Exploring 1 John: Water, Blood and Spirit
Exploring 1 John: Water, Blood and Spirit
1 John 5:5-8 - Three things attest to Jesus, Son of God: Baptism, Crucifixion and the Holy Spirit.
“Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.”
1 John 5:5-8 NASB1995
We overcome the world by believing that Jesus is the Son of God. John is pushing back at the Gnostics who believed that Jesus was not fully Man and fully God at the same time, but had a spirit descend on Him that left Him at crucifixion (negating the whole atonement process). Let’s review the Gnostic beliefs again, from Gotquestions.org (excerpts from a longer article):
There is actually no such thing as Christian Gnosticism, because true Christianity and Gnosticism are mutually exclusive systems of belief. The principles of Gnosticism contradict what it means to be a Christian. Therefore, while some forms of Gnosticism may claim to be Christian, they are in fact decidedly non-Christian.
Gnosticism was perhaps the most dangerous heresy that threatened the early church during the first three centuries. Influenced by such philosophers as Plato, Gnosticism is based on two false premises. First, it espouses a dualism regarding spirit and matter. Gnostics assert that matter is inherently evil and spirit is good. As a result of this presupposition, Gnostics believe anything done in the body, even the grossest sin, has no meaning because real life exists in the spirit realm only.
Second, Gnostics claim to possess an elevated knowledge, a “higher truth” known only to a certain few. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis which means “to know.” Gnostics claim to possess a higher knowledge, not from the Bible, but acquired on some mystical higher plane of existence. Gnostics see themselves as a privileged class elevated above everybody else by their higher, deeper knowledge of God.….
The Person of Jesus Christ is another area where Christianity and Gnosticism drastically differ. The Gnostics believe that Jesus’ physical body was not real, but only “seemed” to be physical, and that His spirit descended upon Him at His baptism, but left Him just before His crucifixion. Such views destroy not only the true humanity of Jesus, but also the atonement, for Jesus must not only have been truly God, but also the truly human (and physically real) man who actually suffered and died upon the cross in order to be the acceptable substitutionary sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 2:14-17). The biblical view of Jesus affirms His complete humanity as well as His full deity.
Gnosticism is based on a mystical, intuitive, subjective, inward, emotional approach to truth which is not new at all. It is very old, going back in some form to the Garden of Eden, where Satan questioned God and the words He spoke and convinced Adam and Eve to reject them and accept a lie. He does the same thing today as he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He still calls God and the Bible into question and catches in his web those who are either naïve and scripturally uninformed or who are seeking some personal revelation to make them feel special, unique, and superior to others. Let us follow the Apostle Paul who said to “test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and this we do by comparing everything to the Word of God, the only Truth.
People are attracted to mysticism and also want to be in possession of a singular truth that only they know about, to make them feel superior to others or to be part of a “special group” that knows the truth. So Gnosticism, then and now, is probably an attractive alternative to Biblical truth. Our salvation isn’t because we possess special knowledge or that our sinful bodies are meaningless. Our salvation is because we believe that Jesus died for our sins. This psychological trait that drives Gnosticism is similar to what drives people to believe in conspiracy theories or join secret societies or be part of cults. According to this Website, conspiracists have the following traits:
A need for understanding and consistency (epistemic or relating to knowledge)
A need for control (existential)
A need to belong or feel special (social)
I have watched otherwise normal-thinking people descend the rabbit hole into more and more bizarre and elaborate conspiracy theories about so many different things. Social media thrives on driving people into different camps of belief about something that happened and who really knows the truth. History has shown us that conspiracy theories about the alleged power of Jews led to the holocaust and the “final solution” that the Third Reich pursued.
Why not also have those conspiracy theories abound about Jesus, starting right after He ascended? Biblical truth is bizarre enough, especially if you stand outside looking in for a while like I did. I exhibited the very same traits as those noted above - I wanted consistency, I wanted to control the paradigm, I wanted knowledge, and I wanted to be part of a group that believed (or didn’t believe) in the same way I did. Propaganda works quite well on a receptive mind and secular humanist groups excel at propaganda.
Now things get a little tricky in this passage and there are many schools of thought among commentators about what John is trying to say about water, blood and the Spirit of truth. Enduring Word has a really good summary of these various viewpoints about He who came by water and blood:
He who came by water and blood: Through the centuries, there have been many different ideas about exactly what John meant by this phrase. “This is the most perplexing passage in the Epistle and one of the most perplexing in the New Testament.” (Alfred Plummer, cited in James Montgomery Boice)
Some believe that water speaks of our own baptism, and blood speaks of receiving communion, and that John writes of how Jesus comes to us in the two Christian sacraments of baptism and communion (Luther and Calvin had this idea). Yet, if this is the case, it doesn’t add up with the historical perspective John had when he wrote “came by water and blood.” He seems to write of something that happened in the past, not something that is ongoing.
Others (such as Augustine) believe the water and blood describes the water and blood which flowed from Jesus’ side when He was stabbed with a spear on the cross: But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out (John 19:34). This was an important event to the Apostle John because immediately after this description of water and blood, he added in his gospel: 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 (John 19:35). Yet, if this was John’s meaning, it is a little unclear how it can be said that Jesus came by water and blood.
Still others believe the water spoke of Jesus’ first birth, being born of the “waters of the womb,” and blood speaks of His death. If this is the case, John would be essentially writing, “Jesus was born like a man and died like a man. He was completely human, not some super-spiritual being who had no real contact with the material world.” The Gnostics in John’s day thought of Jesus as just such a super-spiritual being.
He who came by water and blood: Probably the best explanation (though there are good points to some of the other ideas) is the oldest recorded Christian understanding of this passage (first recorded by the ancient Christian Tertullian). Most likely, John means the water of Jesus’ baptism, and the blood of His crucifixion.
When Jesus was baptized, He was not baptized in repentance for His own sin (He had none), but because He wanted to completely identify with sinful humanity. When He came by water, it was His way of saying, “I am one of you.”
When Jesus died on the cross, He did not die because He had to (death could have no power over Him), but He laid down His life to identify with sinful humanity and to save us from our sin. When He came by… blood it was so that He could stand in our place as a guilty sinner, and to take the punishment our sin deserved.
This explanation also connects best with what Jesus said in John 3:5: Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The being born of water in this passage speaks of the cleansing waters of baptism.
He who came by water and blood: Some taught (and still teach) that Jesus received the “Christ Spirit” at His baptism, and the “Christ Spirit” left Jesus before He died on the cross (for them, it is unthinkable that God could hang on a cross). But John insisted that Jesus did not only come by the water of baptism, but also by the blood of the cross. He was just as much the Son of God on the cross as He was when the Father declared, You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased (Luke 3:22) at the baptism of Jesus.
We may find it difficult to relate to this ancient manner of trying to avoid the offense of the cross by saying, “It really wasn’t the Son of God who hung on the cross.” But in our modern age we have our own ways of trying to avoid the offense of the cross. Some deny Jesus was God at all, and just think of Him as a “noble martyr.” Some trivialize the cross, making it a mere ornament in jewelry and pop fashion trends. Others replace the cross with a self-help, self-esteem gospel of psychology, or use a crossless evangelism.
I agree with the most likely explanation that David Guzik presents - Jesus came from water through His baptism and from blood through His crucifixion. He was the Son of God who suffered on the cross.
As an aside: I did cringe a little bit on the statement that the cross can be trivialized by making it into an ornament in jewelry. I wear a beautiful cross every day that is made of colorful, tiny Murano glass flowers my late Dad bought for me in Italy many years ago; I also wear a “widow’s mite” coin in a silver frame (a 2000-year-old tiny coin) that Steve bought for me in Jerusalem. I look at both each day and see the beauty of my new life in Christ and I also see a reminder that I should give my first tenth (or more) of income to God as it is all His.
Three things testify to the truth of Jesus: The water, the blood and the Spirit. The Spirit bore witness when Jesus began His ministry and was baptized by John the Baptist. The Spirit bore witness when Jesus died on the cross. The Spirit bore witness when Jesus was resurrected. An apostle like John bore witness by having been there with Jesus in person through most of the events.
While doing research, I found an interesting number of commentaries about how newer versions of the Bible (like the NASB1995 that I use) more accurately reflect the original Greek text for some of these verses than the King James or NKJ versions. This difference has fueled a lot of speculation and is used by those who don’t believe in the Trinity (like Jehovah’s Witnesses) to justify their doctrine. I think this manuscript issue is a crucial thing to understand. This excellent (and lengthy) explanation is from Enduring Word, which helps put this in context:
The New King James Bible makes a marginal note on 1 John 5:7-8, stating that the words in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on the earth are words that are not included in the vast majority of New Testament Greek manuscripts.
The words in question occur in no Greek manuscript until the fourteenth century, except for one eleventh century and one twelfth century manuscript in which they have been added to the margin by another hand.
In the first few hundred years of Christianity, there were many theological debates regarding the exact nature and understanding of the Trinity. In all of those debates, no one ever once quoted these words in question from 1 John 5:7-8. If they were originally written by John, it seems very strange that no early Christian would have quoted them. In fact, though none of the ancient Christians quote from this verse, several of them do quote from 1 John 5:6 and 1 John 5:8. Why skip verse seven, especially if it is such a great statement of the Trinity?
In all ancient translations – Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopian, Coptic, Sahidic, Armenian, Slavonian, and so forth – this disputed passage is not included. Only in the Latin Vulgate does it appear.
It is probably best to regard these words as the work of an over-zealous copyist who thought that the New Testament needed a little help with the doctrine of the Trinity, and he figured this was a good place to do it. Or perhaps the words just started as notes written in the margin of a manuscript, but the next person who copied the manuscript thought they must belong in the text itself.
While there is no explicit statement of the Trinity in the statement (such as this), it is woven into the fabric of the New Testament – we find the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together as equal, yet distinct Persons (Matthew 3:16-17; 28:19; Luke 1:35; John 1:33-34 14:16, 26; 16:13-15; 20:21-22; Acts 2:33-38; Romans 15:16; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; 13:14; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 3:14-16; 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2).
How did these words ever get included, if they are not in any ancient Greek manuscripts? The words were included in ancient Latin versions of the Bible, and in the year 1520, a great scholar named Erasmus produced a new, accurate edition of the Bible in ancient Greek. When people studied Erasmus’ Bible, and compared it to the Latin version, they noticed he left out this passage, and they criticized him for it. When he was criticized, Erasmus said, “You won’t find these words in any ancient Greek manuscript. If you find me one Greek manuscript with these words in them, I’ll include it in my next printing.” Someone “discovered” a manuscript with the words in them, but it wasn’t an ancient manuscript at all. Erasmus knew this, but had already promised to add the words if someone found a manuscript with the words, so he reluctantly added the words in his 1522 edition. However, he also added a footnote, saying he thought that the new Greek manuscript had been written on purpose, just to embarrass him. That manuscript (Codex Montfortii) is on display in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
This passage is called the “Johannine Comma” (or mistakenly, “Johannian Comma”), and is in only three Greek manuscripts. The Codex Guelpherbytanus was written in the seventeenth century. We know this manuscript is from the seventeenth century because it contains a quote from a book written in the seventeenth century. The Codex Ravianus or Berolinensis, which is a copy of a text printed in 1514. We know it was copied from that text because it repeats the same typographical mistakes the 1514 text has. The third manuscript is the one “discovered” in the days of Erasmus, the Codex Montfortii.
Since the Greek text of the New Testament that Erasmus printed became one of the Greek texts used to make the King James Bible, these added words became part of the King James Bible.
Passages like this give us no reason to fear that our New Testaments are unreliable. In the entire New Testament, there are only 50 passages which have any sort of question regarding the reliability of the text, and none of those are the sole foundation for any Christian doctrine or belief. If 50 passages sound like a lot, see it this way: no more than one-one thousandth of the text is in question at all.
In addition, when such a passage like this is inserted, the textual evidence from the manuscripts makes it stick out like a sore thumb. This gives us assurance, not doubt.
Evangelical Christians may not know much about these passages, but many religious people who don’t believe the Trinity (such as a Jehovah’s Witness) do know the textual issues around this passage. Therefore, if you bring up this verse to support your position, they will show you how this passage doesn’t belong in the Bible. It may get some thinking, “Well, maybe the Trinity isn’t true. Maybe Jesus isn’t God. Maybe it’s just the invention of people who would try to change the Bible.” This can do some real damage.
So a passage like this also warns us that when it comes to such matters, God doesn’t need our help. The New Testament is fine just like God inspired it. It doesn’t need our improvements. Though the teaching of these added words is true, they shouldn’t be here, because we should not add our words to the Bible and claim they are God’s words.
The text of 1 John 5:7-8 should more accurately read: For there are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.
These little “gotchas” are what fuel naysayers about the reliability of the Bible as the Word of God. But Guzik’s explanation is so good and it is important for believers to know about these few manuscript issues and their history. The Trinity is adequately explained in many places and the text for this passage in 1 John reads just fine in the verses that I have at the top: For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We can thank God for those who want to translate scripture from the original Greek and not just keep perpetuating a minor error like this that was in the KJV; their desire (like Erasmus at the beginning of his translation) is keep to the words as they were written by John (and others).
Whew! I think this is long enough and is probably confusing! So my next devotional examines 1 John 5:9-10 - The witness of men and the witness of God.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord: I pray the words to You today from Charles Wesley’s timeless hymn “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” [as found on Precept Austin — Bible verses have been added to show the expectation of Jesus]
Born to set Thy people free; (Ro 8:2, Gal 5:1)
From our fears and sins release us, (He 2:15)
Let us find our rest in Thee. (Mt 11:28-30)
Israel’s Strength and Consolation, (Lk 2:25KJV)
Hope of all the earth Thou art; (1Ti 1:1b)
Dear Desire of every nation, (Hag 2:7KJV)
Joy of every longing heart. (1Th 1:6b)
Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.
AMEN!
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Gotquestions.org was accessed on 6/17/2024 to review the answer to the question “What is Gnosticism?”.
Commentary from Enduring Word by David Guzik is used with written permission.
Precept Austin was accessed on 6/17/2024 to review the commentary for 1 John 5:5-8.