. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, when an accusation is brought against an elder, who is to bring the charge, or what is the standard to which that charge is accepted?

It must come on the basis of two or three witnesses. And perhaps this might come as a surprise to some of you, but even the claims of the gospel come with this same standard of witness testimony. Now today, I'm preaching, as I've already alluded to, preaching my last sermon on 1 John, and I'm glad that I get to finish with this last passage, or this last passage of mine, at least.

Because here, we've been listening to John address these protonostics, these docetists, these secessionists, there it is, as we have called them, who have rejected the coming of Christ. And here, as John addresses them, in verses 6 through 12, he deals a glorious death blow to their case.

And this is how he does it. He leans on one of the wisest and oldest laws that humanity has known, and today he comes to us with the witness. With two or three steadfast witnesses who make an airtight case for the true Christ.

And he demonstrates that the gospel that we have believed, if we have believed, is trustworthy and true, and is of great consequence when we believe it. So I had us go to 1 John 5, if you go back there with me.

Today, what John is going to do is he's to bring us into a courtroom scene of sorts, where the witnesses are called and the judge presides over the case. And we will see three different points that come out of the text.

We will see the witnesses, the verdict, and the consequences of that verdict. So I had us go to verse 6. We'll look first at verses 6 through 8, and I want to put before you the witnesses. God's word reads here, this is he who came by water and the blood, Jesus Christ.

Not only by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree.

As John puts this case before us, he begins verse 6 by starting what has been called one of the most perplexing passages in 1 John. No doubt, even as I read those three verses, there were some of you that were asking yourself, wait, what in the world is John talking about the testimony of the water, and of the blood, and of the Spirit?

What is he going on about? Now as we've already alluded to, John is going to usher us into a new domain in his letter, in this final death blow, if I can call it that. And what he is engaged in now is a full-blown exercise in Christian apologetics.

Do you know what apologetics is? It is the defense of the Christian faith. Before there was Justin Martyr, before there was Clement of Alexandria, there was John the Apostle, the great defender of the faith and of the doctrine of Christ here in chapter 5.

And here John leans on this law that we've looked at in Deuteronomy 19, and as he does, he brings us the three witnesses that he needs to testify concerning Christ. He tells his readers, you don't just have my testimony, but there are three other witnesses.

In fact, we have all the testimony that we need to prove that Christ is exactly who the gospel says he is. And this is a major theme all throughout this section of our letter, in these seven verses that are before us, we find the word testify or testimony nine different times.

And so here John brings us the witnesses that we must hear and believe. He identifies them in verse 6. He says, this is he who came by water and the blood, and then later the spirit is the one who testifies.

He primes us for this in verse 7. And I thought about whether I should get into this or not. I think that some of you want me to, and I think it's important too. So I'm going to add an excursus right at the beginning of my sermon.

It's a terrible homiletical practice, but it's a parenthetical thought. Some of you, who here has the King James or is reading from the New King James? There's a few of you. Some of you, I read verse 7 and maybe you were surprised, you thought that's a very short version of verse 7.

If you have the King James version or the New King James version, it probably reads something like this, rather than for the rest of us. For there are three that testify, colon, and then verse 8 goes on.

In the King James it reads this, for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And this is a textual variant, what it's normally called. And it's been known as or called by the name the Johannine comma.

Here it's a parenthetical thought in the text. And the question is, why do the people in our midst with the King James or the New King James have this, and the NASB and the ESV readers don't? I have so much to say about this, but I'm not going to say it.

What I will say is this, and you can ask me afterwards, that we have over 5 ,800 full or partial copies of the New Testament manuscripts that date back all the way to the end of the first and the beginning of the second century.

And of those manuscripts, or included in those manuscripts, we have 480 copies of 1 John in full. What an embarrassment of riches, truly. Brandon and I, our brother, we were at the bookstore this week looking at Bibles and sorting out different ones.

And I said to him, what an embarrassment of riches we have, looking at a whole wall of Bibles, asking which one would we want? What text size? What cover would I like? What size of margins would I like?

Well, we have the same embarrassment of riches in just the number of copies we have of 1 John. 480 full Greek texts. Now, the reason if you have an NASB or an ESV, why you don't have the Father and the Word and the Holy Ghost in your version, is because of those 480 copies, 471 of them do not have that phrase.

Of the nine that do, there are four that are included in the text itself, none of which are older than the 14th century. Of the remaining five, they're editorial notes that are made in the margin, none of them that date back beyond the 11th century.

And so while I love the Johannine comma, it has tremendous Trinitarian defense value. I think that we need to resolve or conclude that it was not in the earliest forms or the earliest manuscripts. If we were to find it there, then I would expect that the early church fathers would be calling upon it as they defend the Trinity in the first centuries.

But we don't find it there. Erasmus, who published the Greek New Testament, the Textus Receptus, as it was called, he did not include it in his first edition, in his second edition, but only in his third edition reluctantly before removing it from his fourth edition.

And yet, because it was included in the third edition, it is included in our King James Bibles. Now, it is a tremendous text and we find it taught elsewhere in Scripture, so we don't need to despair. And yet at the same time, we're not going to deal with it in full because I think that it was not there in the original when John wrote it.

And this should not shake our confidence in Scripture, but rather we should rejoice that we have such an embarrassment of riches that we can look at these texts and conclude, well, this wasn't in the original.

But praise God, we know exactly what was. So that is my excursus. Some of you wanted to hear that. I know Lowell wanted to hear that. I was told that earlier this week. So that was just for you, brother.

So John then identifies these witnesses. They're not the witnesses that we see in the King James in verse 7, but in verse 8, we're told that they are the spirit, the water, and the blood. And he adds in verse 8, and these three agree.

Now, if I were to come to you today and say, brother, sister, please, just this one time, stand behind the pulpit and explain verses 6 through 8 to us, how many of you would feel very comfortable doing that?

We've got a few. Praise the Lord. You weren't supposed to raise your hand. How can the water or the blood testify to the identity of Jesus? How does the spirit confirm this? Christians throughout the ages have wondered at this, going, what do we do?

How do we make sense of this water and this blood and this spirit? And what we find is several cases that are made and three that really emerge as front runners, as those that have been held the longest and most popularly.

The first one, the first explanation of the water and the blood and the spirit that we have is this, that some claim this is a reference to the ordinance of baptism and the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.

Both Martin Luther and John Calvin held to this view. They argued that when we as Christians participate in the Lord's Supper and when we see our brothers and sisters baptized into the water and out, this verifies John's Christology.

Now, I highly esteem Calvin and Luther, but I do not think they are correct on this. I do not think that the ordinances here prove what John is making or claiming about Christ. A second view that has been fairly popular is this, that this is a reference, this blood and water, is a reference to the blood and water that poured out from Jesus's side at his crucifixion.

That as the spear went into his side and came out, like we see in John chapter 19 and verse 34, that this proves Christ's humanity. Augustine and R .C. Sproul both held to this position. And I do think that that spear going in and the water and the blood pouring forth does prove Christ's humanity, but I only partially agree with this view.

And the reason for that is because in verse 6, what we find is John says this, this is he who came, came by water and blood. And so I think we're looking for something even more historically rooted. And for this reason, I would put forward what has been the most popularly held position, a third position, and it is this, that when Christ came by water and the blood, it's a direct reference to his baptism and baptismal ministry and his crucifixion.

John Stott writes about this, he says, we need to find an interpretation where water and blood are historical experiences. And I would contend that it is here at that baptism and that that crucifixion that we find these historical points of reference.

And here what we find is this, an incarnate Christ who was present and accounted for at the terminal points of his ministry. What John is telling us is that we have undeniable proof that Christ dwelt amongst his people, not for a moment in time, but for his whole life.

Leading up to and at the time of his baptism, at the time that he healed and preached and ministered to the people, and even when he laid down his own life and shed his blood on the behalf. And this is where historical context, I think, really helps to make a case for this.

You see, there was something happening at exactly the time that John was writing this that could have, may have, influenced his argument here. And this is the situation. Irenaeus, who was an early church father, one generation removed from John, we're told that John discipled Polycarp and discipled Irenaeus.

Irenaeus tells us that there was a contemporary of John named Serinthus. And what we learn about Serinthus is that he attacked the deity and the humanity of Christ by making very significant and specific assertions about his baptism and Christ's crucifixion.

And what Serinthus taught was this, that at the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry, at his baptism, there was a man, Jesus, who went down to the water to meet with John the Baptist. And they had their exchange there at the water.

And then John baptized this man, Jesus. And as the man, Jesus, went down into the water, the Spirit of Christ descended on the man, Jesus, in the form of a dove bodily, and entered into that man. And then for the remainder of his time, the Lord, Jesus, or the man, Jesus, was possessed, as it were, by the Spirit of Christ.

That there he performed miracles and taught and did all that he did. And Serinthus would argue, he would make claims, that he had taught something along the lines of his Gnostic theology. And when this Jesus, possessed by the Christ, had sufficiently angered the authorities in Jerusalem, the Spirit of Christ recognized this, ascended back into heaven, and Jesus, the ordinary man, was crucified on the cross for Christ's actions.

Now this was what was being promoted at the very time that John wrote this letter. And I saw some of you shaking your heads. What a perversion of the gospel this is. Both that it denies the true incarnation of Christ, God himself, dwelling physically with man.

And then it denies the wonder of Christ's atoning work on the cross. Christ becomes a bad guy that we're rooting against when we hear an account like Serinthus. But this is exactly the kind of thing that John is arguing against.

John says in verses 6 through 8, no, no, no. The Spirit of God, and the waters of baptism, and the blood of Christ's cross, plainly declare that God came into this world as a man, not for a moment in time, but for a lifetime.

John MacArthur summarizes this. He says, at the baptism of Jesus, the Father and the Spirit testified to the Son. If I can comment for a moment on this. Christ did not enter Jesus at his baptism, but his identity as the God-man was confirmed at his baptism.

He goes on that the death of Jesus Christ also bore witness to who he was. And the Holy Spirit testified throughout Jesus's life as to his identity. And so here John presents God's testimony, God's own testimony, to confirm that Jesus is the Christ.

So what we have here then, you can look beyond some of the excursus and maybe some of the stops and starts we've had already, is that John is telling us that we can know, that we can know, that we can know, that we can know with certainty that Jesus is exactly who John has been saying he is.

Here the evidentiary demands of the law are satisfied with these three witnesses, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. This means that when we talk about Jesus Christ, we are talking about one who was God incarnate.

And we can know this because of the words of John, but even more than the words of John because of the powerful testimony of Christ's life and death in his human body. And this was a powerful life and death that many of Christ's contemporaries, sorry, John's contemporaries could not deny.

What we need to appreciate is that we are 2 ,000 years removed from this event. And so perhaps some of John's argumentation loses its force on us. But appreciate this with me. As John wrote this, there were many people who were still alive who had seen Christ with their own eyes.

They had stood on the banks of the Jordan as the Lord Jesus Christ, coming in water, entered into the water and came out. And there was a voice from heaven that declared, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

There were still surviving witnesses who were on Golgotha on that Friday afternoon when the sun hid itself from the marred face of Emmanuel. And the sky became dark with divine judgment and the whole earth trembled.

This is not and was not folklore to this people. This was historical fact. And we have the testimony of some of those contemporaries to demonstrate this. The Greek historian Thallus wrote in 55 AD, he said, on the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness.

And the rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This is not a wives tale. This is history. And then at the same time that John was writing this letter, a Jewish historian who was antagonistic towards Christianity wrote these words.

He said, at this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die.

But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive. You will recall that John said, if you look with me at 1st John chapter 1 and verse 1, that he himself said this, that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, verse 2, this life was made manifest and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.

And he concludes in verse 3 that this was the son of the Father, Jesus Christ. What John offers us here in chapter 5 and verses 6 through 8 is eyewitness testimony that is verified by Christ's life, his baptism, his ministry, his death, and that was irrefutable because those who had witnessed these things, many of whom were still alive to confirm it.

By any standard what John offers is irrefutable evidence, an irrefutable case for the reliability of the claims of the gospel. What this means for those of you who are perhaps new Christians or you are considering the claims of the gospel, that we have the most trustworthy, one of the most trustworthy messages you will ever find in the most trustworthy book that you will find in the history of this world.

The Verdict: God’s Greater Testimony and the Sin of Unbelief

Now, what are we to do with this truth? In verses 9 and 10, John gives us what I am calling the verdict. This is what we read in verses 9 and 10. He writes,. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

For this is the testimony of God that he is born concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son.

The verdict. Now in verse 9, John tells us something that is not at all surprising. He tells us the origins of this testimony of spirit and of water and of blood is God himself. He says,. For this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son.

One commentator adds,. The spirit, the water, and the blood all testify to Christ and the reason why they agree is that God himself is behind them. The three witnesses form, in fact, a single divine testimony to Jesus Christ which God has given.

It is God who testifies to his Son in history, in the water and the blood, and it is God who testifies to him today through his spirit in our hearts. And John adds here, If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

How often is it the case that we will believe exactly what a man testifies to be true? What one man testifies to be true. And if two, most certainly. And if three, definitely. Here we do not have a man testifying to us, speaking to us the truths of the gospel, confirming this for us.

But here we have the testimony of Almighty God. But God doesn't just come to us in this text as a witness. Perhaps if you've been sitting here, you're picturing this courtroom scene where we've got our one and our two and our three witnesses.

You've been thinking, well, I must be the one dressed in the robe. And I'm seated at the front with my gavel. And I will be the one that renders the verdict. To hear the evidence and to say yea or nay.

And if any of us had that thought, verse 10 clears up our delusion. Because what we see is that God is both the witness, testifying to his Son, and he is the judge. That he is the standard. Now you say, where in the world is that?

It is this. Because John argues on this basis. That we are not the measure of the truth. But that God himself is the measure of the truth. He says in verse 10, whoever believes in the Son has this testimony in himself.

Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. Now is John then saying that we are able to overrule God and to render his testimony inadmissible? Can we stand there and charge God with perjury and say you are a lying witness?

But no. God is the very definition of truth. And if we disagree with God, we are disagreeing with reality. The resounding of claim of scripture can be found in this verse in Numbers 23 .19. God is not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind.

Has he said and will he not do? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it? The writer of Hebrews in chapter 6 and verse 18 summarizes it it is impossible for God to lie. And what this means then is that God's testimony concerning his son is true and if any should doubt then that man is made a liar.

This is the verdict that Christ came to this world as God in human flesh. He lived every day of his life as the only begotten God incarnate. He went to that cross for us. He made as John has been arguing through his book propitiation for our sins in his human body.

And because God is the one who testifies to these things, everything, everything that John writes and that we found written in the Bible concerning Christ is true. And whoever does not agree with God is a liar and is on the wrong side of truth.

Can't you see that the gospel we believe has been so wondrously preserved in time and in history and in the Word of God. And if you disbelieve the gospel of Christ then it is no small thing. It is to say that our good and glorious God is a false witness who cannot be trusted.

It is to charge God with a crime deserving of death. God himself bears witness to his son in history through eyewitness testimony, through his inerrant word. And if we reject his testimony it is not a noble sin.

It is not cute. But it is blasphemy of the worst kind. John Stott comments on this. He says, unbelief is not misfortune to be pitied. It is a sin to be deplored. Its sinfulness lies in the fact that it contradicts the word of the one true God.

And if you want to know what this looks like, I'm sure many of us have examples of this. I can share one that I think perfectly illustrates this. I have a friend who no longer lives in Canada, but he prides himself in being a very industrious man.

He is, by all objective measures, a true businessman. Every time I talk to him, Nicole and I speak to him by video call, it seems as if he is always on vacation and always getting richer. And to put this into perspective, Nicole can attest to this.

He made business decisions while living in our basement suite, delivering deep dish pizza that made him a millionaire in his 20s. And several times I sat across the table from this very savvy young man, and I pleaded with him to come to Christ.

He had sat through our times of reading the Bible as a family. He had seen so much. We had shared the gospel with him again, and again, and again. And one of the things that always happened is we would say to him, but what do you think of Christ?

What do you think of the gospel? He would always want to delay his acceptance of the gospel claims. During some conversations, he would say, you know what? I just need to think through it a little bit more.

I want to study it. We made sure that we had a Bible for him. He was well resourced so that he could investigate the claims. At other times, he said, I need just a bit more time to evaluate the evidence.

At other times, he said, I don't have enough time yet to evaluate the evidence, but I will soon. And then finally, one day I sat across from him at the kitchen table, and I said this in pretty much these exact words.

It's pretty forward speech probably, but I said, at this very moment, you are abiding under the just wrath of God. It is hanging over your head like a fierce storm ready to rain down on you. And your refusal to believe what God has said is not noble.

It is not endearing to God. It is defiant, and it is the definition of rebellion. And why would you delay another moment from coming to the only Christ who can protect you from that abiding wrath? And finally, finally, this man acknowledged, I think what would be no surprise to any one of us.

He told us point blank, Nicole I believe is there, that he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God was, that God had existed. He said, I have lived with your family, and I have seen God. At least what he meant is seen the evidence of God.

He said, and I know that Jesus Christ is true. I know that everything that you have said about him is exactly true, but I won't come to him because I still want the world. Finally, we had gotten to the heart of his unbelief, and I'm going to be so bold as to say that in the hearts of the unbelievers in this room, it is the exact same reason.

It's not because you don't know that God is. That is very plain. Romans 1 tells us that, that his invisible attributes, eternal power, and divine nature clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

It's not because you don't believe the gospel to be true, or that you don't know that you need a gospel, because we know that you live all the time with a low-grade sense of guilt for who you are. Outside the sight of anyone else between you and God and your conscience, you know that you need a Savior.

You've heard that Christ is that Savior. Then why do you delay? You might say, I want to consider the evidence. You have all the evidence you need. You might say, I don't believe in Christ, not yet, but maybe one day.

Or I'm not so sure, I know just yet, but I will soon. Or you might say, as some people have been so bold as to say, I will live the way I want to live, and when I'm old and about to die, then I will give Christ my life.

Young people, teenagers, boys and girls, preteens. You do not have to wait another moment to believe on Christ. As a matter of fact, you should not. Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 5 that if we find that someone has something against us, what should we do?

We should drop everything we have, and we should go to that man and be reconciled to him, lest he deliver us over to the judge, and the judge carry us off until we have paid the last cent. Do you think that Christ was speaking primarily to human relationships?

He was speaking principally to our relationship with God. It is not noble, endearing, or cute to reject Christ at this moment, saying, I will look into it one day. The claims are here before you. God is, and you are undone before him, and you need a Savior, and now is the time.

That is what the Bible itself teaches in 2nd Corinthians in verse 6. What does it say? But today, behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. You might not say, but I want to be ready.

I want to be a bit older. I want to be a bit wiser. You might say, it might already be too late. It is not, if you're alive and breathing. Now is the favorable time to come to the Christ who is. Oh, that God would grant at this very moment that he would reconcile the lost people in this room to himself, not through anything else, but through Christ, by looking to Christ with the eyes of faith.

And whether you are a believer or an unbeliever in this room, what God has said in his word concerning his Son is wondrously true, and we must believe it with all of our hearts. There's a quote that I just love from John Wesley.

For all of the disagreements that us reformed people have with John Wesley, it doesn't get better than this. He says, I want to know one thing, the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore.

God himself has condescended to teach us the way. He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. And he concludes, give me that book at any price. Give me that book of God. All of us can find all that we need in that book.

And I ask you, we have the witnesses. We have the verdict. Have you come to the Christ of that book? Now we have the testimony. We have the verdict. Lastly, John puts before us the consequences. In verses 11 and 12, he says this, and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Here John puts everything on the line in these two verses. Who is Christ to you? Like we looked at last week, is he a fine moral teacher?

You appreciate what he has to say. Boy, he seems like a cool guy. Is he the subject of your philosophical and academic pursuits? A man to be studied, a Christology to be known, and to be flaunted around others.

Young people, is Christ your parents' Savior? Older people, is Christ your children's Savior? Is he the main character in your favorite Bible story? I ask you who is Christ to you? The answer to this question leaves us in a place where life and death, heaven and hell hang in the balance.

I will tell you what he must be to you. He is to be to you what he is in truth. The creator and sustainer of all things. The very one who came to his own and his own did not receive him. He is the one who died a slave's death on a cross, having been accursed of God in our place there.