Is 1 John 3:5 About the Father or the Son?

In October of this year, I have the opportunity to travel down to Australia, going to be doing some ministry in the Sydney area, and then I'm going to be going up to Brisbane for a debate. The brothers there in Brisbane, much to my surprise, have arranged to fly in Mr. Roger Perkins, a Oneness Pentecostal advocate, for a debate there in Brisbane.

Initially, I thought Mr. Perkins was local, but I discovered that they're flying him in as well. I commend them for their dedication to putting this debate together. That's certainly a tremendous amount of work to do, to bring people in from, both of us, from the United States.

I'm not sure where Mr. Perkins is from in the U .S., but we're going to be going halfway around the world to debate. Be that as it may, I was listening to a debate that Mr. Perkins did with Matt Slick, and it's actually on video, and I was listening to one particular portion.

I heard Mr. Perkins make the statement earlier in his opening statement that there was a text in 1 John that identified the Father as the one who gave himself for our sins, who died for our sins. And I was taken aback.

I wasn't sure what he was referring to. And finally, during the cross-examination, Mr. Perkins asked Mr. Slick specifically about 1 John 3, verse 5, and he made the assertion a number of times during the debate that this is plainly the Father.

Exegesis and the Centrality of the Word of God

I think this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that exegesis, the honest, in-depth handling of the Word of God, is absolutely central to any form of apologetics. There is, unfortunately, I think, a push on these days to tell especially young people that are interested in giving a defense to faith that the most important element of so doing is studying philosophy and not studying theology and certainly not studying exegesis.

And I have attempted over the course of my ministry now, as an apologist, to try, at least, to be consistent in my exegesis and to demonstrate that given that the Word of God is what the Word of God is, that it is God's very speaking, and that it is the means by which the Holy Spirit changes hearts and lives, that gospel message found in the Theanoustos, Word of God, that that is our greatest weapon, that is our greatest bulwark.

Everything else must be secondary to what we do with the Word of God. And so, in this instance, we have an opportunity of doing an in-depth study of a specific term, ephanerothe, from phanerao, an Omicron contract verb, to be made manifest.

And we will be able to demonstrate that Mr. Perkins' use of 1 John 3, 5 is in error by simply looking at the use of ephanerothe in the epistolary literature of John. And so we will refute this assertion, and I would hope that unless Mr. Perkins can rehabilitate his argument from some type of exegetical foundation from the original languages, that this particular error will not be brought up in our debates coming up in Brisbane.

And so let's take a look at the argument as it was presented in the debate by Mr. Perkins, and then we will look at the text and respond to it from there.

The Claim That 1 John 3:5 Refers to the Father

John 5.

Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. You read down verse 5, it says,. And you know that He, referring to the Father, was manifest to take away our sins.

When the Scripture plainly says here that the Father was manifest to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin, how can you get up here and face these people and tell them that Jesus Christ did not fall in the flesh?

Now let's take a look at the text itself and see if Mr. Perkins' assertions hold up to scrutiny. First of all, remember that chapter and verse divisions are a later addition to the Bible. They were added in the 1551 Stephanus text by Robert Estyem.

And as such, the division between chapters 2 and 3 is arbitrary. In reality, the topic is traced back into chapter 2, beginning at verse 28. And now children, abide in Him, in order that when He is manifested, there's phanerothe, it is in the subjunctive, hence it is the same form as ephanerothe, but it is in the subjunctive with eon, in order that when He is manifested we might have confidence and not be ashamed before Him in His coming.

Now the parousia throughout the New Testament is associated, of course, with the coming of Christ. That is, with the coming of the Son. It is not something that is associated with the coming of the Father.

And so we have a use of phanerao here, about the manifestation of the Son in His coming. And we desire to have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If we know that He is righteous, we know that also the one doing righteousness has been born from Him.

Now, from who? Well, you're only born from the Father. So you have both the Father and the Son, and in one sentence you have two different subjects being addressed. Now you might say, well, why would John do that to us?

Why would John switch back and forth? Well, it's part of the fact that he's asserting, if you do not have the Son, you do not have the Father. There is no way to separate them out. Remember, he's writing against people who are denying the Incarnation.

They're denying the coming of the Son of God, that He was sent into the flesh. And so by connecting the Father and Son together so closely, he is demonstrating the unity that exists between them. And this can be traced back into his Gospel as well.

There are some scholars that would say that the author of 1 John is not the author of the Gospel, but I certainly don't buy into that. And the unity of the Father and the Son that is found in, for example, John chapter 5, but also the consistent differentiation of the Father and the Son, even in texts like John 10, 30, where Jesus says, I and the Father are one, the verb is plural, es men.

I and the Father, we are one. Not I am the Father, but I and the Father, we are one in the salvation of God's people. We continue on. Now we have, behold, how great a love the Father has given to us, in order that we might be called the children of God, and we are.

For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Well, we could say that Him there refers to the Father, but in John's Gospel, and in John's assertion, who is the one the world did not know, first and foremost?

Well, what does the prologue of John say? He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Even though He was the creator of all things, and speaking there of the Logos, the Son, not just some pre-incarnate idea, but He came unto His own, He was the creator, and His own received Him not.

Verse 2. Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it is not yet manifest what we shall be. We know that when He appears, and notice this is the same verb again, except once again the subjunctive with the on, when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He is.

Well, does this not connect 228 and 3 .2 together? It does. Hence, we are talking about the parousia, the coming of Christ. We will see Him as He is. We are made in the image and likeness of Christ. We are being conformed to His image.

Same theme, continuing on, and we see the use of phanerothe there with the subjunctive. Continuing on to verse 3. And everyone having this hope in himself, hagnidzei, he sanctifies or makes himself holy just as that one is, hagnos, holy.

In English we normally use two different words, because, well, English just isn't as clear as Greek can be, but everyone having this hope in himself, the hope of the coming of Christ, he sanctifies himself just as that one is holy.

He makes himself holy just as that one is holy. Everyone doing sin and committing lawlessness. Everyone doing sin is committing lawlessness, because sin is lawlessness, or lawlessness is sin. The construction is such that you can switch the order, and it is an equative sentence.

Both are the same. Then we finally get to verse 5. And we know that that one was manifested in order that he might take away sin. And there is no sin in him. Now, two things. First of all, once again, thinking about John.

Who bears sin in John's writing? Well, Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 29, talks about the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. Clearly referring to the Son, the incarnate Son. And again, John never identifies the one who is incarnate as the Father.

He clearly differentiates over and over again between the Father and the Son. The Son is the one who is sent. The Father is not the Lamb. It is the Son who is the Lamb, etc., etc. And so, we know that when that one is manifested, and we go back to 228, who is manifested?

It is the Son that is manifested. And we will see that that theme continues on. In order that he might take away sin. And the consistent theme in the Ohanian Corpus, and in the Paulian Corpus, and the Petrian Corpus, and all the rest of the New Testament, is that Jesus Christ is the one who bears sins.

The prophecy of Isaiah 53 was that Yahweh would lay our sins upon Him, and that Him is the suffering Messiah. Secondly, notice the second phrase. And there is no sin in Him. Well, is this a blanket statement that God is sinless?

Or an assertion of the sinlessness of the sacrifice who takes away sin? Well, who is the sacrifice who takes away sin? It is the Son of God. He is when He becomes incarnate and dies to be able to provide that sacrifice.

Everyone abiding in Him is not sinning. Everyone sinning has not seen Him and does not know Him. Children, let no one deceive you. The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous.

The one doing sin is of the devil, because the devil is sinning from the beginning. And then notice this, within just two sentences. Unto this the Son of God, Ephanerothe, was manifested in order that He might loose or destroy the works of the devil.

So notice, once again, now we have a specific subject given here. For this purpose, for this reason, the Son of God was, Ephanerothe, manifest to do what? To destroy the works of the devil. How does He do that?

By burying the sins of God's people. And so within one sentence, two sentences, you have the direct assertion that it is the Son of God who is manifested for the purpose of doing something. In verse 5, likewise, it's the Son of God who is manifested also for the purpose of taking away our sins.

And so we can see, by looking at the text itself, that to do what Mr. Perkins does, and insist that the only possible antecedent in 1 John 3, 5, is the Father, it's the Father who was incarnate, it was the Father who died to take away our sins, just simply does not flow from any meaningful study of the original language and the original context of the assertions being made.

Now, Mr. Perkins might say, well, I just insist that the antecedent is the Father. Well, that kind of insistence has to be based upon something. It's not based upon anything in the text itself. It is not based upon looking at the consistent use of the verbs, and it's not based upon looking at and answering questions concerning, well, what does John mean concerning such things as the identification of what it was that was accomplished in the taking away of sins, destroying the works of the devil.

Who's being manifested? What is the parousia? All of these have consistent answers if you allow the Johannine corpus to stand as a whole. If you want to cut it up and say, well, I don't think that the same author wrote 1 John, that wrote the gospel, so we can't look back and look at the language and see that it's the Son of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, and things like that.

If you want to cut the text up, but I didn't get the feeling in listening to Mr. Perkins' presentation that he is one who buys into modern theories of redaction criticism and things like that. In fact, I noted he was reading from the King James Version of the Bible there, and that doesn't even have one of the key texts in 1 John 3 .1.

Kai Essman is missing in the Textus Receptus at that point. But be it as it may, I really don't think that he would go after that kind of a perspective. And so, if he agrees that we have to allow the Word of God as a whole to speak, then there is no possible way to get around the fact that 1 John 3 .5 is not talking about the Father becoming incarnate and dying upon a cross.

It is the Son who became incarnate. And of course, once you tie in 1 John 1, you tie in John 17, the Son speaking of His eternal existence as a divine person, not as a thought in God's mind, but as a divine person, having a will, having actions prior to His birth in Bethlehem, the Carmen Christi in Philippians 2 .5 -11, it is very, very clear what is being said.

It was the second person of the Trinity, not a pre-incarnate thought, not a plan of God, but the second person of the Trinity, the Son who became incarnate and gave His life on Calvary's tree. And so, I look forward to my debate with Mr. Perkins on these subjects.

I hope we'll be able to focus upon the real issue. There is really only one issue to address when it comes to the oneness denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, and that is, does the Bible teach that the Son, as a divine person, pre-existed His birth in Bethlehem?

If that is the case, then there aren't any questions after that. All of the objections Mr. Perkins raised in this debate simply evaporate if, in point of fact, what we see is that the Son, as the Son, existed prior to His birth in Bethlehem, and that clearly is the testimony of Scripture.

Thanks for watching.