For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost
The Scriptural doctrine of the Trinity not repugnant to sound reason
I.
I shall attempt to show what conceptions the Scripture leads us to form of the peculiar mode of the divine existence.
1. The Scripture leads us to conceive of God, the first and supreme Being, as existing in three distinct persons. The one living and true God exists in such a manner that there is a proper foundation in His nature to speak of Himself in the first, second, and third person, and say I, Thou, and He, meaning only Himself. There is a certain something in the Divine nature which lays a proper foundation for such a personal distinction. But what that something is can neither be described nor conceived. Here lies the whole mystery of the Trinity.
2. The Scripture represents the three persons in the sacred Trinity as absolutely equal in every Divine perfection. We find the same names, the same attributes, and the same works ascribed to each person.
3. The Scripture represents the three equally Divine persons in the Trinity as acting in a certain order in the work of redemption. Though they are absolutely equal in nature, yet in office the first person is superior to the second, and the second is superior to the third. The Son acts in subordination to the Father, and the Spirit acts in subordination to the Son and Father both.
4. The Scripture teaches us that each of the Divine persons takes His peculiar name from the peculiar office which He sustains in the economy of redemption. The first person assumes the name of Father, because He is by office the Creator or Author of all things, and especially of the human nature of Christ. The second person assumes the name of Son and Word, by virtue of His incarnation, and mediatorial conduct. The third person is called the Holy Ghost, on account of His peculiar office as Sanctifier.
5. The Scripture represents these three Divine persons as one God. This is the plain language of the text. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three in respect to their personality, and but one in respect to their nature and essence.
II. This Scriptural account of the mysterious doctrine of the sacred Trinity is not repugnant to the dictates of sound reason.
1. The doctrine of the Trinity, as represented in Scripture, implies no contradiction. There may be, for aught we know, an incomprehensible something in the one self-existent Being which lays a proper foundation for his existing a Trinity in Unity.
2. If it implies no contradiction that the one living and true God should .exist in three persons, then this mysterious mode of the Divine existence is agreeable to the dictates of sound reason. We cannot suppose that the uncreated Being should exist in the same manner in which we and other created beings exist. And if He exists in a different manner from created beings, then His mode of existence must necessarily be mysterious. And whoever now objects against the Scripture account of the sacred Trinity would have equally objected against any other account which God could have given of His peculiar mode of existence.
3. The doctrine of the Trinity, as represented in Scripture, is no more repugnant to the dictates of sound reason than many other doctrines which all Christians believe concerning God. It is generally believed that God is a self-existent Being, or that there is no cause or ground of His existence out of Himself. But who can explain this mode of existence, or even form any clear conception of it? It is generally believed that God is constantly present in all places, or that His presence perpetually fills the whole created universe. But can we frame any clear ideas of this universal presence of the Deity? It is generally believed that God is the Creator, who has made all things out of nothing. But of that power which is able to create, or produce something out of nothing, we can form no manner of conception. This attribute of the Deity, therefore, is as really mysterious and incomprehensible in its operation as the doctrine of the Trinity. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood--
The three-fold witnesses on earth
I. The Spirit bears witness. The Holy Ghost is meant. What is the permanent testimony which He bears to Christ and His gospel? The Scriptures are His witness to Christ. It would be impossible to overrate the value of this testimony. It is a written Word, and therefore not liable to change. We can study it in a way altogether different from the attention which we can give to a spoken discourse. We can carry it with us, whither we go. We can refresh our memory with it as often as we need it. Not only, however, did the Scriptures proceed from the Spirit at the first, but they have been preserved by Him in a most remarkable manner. He has used the most scrupulous care to maintain their purity. Nor does the testimony of the Spirit cease in the publication and preservation of the Scriptures. He continues to enlighten men in the knowledge of them, to impress their hearts by the belief of them, and to bring them under their power. But how are we to speak of the testimony itself which is thus borne by the Spirit to Christ? Then truly the words are verified, “He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine, and show it unto you.” He gives the soul views of Christ such as it never entertained before, the most honourable to Him and assuring to it. He produces affections towards Him such as never existed before, the most ardent and self-denying. He causes unreserved submission to His will, so that it is either borne with patience or done with diligence.
II. The water bears witness to Christ.
1. What are we to understand by this water? There is only one use of water in the Christian economy. This is in the administration of baptism. But the fact that an ordinance is made to be a witness to Christ is not to be passed unnoticed. It resembles the Scriptures in being permanent, but it possesses a feature peculiar to itself. It is a testimony to the eye, and by it to the understanding and heart.
2. What is the amount of the testimony borne by the water of baptism? It is very simple, yet very expressive. In this ordinance we behold reflected, as in a mirror, the gospel of Christ. It is a standing testimony to the depravity of the sinner. If we come to it at all, it is because we are defiled. At the same time the efficacy of cleansing is no less clearly signified. It says, here is a fountain, and everyone that washes in it is made clean. Nor is it the pardon of sin only that is figured in baptism. We are at the same time reminded of the destruction of its power. A great moral change is made to pass upon the soul that is pardoned. Pardon is received by faith, but this grace is ever accompanied by regeneration.
III. The blood is a witness unto Christ. How is it to be understood? The reference appears to be to the Lord’s Supper, as a lively representation of the death of Christ.
1. His person is presented to our faith in the bread and wine. They are emblems of His body, of its reality, that He was truly a partaker of flesh and blood. But this fact cannot be separated from His original and higher nature.
2. Equally clear is the representation of His work. It is testified in the broken bread. That calls up the fact of His crucifixion.
3. We are also taught how we are saved by it. Eating and drinking are essential to the preservation of life.
4. But these exercises are not observed by us singly and alone. We are associated with others. The Lord’s table is thus the emblem of the Church of Christ. There is at it the interchange of a holy and heavenly communion. (James Morgan, D. D.)
The Spirit, and the water, and the blood
We dismiss, without any misgiving, the clause respecting the heavenly Trinity from 1Jn_5:7. The sentence is irrelevant to this context, and foreign to the apostle’s mode of conception. It is the Church’s victorious faith in the Son of God, vindicated against the world (1Jn_5:1-5), that the writer here asserts, and to invoke witnesses for this “in heaven” is nothing to the purpose. The contrast present to his thought is not that between heaven and earth as spheres of testimony, but only between the various elements of the testimony itself (1Jn_5:6-10). (For this manner of combining witnesses, comp. Joh_5:31-47; Joh_8:13-18; Joh_10:25-38; Joh_14:8-13; Joh_15:26-27) The passage of the three heavenly witnesses is now admitted to be a theological gloss, which crept first into the Latin manuscripts of the fifth century, making its way probably from the margin into the text: no Greek codex exhibits it earlier than the fifteenth century. “This,” the apostle writes in 1Jn_5:6 --this “Jesus” of whom we “believe that He is the Son of God” (1Jn_5:5)--“is He that came through water and blood--Jesus Christ.” By this time “Jesus Christ” and “Jesus the Son of God” had become terms synonymous in true Christian speech. The great controversy of the age turned upon their identification. The Gnostics distinguished Jesus and Christ as human and Divine persons, united at the baptism and severed on the Cross, when Jesus cried, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” St. John asserts, therefore, at every turn the oneness of Jesus Christ; the belief that “Jesus is the Christ” he makes the test of a genuine Christianity (1Jn_5:1;comp. 1Jn_2:22; 1Jn_3:23; 1Jn_4:9; 1Jn_4:3; 1Jn_4:15). The name thus appended to verse 6 is no idle repetition; it is a solemn reassertion and reassumption of the Christian creed in two words--Jesus Christ. And He is Jesus Christ, inasmuch as He “came through water and blood--not in the water only.” The heretics allowed and maintained in their own way that Jesus Christ “came by water” when He received His Messianic anointing at John’s baptism, and the man Jesus thus became the Christ; but the “coming through blood” they abhorred. They regarded the death of the Cross, befalling the human Jesus, as a punishment of shame inflicted on the flesh, in which the Divine or Deiform Christ could have no part. Upon this Corinthian view, the Christ who came through water went away rather than came through blood; they saw in the death upon the Cross nothing that witnessed of the Godhead in Jesus Christ, nothing that spoke of Divine forgiveness and cleansing (1Jn_1:7; 1Jn_1:9), but an eclipse and abandonment by God, a surrender of the earthly Jesus to the powers of darkness. The simple words, “that came,” are of marked significance in this context; for “the coming One” (
ï̔ å̓ñ÷ḯìåíïò
, Mat_11:3; Joh_1:15; Joh_1:27; Joh_11:27; Heb_10:37; Rev_1:4; Rev_1:8, etc.) was a standing name for the Messiah, now recognised as the Son of God. “He that came,” therefore, signifies “He who has assumed this character,” who appeared on earth as the Divine Messiah; and St. John declares that He thus appeared disclosing Himself through these two signs--of blood as well as water. So the beginning and the end, the inauguration and consummation of Christ’s ministry, were marked by the two supreme manifestations of His Messiah-ship; and of both events this apostle was a near and deeply interested witness. When he speaks of the Lord as “coming through water and blood,” these are viewed historically as steps in His glorious march, signal epochs in the continuous disclosure of Himself to men, and crises in His past relations to the world; when he says, “in the water and in the blood,” they are apprehended as abiding facts, each making its distinct and living appeal to our faith. This verse stands in much the same relation to the two sacraments as does the related teaching of chs. 3 and 6 in St. John’s Gospel. The two sacraments embody the same truths that are symbolised here. Observing them in the obedience of faith, we associate ourselves visibly with “the water and the blood,” with Christ baptized and crucified, living and dying for us. But to see in these observances the equivalents of the water and blood of this passage, to make the apostle say that the water of baptism and the cup of the Lord’s Supper are the chief witnesses to Him and the essential instruments of our salvation, and that the former sacrament is unavailing without the addition of the latter, is to narrow and belittle his declaration and to empty out its historical content. Nearer to St. John’s thought lies the inference that Christ is our anointed Priest as well as Prophet, making sacrifice for our sin while He is our guide and light of life. To the virtue of His life and teaching must be added the virtue of His passion and death. Had He come “in the water” only, had Jesus Christ stopped short of Calvary and drawn back from the blood baptism, there had been no cleansing from sin for us, no witness to that chief function of His Christhood. This third manifestation of the Son of God--the baptism of the Spirit following on that of water and of blood, a baptism in which Jesus Christ was agent and no longer subject--verified and made good the other two. “And the Spirit,” he says, “is that which beareth witness” (
ìáñôõñïõ͂í
, “the witnessing power”): the water and the blood, though they have so much to say, must have spoken in vain, becoming mere voices of past history, but for this abiding and ever active Witness (Joh_15:26; Joh_16:7-15). The Spirit, whose witness comes last in the order of distinct manifestation, is first in principle; His breath animates the whole testimony; hence He takes the lead in the final enumeration of verse 8. The witness of the water had His silent attestation; the Baptist “testified, saying, I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and it abode upon Him,” etc. (Joh_1:32-33). “It is the Spirit,” therefore, “that bears witness”; in all true witness He is operative, and there is no testifying without Him. “For the Spirit is truth,” is “the truth”--Jesus called Him repeatedly “the Spirit of truth” (Joh_14:17; Joh_15:26; 1Jn_4:6; comp. Joh_4:23-24)--truth in its substance and vital power is lodged with Him; in this element He works; this effluence He ever breathes forth. Practically, the Spirit is the truth; whatever is stated in Christian matters without His attestation, is something less or other than the truth. Such, then, are the “three witnesses” which were gathered “into one” in the Apostle John’s experience, in the history of Jesus Christ and His disciples: “the three” he says. “agree in one,” or more strictly, “amount to the one thing” (
êáé̀ ïé̔ ôñåé͂ò åé̓ò ôï̀ å̓́í åé̓óïõ
, verse 8); they converge upon this single aim. The Jordan banks, Calvary, the upper chamber in Jerusalem; the beginning, the end of Jesus Christ’s earthly course, and the new beginning which knows no end; His Divine life and words and works, His propitiatory death, the promised and perpetual gift of the Spirit to His Church--these three cohere into one solid and imperishable witness, which is the demonstration alike of history and personal experience and the Spirit of God. They have one outcome, as they have one purpose; and it is this--viz. “that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (verse 11). The apostle has indicated in verses 6-8 what are, to his mind, the proofs of the testimony of Jesus--evidences that must in the end convict and “overcome the world” (verse 5). So far as the general cause of Christianity is concerned this is enough. But it concerns each man to whom this evidence comes to realise for himself the weight and seriousness of the testimony which confronts him. So St. John points with emphasis in verses 9 and 10 to the Author of the three-fold manifestation. “If we receive the witness of men”--if credible human testimony wins our ready assent “the witness of God is greater.” The declaration of the gospel brings every soul that hears it face to face with God (comp. 1Th_2:13). And of all subjects on which God might speak to men, of all revelations that He has made, or might conceivably make, to mankind, this, St. John feels, is the supreme and critical matter--“the testimony of God, viz., the fact that He has testified concerning His Son.” The gospel is, in St. Paul’s words, “God’s good news about His Son.” God insists upon our believing this witness; it is that in which He is supremely concerned, and which He asserts and commends to men above all else. Let the man, therefore, who with this evidence before him remains unbelieving, understand what he is about; let him know whom he is rejecting and whom he is contradicting. “He has made God a liar”--he has given the lie to the All-holy and Almighty One, the Lord God of truth. This apostle said the same terrible thing about the impenitent denier of his own sin (1Jn_1:10); these two denials are kindred to each other, and run up into the same condition of defiance toward God. On the other hand, “he who believes on the Son of God,” “hearing from the Father and coming” to Christ accordingly (Joh_6:45), he finds “within himself” the confirmation of the witness he received (verse 10a). The testimony of the Spirit and the water and the blood is no mere historical and objective proof; it enters the man’s own nature, and becomes the regnant, creative factor in the shaping of his soul. The apostle might have added this subjective confirmation as a fourth, experimental witness to the other three; but, to his conception, the sense of inward life and power attained by Christian faith is the very witness of the Spirit, translated into terms of experience, realised and operative in personal consciousness. “The water that I will give,” said Jesus, “will be within him a fountain of water, springing up unto life eternal” (Joh_4:14). It is thus that the believer on the Son of God sets to his seal that God is true. His testimony is not to the general fact that there is life and troth in Christ; but “this is the witness, that God gave to us life eternal, and this life is in His Son”? (verse 11). This witness of God concerning His Son is not only a truth to be believed or denied, it is a life to be chosen or refused; and on this choice turns the eternal life or death of all to whom Christ offers Himself: “He that hath the Son, hath life; he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life” (verse 12). Life appears everywhere in St. John as a gift, not an acquisition; and faith is a grace rather than a virtue; it is yielding to God’s power rather than the exerting of our own. It is not so much that we apprehend Christ; rather He apprehends us, our souls are laid hold of and possessed by the truth concerning Him. Our part is but to receive God’s bounty pressed upon us in Christ; it is merely to consent to the strong purpose of His love, and allow Him, as St. Paul puts it, to “work in us to will and to work on behalf of His good pleasure” (Php_2:13). As this operation proceeds and the truth concerning Christ takes practical possession of our nature, the assurance of faith, the conviction that we have eternal life in Him, becomes increasingly settled and firm. Rothe finely says, “Faith is not a mere witness on the man’s part to the object of his faith; it is a witness which the man receives from that object … In its first beginnings faith is, no doubt, mainly the acceptance of testimony from without; but the element of trust involved in this acceptance, includes the beginning of an inner experience of that which is believed. This trust arises from the attraction which the object of our faith has exercised upon us; it rests on the consciousness of a vital connection between ourselves and that object. In the measure in which we accept the Divine witness, our inner susceptibility to its working increases, and thus there is formed in us a certainty of faith which rises unassailably above all scepticism.” The language of St. John in this last chapter of his Epistle breathes the force of a spiritual conviction raised to its highest potency. For him perfect love has now cast out fear, and perfect faith has banished every shadow of doubt. “Believing on the name of the Son of God,” he “knows that he has eternal life” (verse 13). With him the transcendental has become the experimental, and no breach is left any more between them. (G. G. Findlay, B. A.)
The gospel record
I. The view here given of the gospel testimony.
1. Unspeakably important.
2. Exceedingly comprehensive.
3. Preeminently gracious.
4. Remarkably distinct and definite.
II. The evidence adduced in confirmation of its truths.
1. The voice from heaven.
2. From earth.
3. Scripture testimony.
4. Personal experience.
III. The claims which it has, as thus established, upon our regards. It claims our earnest attention and most serious study; but, above all, it claims our unwavering faith. This is the main point which is here set forth.
1. The nature of faith. It is nothing more nor less than receiving the Divine testimony, especially concerning Jesus Christ.
2. Its reasonableness.
3. Its importance. Through it we have eternal life.
4. The opposite of faith is unbelief--a sin most heinous in its nature, and most awful in its results. (Expository Outlines.)
The three witnesses
Christianity puts forth very lofty claims. She claims to be the true faith, and the only true one. She avows her teachings to be Divine, and therefore infallible; while for her great Teacher, the Son of God, she demands Divine worship, and the unreserved confidence and obedience of men. Now, to justify such high claims, the gospel ought to produce strong evidence, and it does so. The armoury of external evidences is well stored with weapons of proof. The gospel also bears within itself its own evidence, it has a self-proving power. It is so pure, so holy, so altogether above the inventive capacity of fallen man, that it must be of God. But neither with these external or internal evidences have we to do now, but I call your attention to the three witnesses which are spoken of in the text, three great witnesses still among us, whose evidence proves the truth of our religion, the Divinity of our Lord, and the future supremacy of the faith.
I. Our Lord himself was attested by these three witnesses. If you will carefully read in the twenty ninth chapter of the Book of Exodus, or in the eighth chapter of the Book of Leviticus, you will see that every priest came by the anointing Spirit, by water, and by blood, as a matter of type, and if Jesus Christ be indeed the priest that was for to come, He will be known by these three signs. Godly men in the olden times also well understood that there was no putting away of sin except with these three things; in proof of which we will quote David’s prayer, “Purge me with hyssop”--that is, the hyssop dipped in blood--“and I shall be clean; wash me”--there is the water--“and I shall be whiter than snow”; and then, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.” Thus the blood, the water, and the Spirit were recognised of old as necessary to cleanse from guilt, and if Jesus of Nazareth be indeed able to save His people from their sins, He must come with the triple gift--the Spirit, the water, and the blood. Now it was evidently so. Our Lord was attested by the Spirit. The Spirit of God bore witness to Christ in the types and prophecies, “Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”; and Jesus Christ answers to those prophecies. The Spirit abode with our Lord all His life long, and to crown all, after He had died and risen again, the Holy Ghost gave the fullest witness by descending in full power upon the disciples at Pentecost. It is also manifest that our Lord came with water too. He came not by the water merely as a symbol, but by that which the water meant, by unsullied purity of life. With Jesus also was the blood. This distinguished Him from John the Baptist, who came by water, but Jesus came “not by water only, but by water and blood.” We must not prefer any one of the three witnesses to another, but what a wonderful testimony to Christ was the blood! From the very first He came with blood, for John the Baptist cried, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” In His ministry there was often a clear testimony to His future sufferings and shedding of blood, for to the assembled crowd He said, “Except a man eat My flesh and drink My blood, there is no life in him”; while to His disciples He spake of the decease which He should shortly accomplish at Jerusalem. However pure the life He led, had He never died He could not have been the Saviour appointed to bear the iniquity of us all. The blood was needed to complete the witness. The blood must flow with the water, the suffering with the serving.
II. These three remain as standing witnesses to him to all time. And first, the Holy Spirit is witness at this hour that the religion of Jesus is the truth, and that Jesus is the Son of God. By His Divine energy He convinces men of the truth of the gospel; and these so convinced are not only persons who, through their education, are likely to believe it, but men like Saul of Tarsus, who abhor the whole thing. He pours His influences upon men, and infidelity melts away like the iceberg in the Gulf Stream; He touches the indifferent and careless, and they repent, believe, and obey the Saviour. Then, too, the Spirit goes forth among believers, and by them He bears witness to our Lord and His gospel. How mightily does He comfort the saints! And He does the same when He gives them guidance, enlightenment, and elevation of soul. The next abiding witness in the Church is the water--not the water of baptism, but the new life implanted in Christians, for that is the sense in which John’s Master had used the word “water”: “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The world’s conscience knows that the religion of Jesus is the religion of purity, and if professed Christians fall into uncleanness the world knows that such a course of action does not arise out of the religion of Christ, but is diametrically opposite to it. The gospel is perfect, and did we wholly yield to its sway sin would be abhorred by us, and slain in us, and we should live on earth the life of the perfect ones above. The third abiding witness is the blood. The blood of Christ is still on the earth, for when Jesus bled it fell upon the ground and was never gathered up. O earth, thou still art bespattered with the blood of the murdered Son of God, and if thou dost reject Him this will curse thee. But, O humanity, thou art blessed with the drops of that precious blood, and believing in Him it doth save thee. The blood of Jesus, after speaking peace to the conscience, inflames the heart with fervent love, and full often leads men to high deeds of consecration, self-denial, and self-sacrifice, such as can scarce be understood till they are traced back to that amazing love which bled upon the tree.
III. This triple yet united witness is peculiarly forcible within believing hearts. John tells us, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” Now, these three witnesses bear testimony in our souls abidingly. I speak not of years ago, but of last night, when you prayed, and were heard. Did not the Spirit when He helped you to pray, bear witness that the gospel was no lie? Was not the answer to your prayer good evidence? The next witness in us is the water, or the new and pure life. Do you feel the inner life? You are conscious that you are not what you used to be, you are conscious of a new life within your soul which you never knew till the date of your conversion, and that new life within you is the living and incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth forever. Witnessing within us is also the blood. This is a witness which never fails, speaking in us better things than the blood of Abel. It gives us such peace that we can sweetly live and calmly die. It gives us such access to God that sometimes when we have felt its power we have drawn as near to our Father as if we had seen Him face to face. And oh, what safety the blood causes us to enjoy! We feel that we cannot perish while the crimson canopy of atonement by blood hangs over our head. Thus I have tried to show that these three witnesses testify in our souls; I beg you now to notice their order. The Spirit of God first enters the heart, perhaps long before the man knows that such is the case; the Spirit creates the new life, which repents and seeks the Saviour, that is the water; and that new life flies to the blood of Jesus and obtains peace. Having observed their order, now note their combination. “These three agree in one,” therefore every true believer should have the witness of each one, and if each one does not witness in due time, there is cause for grave suspicion,
IV. These witnesses certify to us the ultimate triumph of our religion. Is the Spirit working through the gospel? then the gospel will win the day, because the Spirit of God is almighty, and complete master over the realm of mind. He has the power to illuminate the intellect, to win the affections, to curb the will, and change the entire nature of man, for He worketh all things after His own pleasure, and, like the wind, He “bloweth where He listeth.” Next, the gospel must conquer, because of the water, which I have explained to be the new life of purity. What says John? “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” It is impossible for the gospel to be vanquished so long as there remains in the world one soul that is born of God. Living and incorruptible seed abideth forever! Lastly, the gospel must spread and conquer because of the blood. God, the everlasting Father, has promised to Jesus by covenant, of which the blood is the seal, that He “shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” As surely as Christ died on the Cross, He must sit on a universal throne. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
