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1Jn_5:7. By means of the witness of the Spirit, water and blood also attain to the position of witnesses. As such John now adduces them in connection with the Spirit, in order by the weight of this threefold witness to confirm the truth that the Son of God, who is identical with Jesus, is the Messiah.
The ὅτι which begins the verse means neither: “jam vero” (Grotius, Calov), nor: “hence” (Meyer), nor: “consequently” (Baumgarten-Crusius), but: “for.” This connection with the foregoing is explained by the fact that the truth of the testimony of the Holy Ghost (who is the truth itself) is strengthened by the circumstance that it is not He alone that bears witness, but that with Him the water and the blood bear witness also, as the two elements by means of which the atonement took place (similarly Lücke);[312] de Wette unnecessarily supplies: “and, humanly considered, the witness is also true, for.” Paulus connects 1Jn_5:9, as consequent, with this verse as antecedent: “because there are three, etc., then, if, etc., the witness of God is much greater.” This construction, which is contrary to the style of John, is the more to he rejected as an erroneous idea arises from it.
τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ] The masculine is used because the three that are mentioned are regarded as concrete witnesses (Lücke, etc.), but not because they are “types of men representing these three” (Bengel),[313] or symbols of the Trinity (as they are interpreted in the Scholion of Matthaei, p. 138, mentioned in the critical notes). It is uncertain whether John brings out this triplicity of witnesses with reference to the well-known legal rule, Deu_17:6; Deu_19:15, Mat_18:16, etc., as several commentators suppose. It is not to be deduced from the present that ὕδωρ and αἷμα are things still at present existing, and hence the sacraments, for by means of the witness of the Spirit the whole redemptive life of Christ is permanently present, so that the baptism and death of Jesus—although belonging to the past—prove Him constantly to be the Messiah who makes atonement for the world (so also Braune). The participle οἱ μαρτυροῦντες , instead of the substantive οἱ μάρτυρες , emphasizes more strongly the activity of the witnessing.
τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα ] All these three expressions have here, of course, the same meaning as previously.[314]
καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν ΕἸΣΙΝ ] Luther inaccurately: “and these three are one;” ΤῸ ἝΝ is the one specific object of the witness; “the three are directed to this one,” namely, in their thus unanimous witness. Storr inaccurately: “they serve one cause, they promote one and the same object, namely, the object previously mentioned (v. 1, 5).”
[312] “In ver. 6 it was said that the witnessing Spirit is the truth, and hence it is implied that, to prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Spirit unites with the water and blood, as the testimony of the truth. As John now assumes this conclusion from ver. 6, he adds, passing on to another subordinate confirmatory proof: for,” etc.
[313] Tropum … Ap. Adhibet … ut hoc dicat: tria sunt genera hominum, qui ministerio testandi in terra funguntur: (1) illud … genus testinni, quod praeconio evangelii vacat; (2) illud gen. test., quod baptismum administrat, ut Johannes baptista et caeteri; (3) illud gen. test., quod passionem et mortem Domini spectavit et celebrat.
[314] Weiss erroneously refers the witness of the baptism here to that which was given at the baptism of Christ, and the witness of the death to that which was given at the outflowing of His blood.—It is not by what happened in connection with them, but in themselves, that ὕδωρ and αἷμα are the μαρτυροῦντες .—According to Ebrard, ὕδωρ here “is the baptism of water instituted by Christ, as an external institution … as the representation of every means of grace to be administered by men, above all in its connection with the preaching of the word;” and αἷμα is “the blood of Christ, i.e. His atoning death, … not, however, the blood of Christ alone, but also the power of the blood of the testimony, which is shed from time to time by His disciples for the sake of confessing Jesus.” To this Ebrard further adds: “we may say that in the water of baptism is embodied the confession which by its firmness overcomes the lie, and in the blood of testimony that love which by patience overcomes the power of the flesh.” This interpretation needs no refutation.
REMARK.
According to the Rec., after οἱ μαρτυροῦντες appear the words: ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ … οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ (see the critical notes). Luther says in reference to them: “It appears as if this verse was inserted by the orthodox against the Arians, which, however, cannot suitably be done, because both here and there he speaks not of witnesses in heaven, but of witnesses on earth.” With this most modern commentators agree, with the exception of Besser and Sander. It is true that, if we consider the contents of the whole Epistle, the idea of the three witnesses in heaven may be brought into connection with something or other that appears in the Epistle; but it does not follow from this that that idea has here a suitable or even a necessary place. This plainly is not the case, so much the more, as neither in what follows nor in what immediately precedes, with which 1Jn_5:7 is closely connected by ὅτι , is there the slightest reference to such a witness of the Trinity. There are clear and intelligible grounds in the foregoing for adducing the three witnesses: πνεῦμα , ὓδωρ , αἷμα , but not for adducing the three witnesses: ὁ πατήρ , ὁ λόγος , τὸ πνεῦμα ἅγιον ; this trinity appears quite unprepared for; but the sequel is also opposed to it, for it makes it unintelligible what witness is meant by the μαρτυρία τοῦ Θεοῦ , 1Jn_5:9, whether that of the three in heaven, or that of the three on earth.
To this it may be added that these two different classes of witnesses appear together quite unconnected; it is said, indeed, that these three witnesses agree in one, but not in what relationship the two threes stand to one another.
Besides, however, the idea in itself is utterly obscure; for what are we to understand by a witness in heaven? Bengel, it is true (with whom Sander agrees), says: “non fertur testimonium in coelo, sed in terra: qui autem testantur, sunt in terra, sunt in coelo; i.e. illi sunt naturae terrestris et humanae, hi autem naturae divinae et gloriosae.” How untenable, however, this is, is shown, on the one hand, in the fact that ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ does not belong to εἰσιν , but rather to μαρτυροῦντες , and the text therefore does not speak of being, but of bearing witness, in heaven; and, on the other hand, in the fact that according to it the πνεῦμα which is connected with ὓδωρ and αἷμα must be regarded as something earthly and human.
There is further the un-Johannean character of the diction, as by John ὁ Θεός and ὁ λόγος , and similarly ὁ πατήρ and ὁ υἱός , are certainly conjoined, but never ὁ πατήρ and ὁ λόγος ; Sander avails himself of the assumption, which is certainly very easy, of a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον ; but this is here unwarrantable, for those ideas are so frequently occurring in John—and that mode of conjunction is not accidental, but is grounded on the nature of the case. We see that the interpolator wrote λόγος , because this suggested itself to him as a genuine Johannean expression, without reflecting that its connection with πατήρ is un-Johannean. Finally, the καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι is also strange. Bengel interprets: unum sunt essentia, notitia, voluntate, atque adeo consensu testimonii. Bengel with justice puts the essentiality first, for it is just this that is denoted by the expression—but just this is unsuitable here, where the subject rather is the unity of the witness.