WWUTT 446 These Three Testify?

1 John 5:6-12 and the Meaning of the Spirit, Water, and Blood

1 John 5, 9 says 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. We know who Jesus Christ is because of the Holy Spirit that lives within us when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. As we continue our study of the book of 1 John, today we're going to get a little scholarly. We'll be in 1 John 5, verses 6 -12 as the Apostle writes, This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not 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. 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 is born concerning His Son. 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. So we come back to verse 6, and right away we're starting off with a little bit of confusion, because what is it that John is referring to here when he says, This is He who came by water and blood.

Jesus Christ, not 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. What is with this reference to water and blood? As far back as we have commentaries, like almost in the entire history of the church, there has been disagreement as to what John is referring to when he says water and blood.

Water and Blood as Baptism, Death, and Christ's Purity

So I'm going to share with you some different interpretations as to what is being talked about in the particular passage that we are reading today. And I'm going to begin with two of the most prominent teachers in our modern era, and that is Dr. John MacArthur and Dr. R .C. Sproul.

So what are MacArthur and Sproul's takes on the water and the blood? We'll begin first with Dr. John MacArthur. This is his commentary on 1 John 5, 6. Water and the blood constitute external objective witnesses to who Jesus is.

They refer to Jesus' baptism, which is water, and death, which is the blood. John combats the dualism of false teachers who asserted that Christ's Spirit departed from the man Jesus just prior to his death on the cross.

John writes to show that God has given testimony to the deity of Jesus through both his baptism and his death. And this perspective from Dr. John MacArthur is shared by early church writer Tertullian, who wrote the same thing, that the water and the blood are Jesus' baptism and his death.

Dr. R .C. Sproul has a little bit different take on this interpretation. And here is what he writes concerning 1 John 5, 6. Some suggest that water refers to the baptism of Jesus and blood to the crucifixion.

This is unlikely, Dr. Sproul says, since John in his gospel does not directly recount the baptism of Jesus. Others suggest that water and blood refers to the two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

This is also unlikely, since John does not recount the institution of the sacraments in his gospel. The difficult saying of this verse probably reflects John 19, 34. In John's gospel, the testimony God bears to Jesus, his son, is a key theme.

The blood and water that flowed from Jesus' side after his death attested to the reality of his death. The wound later confirmed the reality of his bodily resurrection, which is what we have in John 20, when Thomas touches the wounds in his hands and in his side.

Both the death and the resurrection were denied by the Docetists, who denied the humanity of Christ. The Spirit bears witness to the truth of Jesus' incarnation as the divine Christ. So you had the Docetists who basically believed that Jesus was merely in an appearance of man.

So he was God, but he was in the appearance of man. He was not actually God in the flesh. That is what the Docetists believe. And the Jehovah's Witnesses believe something of this a little bit. They do believe that Jesus was a man until his baptism, and that is when the Spirit of God entered him, and then at his death left him, and then Jesus was reformed.

He wasn't bodily resurrected, but the body just basically disappeared, and then Christ was reformed outside the tomb. So that's what it is that the Jehovah's Witnesses believe. All of that is heresy. Docetism, by the way, was a heresy that was confronted at the Council of Nicaea, the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

Docetism was one of those heresies that was brought up at the Council and, of course, flatly rejected. And in the case of the Jehovah's Witnesses, I think it's obvious how that one is a mess. So we have two different takes here.

You have John MacArthur's on water and blood being baptism and his death, and that's a view that's shared by Tertullian. It is Dr. Sproul who believes that this is a reference to the death of Jesus Christ, and that's actually a viewpoint that was shared by Augustine.

He held that same view as well, that water and blood, referred to here in 1 John 5, 6, was in regards to the death of Jesus Christ. What else might this refer to? Well, I'm going to provide another possible explanation when we get to a commentary on verse 8, but I'm going to wait because we're going to go through this in order.

So you've heard from Dr. John MacArthur and likewise Tertullian, Dr. R .C. Sproul and likewise Augustine, and then we're going to read another commentary on verse 8, and the explanation of verse 8 might help us to understand verse 6 a little bit better.

But each in its own order, first we've got to tackle something related to verse 7. So the next passage, verse 7, 1 John 5, 7, For there are three that testify. Now that's all we get in the ESV and the NASB, the New American Standard Bible.

We have six words and that's all that's in 1 John 5, 7, for there are three that testify. If you read the King James Bible or the New King James, you get a few more words there than that. 1 John 5, 7 in the King James Bible says this, for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.

And this is one of those passages that King James only us will use to say that the King James Bible is the only divinely authorized English translation of the Bible and every other English translation is corrupt and unreliable.

And 1 John 5, 7 is one of the evidences they use as to how the more modern translators have omitted references to the Trinity, particularly in this verse. The problem with that argument is that 1 John 5, 7 is not in the earliest manuscripts.

It isn't there. It was contained only in certain early Latin manuscripts, and that's the only place that we find it. It is not in any of the earliest Greek manuscripts. Even Erasmus, who translated the textus receptus in his first two editions, 1 John 5, 7 isn't there.

So it is something that was added to later. This is referred to as the Kama Juhanium, and it must be rejected. Why? Why is it so important that we reject this text, especially when it is so Trinitarian in its nature and the way that it sounds?

Well, I'm going to defer to somebody a little bit more learned on this subject than I. Here is a 60-second explanation from Dr. James White.

I think what's very important in regards to 1 John 5, 7 is the early church never used that text as a proof text of the doctrine of the Trinity. There are people who summarize the belief by words similar to that, but the doctrine of the Trinity is in no way, shape, or form dependent upon that, and my biggest concern is this, is that if we include the Kama Juhanium in the New Testament, we are saying that the Greek manuscript tradition can become completely corrupted for 1 ,500 years and lose vitally important doctrinal material.

No one who believes in a majority text theory should ever support the Kama Juhanium because the majority text doesn't contain it either. It is a much later edition. It is found only in Latin manuscripts and only in very late 14th century and beyond Greek manuscripts, and if we include it, what we're saying is the text of the New Testament can be thoroughly corrupted, and I am not only uncomfortable with that, I think there's tremendous evidence against it.

That's a good explanation for why not only am I not a King James onlyist, but I won't even use the King James Bible when it comes to preaching. First of all, it's Old English, so it's kind of like you have to translate words that don't even mean the same thing that they mean to us now, but then you've got text just like that, stuff that's been inserted in there that was not in the earliest manuscripts, and if we are going to preserve a tradition of keeping the Bible the closest to the original autographs of what the first writers of the Bible actually wrote, the namesakes behind these books, like when we read 1 John that was actually written by the Apostle John, if we want to know exactly what John wrote, then we have to go back way earlier than the Textus Receptus, which is what the King James and New King James Bibles are translated from, and we have to find the earlier Greek manuscripts that predate the Textus Receptus to know what the text originally says.

So that is why I am committed to translations of the Bible like the English Standard Version and the New American Standard Version rather than the King James Bible. Now, as a church, as First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, we have handed out King James Bibles, and as a matter of fact, we just had a graduation service where we were saying congratulations to all of our graduates, and every year I buy a study Bible for those who have graduated either high school or college, and one of my high school students is really committed to the New King James Bible.

So I bought him a New King James Reformation Study Bible, and he was very appreciative of it. So even though I do not personally use the King James, it's not like I would tell a person that they shouldn't ever have one, if that's the translation that they prefer, that's fine.

But as a teacher, I can't use it because of passages like that. First John 5 -7. The English Standard Version and the New American Standard are the closest English translations that we have to what we would have originally read in the earliest Greek, and it's important for us to know and understand these things because you're probably going to get challenged by a King James only, as who's going to tell you that the King James Bible is the only divinely authorized English translation of the Bible, which is simply a lie.

So that's verse 7. We've got that out of the way, for there are three that testify, and here are the three that testify. Verse 8. The spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. So an understanding of verse 8 might help us even to understand verse 6 a little bit better, because verse 6 says, this is he who came by water and blood.

And then verse 8, the three that testify are the spirit and the water and the blood. So here is a commentary from Matthew Henry on what this could potentially mean here in First John 5 -6 through 8. Now, in Matthew Henry's commentary, he doesn't just go verse by verse.

So he's not looking at First John 5 -6, First John 5 -7, and First John 5 -8. Rather, he clumps all three of those passages together and probably offers greater clarity on what is meant there. So to the doctrine taught by the apostles, this is Matthew Henry, respecting the person in salvation of Christ, there were three testimonies.

Number one, the Holy Spirit. We come into the world with a corrupt carnal disposition, which is enmity to God. This being done away by the regeneration and new creating of souls by the Holy Spirit. It is a testimony to the Savior.

Number two, the water. This sets forth the Savior's purity and purifying power. The actual and active purity and holiness of his disciples are represented by baptism. And number three, the blood which he shed.

And this was our ransom. This testifies for Jesus Christ. It's sealed up and finish the sacrifices of the Old Testament. The benefits procured by his blood prove that he is the Savior of the world. No wonder if he that rejects this evidence is judged a blasphemer of the Spirit of God.

These three witnesses are for one and the same purpose. They agree in one and the same thing. And I have to say that what Matthew Henry has explained there about 1 John 5, 6 through 8 is the explanation that I accept on 1 John 5, 6.

So the water and the blood that are talked about there in verse 6 is not simply the baptism of Christ and the death of Christ. The water is the explanation of his purity and the blood, the explanation of his atoning sacrifice.

So it's a little bit deeper than just understanding it as his baptism and his blood. The purity of Christ is exemplified in our baptism. When we are baptized, we are showing that we have been buried with Christ in our sins and risen again to new life.

And we have been washed. We have been purified as he is pure. We are justified before God by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And one of the reasons why I like Matthew Henry's explanation of that better than Dr. MacArthur's or Dr. Sproul's, as much as I admire both of those men, I like Matthew Henry's better because he looks at a greater context rather than just a single verse and trying to understand what those words particularly signify.

I think that Dr. John MacArthur has a great explanation that Dr. Sproul goes a little bit further with it because he's looking at a greater context of John and mentions that baptism is never mentioned in this letter in 1 John.

And so it's strange that he would bring it up suddenly here toward the end after talking about these things that testify to the truth of Jesus Christ and the assurances that we've been given over the course of the letter to know that we are saved.

So he goes a little bit further with it, but I think that Matthew Henry really does a greater job of capturing the full context of what it is that's being explained there. Verse six doesn't exist in a vacuum and neither does verse eight.

But those verses actually explain one another. So then if we go on verse nine, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater for this is the testimony of God that he has born concerning his son.

And I go back once again to the explanation of the spirit that Matthew Henry gave. Let me read that again. We come to the world with a corrupt carnal disposition, which is enmity to God, this being done away by the regeneration and new creating of souls by the Holy Spirit.

And it is a testimony to the Savior. So the fact that we have been regenerated from previously being enemies of God to now being friends of God, now loving God, seeking God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

This is a witness that testifies to the truth of Jesus Christ. When we accept the truth of Jesus Christ by the power of his spirit that has transformed us, that has changed us. Previously, we were opposed to that doctrine.

We hated any concept of God or Jesus Christ or him having died for our sins or that we were even sinful creatures that needed forgiveness in the first place. But after the Holy Spirit cleansed our mind and our heart to realize our sin and the holiness of God, we accepted the truth of his gospel.

And that is a testament, a testimony of the truth that he is born concerning his son. So we don't need any external evidence to try to prove to us that these things are real, because if we have the Holy Spirit living within us, indeed, we know that they are real.

Eternal Life in the Son and the Witness of the Spirit

Verse 10, 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 is born concerning his son.

This is not too unlike something that John said at the start of the letter. He says in 1 John 1 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. His truth is not in us.

So here it is said very similarly, whoever does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God is born concerning his son. The testimony that has been testified to us through the word of God, through the apostles, through the Holy Spirit that communicates the truth.

And this is the testimony, verse 11, 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. Very similar to a statement that that was made in John's gospel in John 3 36.

Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not obey the son shall not see life. But the wrath of God remains on him. And it's also there in that same chapter as this as this verse 1 John 5 12 is a lot like John 3 36.

It is also there in that same chapter that we read something concerning water. Jesus said in John 3 5 truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

And here in 1 John 5, he says that these three agree the spirit and the water and the blood. We have two of the things that John mentioned in in John chapter 3 verse 5 also mentioned here in 1 John 5 8.

So another reason why I believe that the water has a greater significance than merely Jesus baptism, because it's something that Jesus even talked about concerning Nicodemus. So this was a rather scholarly study today concerning 1 John 5 6 through 12, in which I had to appeal to experts even higher in their knowledge than myself and and greatly appreciate the learnedness of all of those men.

Comparing multiple teachers and their scholarliness always helps me to come to a truer understanding of what the text is saying by the Holy Spirit of God. The testimony is born in us concerning the son of God, Jesus Christ.

We know that he is God and that he died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave because the Holy Spirit testifies it to us. He has testified through his apostles, through the word of God, through the Bible that we read.

So may we know the truth and believe it and glorify God because of his goodness. Our Lord God, we thank you for this reading today, and I pray that you keep us moving in the direction of always learning, striving, desiring to know more about the God that we worship.

How can God be contained in 750 ,000 words that we have in the Bible? And yet this is what you have revealed about yourself. And we are grateful as your servants that we are led to read it and understand it by the Holy Spirit of God.

So may we continue to honor you with our whole mind and our whole heart, worshipping you with all that we are. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.