the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three agree in one.
John's letter has been pressing one question: how can anyone be sure that eternal life is real and that it is theirs? His answer is a court case — God has set three witnesses on earth, and all three say the same thing.
Older Bibles carry extra words here about three bearing witness in heaven. One writer tests those words in a simple way. He does not go to old manuscripts. He asks what witnessing is even for.
First, what is the meaning of bearing witness "in heaven"? When you weigh it, is it not unscriptural — and worse, is it not folly? How could there be such a need or fact as bearing witness in heaven? The natural inhabitants of heaven are angels, who never needed anyone to bear witness to them... It is on earth that witness is needed and is given by God's grace, because men are steeped in darkness and lack the truth. None could find it out unless God gave competent witnesses; and here they are, His three witnesses, "the Spirit and the water and the blood."
Both came from the pierced side of Jesus at His death, and each carries its own meaning. One writer sets out what each one does, and why the two stand in a different order here than at the cross.
Blood and water both flowed from the pierced side of the Lord Jesus when His death was accomplished. Yet, strangely, this water has almost dropped out of the faith of the Christian world. It fills as large a place in the Word as the blood does, both in doctrine and in the Old Testament pictures. The blood is for propitiation; the water is for purification. The blood is the ground of everything before God, and is therefore put first in John 19:34. In 1 John 5:8 the order is that of their application to us. The Spirit brings home the water of the Word in power to our consciences, and by it we are born of God. He opens our eyes to the value of the blood.
This verse names water and blood together, never water alone. One writer shows what people lose when they keep the water and drop the blood.
Many now say He came to make man morally clean. On this view He set the highest ideals before man, and lived them out Himself to spur others on... They reject the idea of atonement with scorn. The Spirit foresaw this dark and deadly error. So He says, "not by water only, but by water and blood." Not by moral cleansing only, but by moral cleansing AND expiation for sin.
The blood and water came at the cross; the Spirit came afterwards. Yet John names the Spirit first. One writer explains the reversal by what the Spirit does in us.
The third witness is the Spirit. He is put first in the order of their testimony on earth, since He alone gives witness in power, so that we know the other two. He is last in their historic order, for that was in fact the order: death first, and only afterwards the Holy Spirit. In effect it is the Spirit's testimony, His presence in us, that lets us value the water and the blood. We would never have grasped what the death of Christ means in practice, if the Holy Spirit did not reveal its meaning and its power to the new man.
One writer pictures the three together: one witness speaks, and two stand silent.
And so the three witnesses remain: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. The Spirit is the living, acting, speaking Witness. The water and the blood are two silent witnesses, like mighty pillars lifting their heads into heaven's blue dome through all eternity. And all three agree in one. They testify that He who came in this way is the Son of God, the fountain of eternal life. And they testify that eternal life is ours in Him — ours who believe on the name of the Son of God.
All three say the same thing. Their one verdict tells us where eternal life comes from, and how little we brought to it.
The testimony of these three witnesses meets together in this same truth: that grace — that God Himself — has given us eternal life, and that this life is in the Son. Man had nothing to do with it, except by his sins. It is the gift of God, and the life He gives is in the Son.
The weight of this evidence makes refusing it serious.
Men accept the witness of two or three as enough to settle a matter. God has given three witnesses, and one of them is His own Spirit... How very solemn it is, then, if men refuse the witness of God.
- Earth, not heaven. Witness belongs where the darkness is. Heaven needs no convincing; men steeped in darkness do.
- Blood. Propitiation — the ground of everything before God, which is why it comes first at the cross.
- Water. Purification by the Word — as large a theme in Scripture as the blood, though often forgotten.
- Spirit. Named first because He is the living witness who makes the other two mean anything to us.
- One verdict. Three witnesses, one testimony. God has given eternal life, and that life is in His Son. We added nothing to the gift, and refusing the witness is a solemn thing.
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God [which] he has witnessed concerning his Son.
Courts settle matters on human testimony every day. John starts there, then presses a far weightier claim: God Himself has spoken, and His subject is His Son.
John is not inventing a new standard. He appeals to a rule already built into human life and into God's dealings with people. Then he shows how far God has gone beyond it.
Men accept two or three witnesses to settle any matter. God set up that rule for people, both under law and in Christianity. Human witnesses can be wrong, even when no one could question their honesty. All people have weaknesses and imperfections. But look at the divine witnesses! One is a divine Person, come from heaven to declare what He knows, what He has seen, and what He has heard. The other two witnesses have come from the side of Christ in death. They come to tell us of the love shown in that death, and of the greatness of the Person who could make that love known and accomplish such a work. How wonderful is the grace that has stooped to our weakness! It brings three witnesses before us, to persuade our poor hearts about what He wants to tell us.
God's testimony here comes through three named witnesses.
There are three witnesses: the water, the blood, and the Spirit — a threefold testimony, but a united testimony, and so one. They unite in witnessing that life is in the Son, and is for men through His death.
The comparison rests on two things: what God's testimony is about, and the knowledge behind it.
We do receive the witness of men. We have to, almost every day of our lives. We accept it, though mistakes often mar it, even when no one means to deceive. The witness of God is far greater in its theme and in its character. The Son is the theme, and absolute truth its character. When the Son was on earth He bore witness to God. Now the Spirit is here, and the witness of God is borne to the Son. Very remarkable, is it not?
Human witnesses report what they happened to see. God does not testify at second hand.
We receive the testimony of competent, trustworthy men without question. How much greater is the testimony of God! He speaks what He knows; with Him knowledge is absolute, not relative. He witnesses to the truth as He alone fully knows it.
Many an anxious person searches God's testimony for a verdict on himself.
The heart keeps looking for God to give it a testimony about itself. But God is giving a testimony about His Son, not about what we are. If God were to give a testimony about us, it must be about our sin and unbelief of heart. In this day of unbelief, one thing matters greatly. If God gives a testimony, it is about His Son, and what He is to the sinner. If you believe that, you will get peace.
One writer recalled what these words did for a believer still tormented by the sense of sin.
Let me recall the divine relief and deliverance these words gave more than sixty years ago. They came to a soul who was converted, but harassed and deeply troubled by a sense of sin. That sense of sin clouded his rest in Jesus. These words chased away all doubt, and made him ashamed to question God's witness. It became God's application of the truth to him, and no longer his own applying of it to himself. Yet he had never doubted the true worth of Christ's death for the sinner. It is not that I see the power of the blood as I ought. Rather, I rest by faith on God's seeing it, and God's valuing it as it deserves.
A person can hold the same truth in two ways, with very different results.
The believer needs to have the sense of this in his soul. The blessing is his as a believer. But how much power and enjoyment he has in it depends greatly on whether he knows the testimony is divine. If it has been received only as the word of men, it will not have its full sanctifying power in the soul.
- Witness given. God stooped to the human rule of two or three witnesses. He supplied three of His own, to persuade our weak hearts.
- Witness greater. His testimony outweighs man's in theme and in character. The Son is its subject; absolute truth is its quality. God speaks what He alone fully knows.
- Witness about the Son. God is not testifying about what we are. Anyone hunting for a divine verdict on himself is looking in the wrong place. The testimony is about His Son, and what He is to the sinner.
- Witness received brings rest. Peace comes not from seeing the value of Christ's blood as we ought, but from resting on God's valuation of it.
- Witness owned as God's brings power. Taken as only the word of men, the truth loses its full sanctifying power. Owned as God's word, it works with full power in the soul.