MONDAY – 1 John 5:6-8, “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. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.” As we continue along in our study, you will remember that John has been teaching concerning what we entitled “Victorious Faith”. We learned what true faith looks like, and that those who indeed possess it through the person and work of Jesus have and will indeed overcome the world. As we continue, we now will turn our attention to seeing the testimony or witness of God concerning the person of true faith, Jesus Christ. It is important to remember the context into which John is writing. His world as well as ours is one full of heresies and error concerning the person of Jesus Christ. John was dealing with Gnostics and the Docetists in particular. As you will read tomorrow, we have current false systems emanating from some of these ancient heresies. So many millions of people in the world then and now say Jesus was a great man, a fine teacher and a wonderful example, but not the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Word made flesh. Many, then and now would give the wrong answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” Our text this week refutes those errors concerning Christ by the verified witness of God.
(Meditate, Apply & Pray) What would you answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” Ask the Lord to speak to you this week concerning His witness of Christ revealed to us in Sacred Scripture.
TUESDAY – 1 John 5:6-8, “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. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.” By way of further introduction concerning the witness of God concerning Jesus Christ, I am placing a rather long excerpt from a sermon by John MacArthur, “Now, there is a group of people that claim to be the witnesses of God. They even call themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses. And they claim to be propagating the truth that God wants revealed. They claim to be echoing the witness of God. But the truth that God once revealed, the true witness of Jehovah God is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, God incarnate. And the so-called Jehovah’s Witnesses are liars, because they deny the very thing to which God gives witness in the New Testament, summed up in the text I just read. The Jehovah’s Witness religious movement says that Jesus may be called a god, small G, but not the God. They say He is mighty but not the Almighty. They say He was created by Jehovah. He is not a member of the Trinity. There is no Trinity. Elohim, which is a plural word, means plural in majesty, not in person. They say that the Son during His pre-human state was really an angel by the name of Michael. They further say that the Son did not even possess immortality. He was created and created to die. They teach that when Christ was born of Mary, He ceased being a spirit person all together and became nothing more than a human being. The Jesus that walked on earth had only one nature and that was the nature of a man. He was a perfect man, the equivalent of Adam before the Fall. The Jehovah’s Witnesses also teach that Jesus became or took on the role of Messiah when He was baptized. It was there that God made this human being His spiritual Son. And so He was first a created angel, then a created man, and finally the spiritual Son. The Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that Jesus physically, literally arose from the dead. He was not raised as a human son. He was only raised as an immortal spirit. His body never came back to life. In fact, once He had sacrificed His body, they say, He could never get it back. Judge Rutherford, the demon-inspired man who invented the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses, said that the body of Jesus was disposed of and God, who knows where it is, will bring it back and put it on exhibit in some millennial museum. They say Christ, once a mortal angel, then a mortal man, and finally an immortal spirit, will live on forever as a spirit being. And from the way I understand their writings has regained the original name of Michael. He is back enjoying angelic life. Well you can see from this mish-mash that these people are not Jehovah’s witnesses. They are not witnesses of the true God. They do not echo God’s witness. They do not echo God’s testimony concerning His Son. They are liars and they are representatives of the Father of Lies, they are the Devil’s witnesses. And they have many old heresies reframed in their system, very old heresies that come from ancient Gnosticism.”
(Meditate, Apply & Pray) Do I have a correct understanding of who Jesus is? Is it important to have the proper view of Christ? Why? How can you protect yourself from deception concerning Jesus? Father, thank You for revealing the truth in Sacred Scripture. Help me to read it and believe it as You have spoken.
WEDNESDAY – 1 John 5:6, “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.” The incarnation of Jesus is the foundation of Christian Faith and the glorious central truth of redemptive history. In our text, God the Father testifies to the fact of Jesus’ Deity and His coming humanly as The Son. John here gives us three verifying evidences that confirm this testimony: the water, the blood, and the Spirit. There are some differences of opinion concerning this text among scholars. I cannot exhaust the differences for the sake of space and time but we will try to slowly look at the passage in context of when it was written to help us understand. William Barclay opens his commentary on these verses by saying, “The New Testament scholar A. Plummer, in beginning to comment on this passage, says: ‘This is the most perplexing passage in the Epistle, and one of the most perplexing in the New Testament.’ No doubt, if we knew the circumstances in which John was writing and had full knowledge of the heresies against which he was defending his people, the meaning would become clear; but, as it is, we can only guess. We do, however, know enough of the background to be fairly sure that we can have some idea of the meaning of John’s words.” I could start by saying the very first thing we notice that is without question is the phrase This is He who came. Houtos in the Greek (the One) points ahead to Jesus Christ. It is in an emphatic position in the Greek which stresses the uniqueness of Christ. It says, “This One and no other” is God the Son, who came into the world. We say often that Jesus life did not begin when He was born; He had existed from all eternity (John 1:1–2). Scripture speaks of Jesus coming into this world, not of His coming into existence. In the incarnation the eternally existing “Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Jesus Himself often spoke concerning this. In John 16:28 He said, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father”. Paul writes in Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the fullness of time had come, God SENT forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law that /he may redeem us who were under the law”. You have to exist to be sent and here we read that exactly in God’s perfect timing Jesus Christ came to earth as man. This is He who came.
(Meditate, Apply & Pray) Think about the uniqueness of Christ as “the One and only”. Praise Him today for being the sinless God man who came to save you.
THURSDAY – 1 John 5:6: “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.” Some scholars link the phrase water and blood with Jesus’ death, when “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34) and see great significance in that connection. It seems a stretch to say the piercing of Jesus’ side was a divine witness to His deity rather than just an affirmation that Jesus was dead. Then some (C.H. Spurgeon) see in these terms a reference to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Although we could get there with symbolic meaning, there is no exegetical or contextual reason to link John’s reference to water and blood with the Sacraments. Also, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are things that we as believers do to profess and witness to Christ (1 Corinthians 11:26).
(Meditate, Apply & Pray) Thank God we can witness to Jesus in the Sacraments.
FRIDAY– 1 John 5:6: “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.” We’ll elaborate more This Lord’s Day but it seems best to see the water here as a reference to Christ’s baptism and the blood as a reference to His death. Those two events bracketed the Lord’s earthly ministry, and in both of them the Father testified concerning His Son. We’ll also see how this was important in combating false teachers of John’s day. Suffice to say; when you mess up who Jesus is, you mess up the gospel message. Christ was, is and is to come, The God Man sent to save (Revelation 1:8).
(Meditate, Apply & Pray) Father, thank You for sending Jesus to save me.
