The “Case” of the Three Witnesses – Case Closed
January 9, 2005
Dear Friends:
We are ready now to solve these verses (1 John 5:5-13) that have been called “the most perplexing passage in the Epistle, and one of the most perplexing in the New Testament.” Let’s review the facts.
From just a cursory reading, we surmised that this passage had something to do with believing that Jesus is the Son of God. See v. 5.
Next, we were confronted with the witness of the spirit, water and the blood. We knew of two Bible echoes relating the three. The first echo was the piercing of Jesus’ side. The second echo was to the blood of Christ and to his baptism. With very little detective work, we also dismissed parts of verses seven and eight in the King James version as spurious.
We also found by using our concordance that a form of the Greek word martureo occurs eleven times in this passage. It means “to be a witness, to bear witness.” The sheer volume of usage leads us to believe that the key message of the passage concerns a witness of some sort.
The passage then starts to talk about God’s witness. This leads us to look at the three times God spoke from heaven during the course of Jesus ministry; namely at his baptism, the Transfiguration and just prior to his crucifixion.
With this new and compelling information, we are now ready to solve our case. We suggest that the three witnesses or testimonies of 1 John 5 are the three times God spoke from heaven concerning Jesus. The water refers to God’s testimony at Jesus’ baptism. The spirit refers to God’s testimony where Jesus is shown in a vision of his future Kingdom in spirit (The Transfiguration). The blood refers to God’s witness just prior to his crucifixion when Jesus is explaining to his disciples about his being “lifted up” on the cross.
What is God telling us? When we put His testimony all together they read as follows: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” “This is my beloved Son: hear him.” “I have glorified [the Yahweh Name], and will glorify it again.”
God wants us to believe in His Son. This is exactly what we surmised from the first verse we viewed. Does the rest of the passage bear this out? It sure does. “Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him, and whoever does not believe is making God a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.” (v. 10)
John concludes this passage by telling us why we should care about God’s testimony in this matter about His son. It is a matter of life and death. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”
Case closed.
Have a great week!
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