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.
---------------------------------------------------------
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 (ἐν in, for διά
by), the use of the article (τῷ),
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.
we
receive (εἰ 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 ὁ 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 -- (ἔδωκεν). 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).
