"This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one." (vs. 6-8).

Jesus Christ was baptised in water by John the Baptist when his ministry began. The great difference between the mission of John the Baptist and that of Jesus was that John came preaching repentance, purification, and preparation for Messiah and the Messianic Kingdom, whereas Jesus was Himself the Messiah and Himself introduced the Kingdom. Malachi, long centuries before, had declared of John "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly (immediately) come to his temple". (Mal. 3. 1). Jesus, on the other hand, declared "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it" (Luke 16. .16). But the way into that kingdom could only be through the gates of suffering and death. That new life must of necessity involve the cessation of the old life, a giving up in sacrifice that which by virtue of the sacrifice became the source of life that is to be. Jesus Himself touched on that truth when He said "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit". (John 12. 24). The work of John was by water only, the water of baptism, the ceremonial cleansing which betokened the repentance of those who came to him. The work of Jesus was by water and blood. Not only must there be repentance and cleansing and a re-dedication of life to the covenants and the service of God, there must also be a voluntary laying down of life in that service, even unto death, that the disciple may be indeed as his lord. In the case of Jesus there was no question of repentance or cleansing or re-dedication of life. He always did those things which pleased His Father. He was always holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; yet he insisted on going through the baptismal waters at the hands of John. Was it that the witness of the water might thus be His? Here in John's epistle He is pointed to as the One who came by water, and the water is called as a witness to His Messiahship. Can it not be that the ceremony at Jordan on that memorable day, witnessed as it must have been by many people, and attested by the descent of the Holy Dove upon His head and the voice from heaven saying "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"; can it not be that that ceremony was a symbol, not of our Lord's cleansing from sin, for He knew no sin, but of His innate sinlessness and purity. He stood before Israel, there in the river, without sin, without stain, without blemish, proclaimed by the Father as One in whom resided all perfection. That surely was the witness of the water.

In a sense the water was a symbol of the old covenant, the Law Covenant negotiated by Moses on behalf of Israel at Mount Sinai. The writer to the Hebrews makes reference, almost contemptuously as it would seem, to the period of the Law as one of "divers washings and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation' (Heb. 10. 10). John the Baptist was the last prophet of that Mosaic Covenant; he called the people to a renewed observance of that arrangement on the principle that only by adherence to its provisions and requirements could Israel as a nation ever be in the right condition to receive their Messiah and inherit the Kingdom. They failed, of course. "The Law made nothing perfect" says the writer to the Hebrews again "but it was the bringing in of a better hope, by which we draw nigh unto God." (Heb. 7. 19), Something more than water was needed; before mankind could be redeemed there must be the death of a willing offerer, the shedding of blood. If Jesus is to be the Christ there must not only be the witness of water; there must also be the witness of blood.

The symbol is so obvious that it hardly needs elaboration. The shed blood of Christ, is a witness to His Messiahship. Isaiah seven centuries previously had painted in sombre hue the picture of the One Who would pour out His soul unto death. "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth . . . he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken, it pleased the Lord to bruise him…. when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin." (Isa. 53. 7-10). The witness of shed blood must have been particularly significant to those early believers of John's own day, accustomed as they were to the idea of shed blood of the Atonement Day sacrifices being taken into the Most Holy by the High Priest and sprinkled upon the Propitiatory as a covering for sin. (Lev. 16. 14). Perhaps in no other way could Jews of the First Century be brought to believe in Jesus as the "Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world" than by the witness of His death on their behalf; their whole training and background demanded that "almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no remission". (Heb. 9. 22).

But first of all, and most important, is the Spirit's witness. "It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." John can appeal to no higher authority, for "The Spirit searcheth all things" (1 Cor. 2. 10). It is not possible for any finite human brain to grasp all that is involved in the truth regarding the Holy Spirit of God. To say that the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of the power of God in active operation is at best an inadequate presentation. When we are told in Genesis that "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1. 2) we are being told of no less a thing than God Himself, the great Creator, rousing Himself to a mighty work of creation. Just so truly did Elihu, millenniums later, say to Job "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life" (Job 3. 4) and reveal by that declaration his grasp of the transcendent truth that all men are the work of God's own hands. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Gen. 1. 26). The testimony of the Spirit is the testimony of God Himself, and that is just what we have in the story of the Baptism. "This is my beloved Son." What greater testimony could there be than that? Truly it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

Pentecost was a witness of the Spirit that Jesus is Christ; it was the fulfilment of His promise, that power should come upon them after His departure. That power came and has continued with the Christian church ever since. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus; the history of the Early Church, steadfast in persecution unto martyrdom; the experience of true disciples everywhere throughout the Age, even down to the present; the fulfilment of prophecy; the present ever increasing signs of the nearness of the Kingdom; all these are witnesses of the Spirit testifying to the truth that Jesus is Christ and will surely redeem His every promise. The certainty of the twelve apostles immediately after the Day of Pentecost and their steadfast adherence to their faith for the remainder of their lives was a foretaste of the certainty and steadfastness of many thousands of faithful believers in all the centuries since. The Church of Christ in the flesh is itself a witness of the Spirit that Jesus is Christ.

So, says John, these are the three witnesses and these three agree in one. There is no divergence and no difference. The three witnesses speak with one voice. No matter how many false prophets may have gone out into the world, as he says in chapter 4, verse 1, no matter how many antichrists there might be, no matter even how many failures among those who have taken the name of Christ and called themselves His brethren, still the witness stands out and nothing will ever shake it. Jesus is Christ; here is a rock upon which the Church has been built, a foundation so sturdy and strong that even the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt. 16.18).

We must digress at this point to examine the well-known interpolated passage commencing with the words "in heaven" in verse 7 and concluding with the words "in earth" in verse 8. There is general agreement amongst scholars that the words first appear about the end of the 5th century, being then cited by Vigilius Tapsensis, a Latin writer. They seem to be unknown to any of the Greek theologians before the 13th century and the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament in which they appear are copies of the Codex Britannicus and Codex Ravianus, both dated in the early part of the sixteenth century. Had the expression been in any New Testament at the time of the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 it could hardly have failed to have been quoted in the Trinitarian controversy which was one of the features of that Council; yet it is certain that it was not so quoted. Practically every scholar of repute brands the passage as an interpolation, the celebrated student Tischendorf, usually reckoned the greatest New Testament authority of all time, even going so far as to say "That this spurious addition should continue to be published as a part of the epistle I regard as an impiety." The "Textus Receptus" or "Received Text", on which our present New Testament is based, admitted the words on the authority of the sixteenth century scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who hesitated but accepted them at last on the authority of the Codex Britannicus. Martin Luther, contemporary with Erasmus, refused to accept them and in consequence they were not included in the German Bible until many years later after Luther's death. Their survival appears to be due entirely to the fact that they appeared in sundry Latin translations and in some, not all, editions of the Latin Vulgate.

Fortunately the words are quite unnecessary to John's argument—in fact they read rather illogically, for what necessity is there to witness in heaven to the fact that Jesus is Christ? The citizens of heaven were fully aware of that from the start; the glorious anthem of Rev, 5. 8-10 is an expression of the voice of heaven giving praise and glory to the conquering Messiah. John's teaching is plain and straightforward when the disputed words are omitted.

There are three witnesses to the Messiahship of Jesus; the Holy Spirit of God, the baptism of Jesus, and the crucifixion of Jesus, and these three give a united and harmonious testimony. "These three agree in one."

(To be continued)
AOH