Sunday, September 8, 2013

1 John 5.6-12 Notes



1 John 5.6-12 Notes

6 This is He who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.

8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. 9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.



…5:6-12 emphasizes the object and content of faith… --Robert Yarbrough in BECNT

The people to whom John was writing were exposed to a popular false teaching that Jesus was merely a man on whom “the Christ” had come when Jesus was baptized. On the cross, “the Christ” left Jesus (“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”) and so He died like any other human being.[1]

6 This is He who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

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1) Baptism and death. 

  • “Vincent says, “Water refers to Christ’s baptism at the beginning of His Messianic work, through which He declared His purpose to fulfill all righteousness (Matt. 3:15).  Blood refers to His bloody death upon the Cross for the sin of the world.”[2]
  • These two incidents in the Incarnation are singled out because at the baptism Jesus was formally set apart to his Messianic work by the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Him and by the Father’s audible witness, and because at the Cross His work reached its culmination (“It is finished,” Jesus said). [3]
  • John’s insistence that He did not come by water only, but by water and blood, suggests that he was refuting a false notion of the type held by Cerinthus (see Introduction). Cerinthus taught that the divine Christ descended on the man Jesus at His baptism and left Him before His crucifixion. Thus he denied that one Person, Jesus Christ, came by both water and blood. [4]
  • There were apparently no doubts about the water but the blood seems to have been the stumbling block; heretics evidently found it impossible to hold that the divine Christ could die. John brings out the fact that the water did not stand alone. The water and the blood go together. [5]

2)  Blood and water from the wound at Christ’s death.  Some refer the words water and blood to the incident in John 19:34. To this it is justly objected that these words are evidently chosen to describe something characteristic of Christ’s Messianic office, which could not be said of the incident in question. Nevertheless, as Alford justly remarks, “to deny all such allusion seems against probability. The apostle could hardly, both here and in that place, lay such evident stress on the water and the blood together, without having in his mind some link connecting this place and that.” The readers of the Epistle must have been familiar with the incident, from oral or from written teaching.[6]

John 19

33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. 35 And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

3)  Christian sacraments. The true principle of interpretation appears to be laid down in the two canons of Düsterdieck. (1.) Water and blood must point both to some purely historical facts in the life of our Lord on earth, and to some still present witnesses for Christ. (2.) They must not be interpreted symbolically, but understood of something so real and powerful, as that by them God’s testimony is given to believers, and eternal life assured to them. Thus the sacramental reference, though secondary, need not be excluded. Canon Westcott finds “an extension of the meaning” of water and blood in the following words: “Not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood,” followed by the reference to the present witness of the Spirit. He argues that the change of the prepositions (ν in, for διά by), the use of the article (τ), and the stress laid on actual experience (it is the Spirit that witnesseth), these, together with the fact that that which was spoken of in its unity (by water and blood) is now spoken of in its separate parts (in the water and in the blood) — “all show that St. John is speaking of a continuation of the first coming under some new but analogous form. The first proof of the Messiahship of Jesus lay in His complete historical fulfilment of Messiah’s work once for all, in bringing purification and salvation; that proof is continued in the experience of the Church in its two separate parts.” Thus we are led to the ideas underlying the two sacraments.[7]

4)  Justification and sanctification.  “He warneth us not to separate water from blood, (that is, sanctification from justification, or righteousness begun, from righteousness imputed) for we stand not upon sanctification but so far forth as it is a witness of Christ’s righteousness imputed unto us: and although this imputation of Christ’s righteousness be never separated from sanctification, yet it is only the matter of our salvation.”  --Geneva Bible, 1599 Edition. Published by Tolle Lege Press. All rights reserved.



"Blood is thicker than water." This gets uttered around awkward family photos on the mantel of nearly every home in the country. The original phrase, however, meant the opposite. An earlier proverb preached, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." In this case, "water of the womb" refers to family while "blood of the covenant" means blood shed by soldiers. So really, military bonds trump your siblings and parents.

Sterbenz, Christina - “12 Famous Quotes That People Always Get Wrong” -  Business Insider, Inc. - Sep. 6, 2013, 9:08 AM. - Copyright © 2013 - http://www.businessinsider.com/misinterpreted-quotes-2013-9#ixzz2eEqbTW7v




Water— Jesus came “by water and blood.” The water refers to His baptism in Jordan, when the Father spoke from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:13–17). At the same time the Spirit descended like a dove and rested on Him. This was the Father’s attestation of His Son at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.[8]

Matthew 3

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 And John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?"

15 But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed Him. 16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
Mark 1
9 It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. 11 Then a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
Luke 3
21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. 22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, "You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased."
John 1
32 And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. 33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."
blood -- 
  • But the Father gave further witness as the time drew near for Jesus to die. He spoke audibly to Jesus from heaven, and said, “I have both glorified [My name], and will glorify it again” (John 12:28). Furthermore, the Father witnessed in miracle power when Jesus was on the cross: the supernatural darkness, the earthquake, and the rending of the temple veil (Matt. 27:45, 50–53). No wonder the centurion cried out, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt. 27:54)[9]
  • We might put it more simply by saying that Cerinthus taught that Jesus became divine at the baptism, that divinity left him before the Cross and that he died simply a man.
It is clear that such teaching robs the life and death of Jesus of all value for us. By seeking to protect God from contact with human pain, it removes him from the act of redemption.
What John is saying is that the Cross is an essential part of the meaning of Jesus and that God was in the death of Jesus every bit as much as he was in his life.             – William Barclay in The Letters of John and Jude
Jesus Christ-
The combination of “Jesus Christ,” use together by John to designate on individual, is a refutation of the Cerinthian Gnostic heresy to the effect that Jesus was the person, only human, not deity, and that the Christ for divine element came upon Him at His baptism and left Him before His death on the Cross.”  --Wuest
7 – There is general consensus that this verse was not in the original text.
The trinitarian formula found in the KJV of 1 Jn 5:7 is orthodox but not part of the text. It appears in only three manuscripts—of the twelfth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—out of the thousands available, placed there by scribes who knew it from the Latin Vulgate, which took it from an early marginal note based on a popular early interpretation of the text. The KJV includes it only because that translation was based on a recension dependent on the third edition of Erasmus’s Greek text; Erasmus included the verse to fulfill a wager, protested it in a note and withdrew it in subsequent editions of the text.[10]
8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.
bear witness
“It is used of one who testifies to what he has seen or heard, for instance, a witness in a court of law.”  --Wuest
the Spirit
The Spirit’s witness may be thought of as coming through the prophets (including John the Baptist). The Spirit’s witness, then, was augmented by the historical realities involved in “the water” and “the blood.” [11]
John 15:26  Christ speaking
26 "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
these three agree The expression “these three agree in one is literally in the Greek text, “are to the one thing”; that is, in the words of Vincent, “they converge upon the one truth, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh.” Alford translates, “Concur in the one, contribute to one and the same result, namely, the truth that Jesus is the Christ, and that we have life in Him.”[12]

A triple human witness is enough to establish any fact. How much more must a triple divine witness, the witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood, be regarded as convincing.   – William Barclay in The Letters of John and Jude
9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.
If --ei (ε), the conditional particle of a fulfilled condition. [13]
we receive  λαμβάνομεν). The indicative mood, assuming such reception as a fact. If we receive, as we do.[14]
People often say, “I wish I could have faith!” But everybody lives by faith! All day long, people trust one another. They trust the doctor and the pharmacist; they trust the cook in the restaurant; they even trust the fellow driving in the other lane on the highway. If we can trust men, why can we not trust God? And not to trust Him is to make Him a liar![15]
Deuteronomy 19.15  “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.[16]
has testified-- The verb is in the perfect tense, speaking of a past act of bearing testimony with the result that the testimony is on record at the present time.[17]
·       John’s thought is here, “Since we are in the habit of receiving the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, and therefore should be received.”[18]
·       It might be paraphrased “Here then is God’s testimony about His Son (which we ought to accept because of its greatness).”[19]
10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.
Believes in  πιστεύων εἰς
John goes on to use a phrase which is a favourite of his in his gospel. He speaks of the man who ‘believes in the Son of God.’  There is a wide difference between believing a man and believing in him. If we believe a man, we do no more than accept whatever statement he may be making at the moment as true. If we believe in a man, we accept the whole man and all that he stands for in complete trust. We would be prepared not only to trust his spoken word, but also to trust ourselves to him. To believe in Jesus Christ is not simply to accept what he says as true; it is to commit ourselves into his hands, for time and for eternity.” – William Barclay in The Letters of John and Jude
the witness in himself
·       “the testimony is no longer external in history but an inward experience, and therefore indubitable.”[20]
·       “Paul in Romans 8:16 tells us that the Holy Spirit bears testimony in connection with our human spirits as energized by the Holy Spirit that we are children of God. That is, our human spirit, energized by the Holy Spirit, gives us the consciousness that we as believers are children of God.”[21]
For John there was no middle ground, no suspension of opinion. One either believes or he impugns God’s veracity.[22]
11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
has given -- (δωκεν). The aorist tense, gave. So Rev. The reference is to the historic fact of the gift. [23]
this life is in His Son
·       The addition, this life is in his Son, is important. We cannot think of eternal life apart from the Son nor can we think of the testimony apart from him (cf. v 9). Life eternal is life with Christ and in Christ.[24]
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
But this gift is a Person—Jesus Christ. We receive eternal life not only from Christ, but in Christ. “He who has the Son has the life” (1 John 5:12, nasb). Not just “life” but “the life”—the life “which is life indeed” (1 Tim. 6:19, nasb).[25]


[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996).

[2] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[3] A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933).

[4] John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 901.

[5] D. A. Carson et al., eds., New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994).

[6] Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 364.

[7] Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 365.

[8] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996).

[9] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996).



[10] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

[11] John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 901.

[12] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[13] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[14] Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 367.

[15] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996).

[16] The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982).

[17] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[18] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[19] John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 901.

[20] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[21] Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

[22] John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 901–902.


[23] Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 368.

cf. compare

[24] D. A. Carson et al., eds., New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994).


[25] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996).

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