Suppose someone came to you and told you that your son or daughter was responsible for a hit and run accident. How would you respond?
For the sake of my illustration, let us also suppose that your son or daughter has not told you about the accident and that you do not know the person reporting this news to you.
I think that if I were the parent receiving this information from an unknown and unofficial source, I would certainly want to talk to my son about it and seek corroboration from other sources.
Now, what if my son denied being involved in the supposed hit and run accident, but the person who first reported this incident to me was able to take me to three other eyewitnesses who each saw my son commit the hit and run at a major intersection in town? Suppose further that each of these four witnesses were standing on a different corner of the intersection where the hit and run supposedly took place.
Barring some fanciful explanation for this occurrence, I think I would have to accept the witness of these four people, despite my son’s denial, especially if these witnesses turned out to be trusted sources such as police officers or other upstanding citizens of the community.
I can assure you that nothing like this has ever happened in my family. I am simply using this story as a dramatic illustration of what John presents to us in this next section of his letter. John presents us with four witnesses who all testify, from different perspectives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that in Jesus there is life.
Many people long for assurance of the truth of their faith. That is exactly what John seeks to provide for us in 1 John 5:6-12. Listen for God’s word to you…
This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given 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.
The four witnesses to the central truth of the Christian faith that John marshals are these: the water, the blood, the Spirit, and the Son. Now, I will grant you that these witnesses can seem very obscure, unlike the four witnesses in my opening illustration. However, as we explore who or what each of these four witnesses are, I think you will see what John is getting at.
The first witness that John calls to the stand is the water. He says, “This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.”
What is John talking about? How is water a witness to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God?
Water has been interpreted as a reference to at least four different things down through the history of commentary on this passage. Some have interpreted the water mentioned here as a reference to Jesus’ physical birth. However, we must remember that Jesus’ physical birth was not a matter of dispute among the people John was writing to, nor was it a matter of dispute among the Gnostics whom John was writing against. Therefore, it seems unlikely that water refers to the water of Jesus’ physical birth.
Others have taken water as a reference to Jesus’ baptism. This seems much more likely. Jesus’ baptism not only signaled the beginning of his public ministry, but it was also a time when there was divine witness to Jesus’ identity. The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the voice of God affirmed that Jesus was God’s beloved Son in whom God was well pleased (Mark 1:9-11).
Interestingly enough, the Gnostic teachers whom John was trying to combat agreed with him that Jesus came by water. However, the Gnostics put a different interpretive spin on the meaning of Jesus’ baptism. The Gnostics viewed Jesus’ baptism as the moment during which Jesus received the divine spirit as a temporary gift, whereas John viewed the gift of the Spirit to Jesus as something permanent. We will explore this further in a moment.
A third way people have interpreted the meaning of water in this passage is to say that it refers to the water that poured out of Jesus’ side, along with blood, when the Roman soldier thrust his spear through Jesus while he was hanging on the cross.
It is quite likely that John did have this incident in mind. Whether or not the author of this letter and the author of the Gospel of John were the same person, it is quite clear that the author of this letter was very familiar with the Gospel of John. The author of this letter certainly was aware of the incident reported in John 19:34-35.
A fourth way that people have interpreted the meaning of water in this passage is to see it, along with the blood, as a foreshadowing of the two great sacraments of the church: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. While this may be true, it does not fully account for John’s use of the word “water” as a witness to Jesus as Messiah and Son of God.
Therefore, I think it best to view the water in this passage as a reference to Jesus’ baptism, but there is a connection to our baptism as well.
I think we can understand how Jesus’ baptism stands as a testimony to his divine identity. The dove descending and the voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” provide a vivid witness to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.
However, you might ask, “What difference does that make to me?” That is a valid question. I believe it is only when we become personally identified with Jesus that this witness to Jesus’ identity has any meaning for us.
One of the most interesting descriptions of the Christian in the New Testament is to say that the Christian is “in Christ”. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ that person is a new creation. The old has gone, the new is here!”
How do we end up “in Christ”? It happens through faith. It happens through baptism. The acts of faith and of baptism identify us with Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, once we are “in Christ” what God says of his Son Jesus can also be said of us. If you have been baptized into Jesus Christ, if you have put your faith in him, then God is saying to you today, “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. In you I am well pleased.” When we have that kind of experience of God’s grace and love through Christ, it is a tremendous witness to Jesus’ identity.
The second witness John calls to the stand to testify to the identity of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God is the blood. John says, “This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.”
As I have already pointed out, the Gnostics would have agreed with John that Jesus came by water. The Gnostics believed that Jesus was indeed given the Holy Spirit at his baptism. However, the Gnostics also believed that the Holy Spirit left Jesus before his death. The Gnostics could not understand how the divine would associate himself with anything as ignominious as death.
However, this is the very point that John is at pains to stress. Jesus came not only by water but also by blood. Jesus was as much the Son of God, endowed with the Spirit, at his death as he was at his baptism. This is the essence and amazing nature of the atonement: that God took our death upon himself in Jesus on the cross.
How does the blood of Jesus testify to his identity as Messiah and Son of God? There was something about the way in which Jesus died that certified his identity even to a Roman centurion. In Mark 15:39 we read, “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’”
Tom Wright says of this passage in 1 John, “No other god, no other power, no other being in all the world loves like this, gives like this, dies like this. All others win victories by fighting; this one, by suffering. All other gods exercise power by killing; this one, by dying.”
Thus, we can understand in some measure why the death of Jesus was important, but why was the shedding of his blood necessary, and so much blood at that? Surely there have been many people, perhaps the majority in the history of the world, who have died without actually shedding blood. Why so much blood connected with the death of Jesus?
Certainly, from a human standpoint the answer is that Jesus shed so much blood because he was subjected to one of the most horrendous forms of execution devised by human beings. However, the shedding of blood was also spiritually significant from a Jewish standpoint.
Paul says, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 3:23) When we turn away from God who is life, the only thing waiting for us is death. The only way to reverse this process is by an innocent person taking our death upon himself. The problem is that there has never been a completely innocent person in the history of humanity. That is, there has never been a thoroughly good and perfect person until God became a human being in Jesus of Nazareth. In him, we finally see perfect humanity. And that perfect human being did indeed take our death upon himself. Furthermore, because he was divine as well as human, his sacrifice was sufficient to cover over all our sin.
All through the history of the Jews recounted in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is an untold amount of blood shed through animal sacrifices. However, the problem was that these sacrifices only temporarily covered over sins. The sacrifices had to be constantly repeated.
Jesus died at Passover, a Jewish festival in which there were countless lambs sacrificed and much blood shed. John the Baptist made the connection between Jesus’ death and the Passover when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29) The visual connection between the profuse blood shed in animal sacrifice and the tremendous amount of blood shed in Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion should have been clear to any Jew. The big difference is that once Jesus shed his blood for our sins that sacrifice did not need to be repeated. As it says in Hebrews 7:27…
Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
To the Jew, life was in the blood. The shedding of blood certified death. Thus, when blood and water came out of Jesus’ side it certified that he had really died and thus his sacrifice was complete.
How does Jesus’ shed blood act as a testimony to his identity today? I believe we receive confirmation of Jesus’ identity and what he can do for us, forgiving our sins through his sacrifice, every time we receive the wine of the Lord’s Supper and are reminded of the words of Jesus, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28) As Paul says, whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim Jesus’ death until he comes again. (1 Corinthians 11:26)
The third witness John calls to the stand to testify to the identity of Jesus is the Spirit. The Holy Spirit testified to the divine nature of Jesus when he descended upon Jesus out of the heavens in the form of a dove at Jesus’ baptism. And the Holy Spirit inspired the first disciples to write down what they knew and had experienced of Jesus. However, that is not all, because the Holy Spirit continues to testify to Jesus’ identity to this day.
John goes on to tell us that these three witnesses (the water, the blood and the Spirit) are in agreement. Three witnesses in agreement in a court of law would provide the strongest testimony possible. So it is with the water, the blood and the Spirit; they provide the strongest testimony possible to the nature of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. John, in effect, asks us: “If we accept the testimony of human beings, why do we not accept the testimony of God to his only Son? After all, God’s testimony is greater than that of any human being or collection of human beings.”
When we believe in the Son of God, we accept God’s testimony about his Son. Believing in the Son of God means more than just believing certain facts or statements about Jesus. It means entrusting our lives to his hands. John says that if we are not willing to do this, then we make God out to be a liar, which is a very serious action indeed.
As if the testimony of these three witnesses was not enough to convince us to commit our lives to following Jesus, God has also provided a fourth witness… the Son himself.
In a sense, this fourth witness is internal. John says, “He who is believing in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.”
If the only witness that we had to the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth was internal, then non-Christians would have every right to say that we are deluding ourselves. That is why it is so important that we have both external, historical witnesses to the reality of who Jesus was and what he did two thousand years ago, as well as the internal witness.
But what is the testimony we have within ourselves? The testimony is eternal life, not just everlasting life, but an entirely new quality of life that begins the moment we believe in Jesus and will never end. Whoever has the Son has this life, and whoever does not have the Son (John probably has the Gnostics in mind) does not have life. Thus, the inner testimony that we have in our hearts is the Son, Jesus himself, living in us by his Holy Spirit. I cannot prove to you that Jesus lives in me, or in you, or in anyone else. However, if what John says is true, this has to be one of the most amazing truths ever revealed to human beings.
There have been many people over the course of the last two thousand years who have tried to disprove Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. Lew Wallace was one of these. He was the Governor of New Mexico over a century ago and here is what he wrote about his experience…
I had always been an agnostic and denied Christianity. Robert C. Ingersoll, a famous agnostic, was one of my most intimate friends. He once suggested, “See here, Wallace, you are a learned man and a thinker. Why don’t you gather material and write a book to prove the falsity concerning Jesus Christ, that no such man has ever lived, much less the author of the teachings found in the New Testament. Such a book would make you famous. It would be a masterpiece, and a way of putting an end to the foolishness about the so-called Christ.”
The thought made a deep impression on me, and we discussed the possibility of such a book. I went to Indianapolis, my home, and told my wife what I intended. She was a member of the Methodist Church and naturally did not like my plan. But I decided to do it and began to collect material in libraries here and in the old world. I gathered everything over that period in which Jesus Christ, according to legend, should have lived.
Several years were spent in this work. I had written nearly four chapters when it became clear to me that Jesus Christ was just as real a personality as Socrates, Plato, or Caesar. The conviction became a certainty. I knew that Jesus Christ had lived because of the facts connected with the period in which he lived.
I was in an uncomfortable position. I had begun to write a book to prove that Jesus Christ had never lived on earth. Now I was face to face with the fact that he was just as historic a personage as Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Virgil, Dante, and a host of other men who had lived in olden days. I asked myself candidly, “If he was a real person (and there was no doubt), was he not then also the Son of God and the Savior of the world?” Gradually the consciousness grew that, since Jesus Christ was a real person, he probably was the one he claimed to be.
I fell on my knees to pray for the first time in my life, and I asked God to reveal himself to me, forgive my sins, and help me to become a follower of Christ.
Lew Wallace did go on to write a book based upon his research, but it was very different from the one he originally planned.[1]
Perhaps you have seen the movie based upon that book, Ben Hur. How encouraging it is to know that story was written by a man who wanted to disprove that Jesus ever existed, and instead became convinced that Jesus was and is the Messiah, the Son of God.
The witnesses testifying to the identity of Jesus that we have examined today are just four of many. When it comes to examining the evidence for the identity of Jesus of Nazareth, we all need to be like Lew Wallace, searching diligently for the truth. After all, God promises, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
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