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Having mentioned the Spirit’s testifying in the close of 1Jo_5:6, he returns to give us in order, in these two verses, the whole testimony of the truth of Christianity, which he reduces to two ternaries of witnesses. The matter of their testimony is the same with that of their faith who are born of God, that Jesus is the Son of God, and the Messiah, as may be collected from what was said before, 1Jo_5:1,5, and what is said afterwards, 1Jo_5:9. What they believe, is no other thing than what these testify. For the first three,
in heaven, that is not said to signify heaven to be the place of their testifying; for though the same thing concerning Jesus be also no doubt testified to the glorious inhabitants of that world, yet that is not the apostle’s present scope, but to show what reason we have, who inhabit this world, to believe Jesus to be Christ, and the Son of God.
In heaven therefore is to be referred to
three, not to bear record, or witness; as if the text were read, which it may as well: There are three in heaven who bear witness; the design being to represent their immediate testifying from thence unto us, or the glorious, heavenly, majestic manner of their testifying. So the Father testified of the man Jesus by immediate voice from heaven, at his baptism and transfiguration: This is my Son, & c. The eternal Word owned its union with him, in that glory with which it so eminently clothed his humanity, and which visibly shone through it in the holy mount, whereof this apostle was a spectator, and whereto he seems to refer in his Gospel, Joh_1:14: We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, i.e. such as sufficiently testified him to be so, even the very Son of God. And the Holy Ghost testified, descending as a dove in a visible glorious appearance upon him, at his baptism also.
And these three are one, viz. not only agreeing in their testimony, as 1Jo_5:8, but in unity of nature: an express testimony of the triune Deity, by whatsoever carelessness or ill design left out of some copies, but sufficiently demonstrated by many most ancient ones, to belong to the sacred text: of which L. Brug. Not. in loc., with the other critics, and at large, Dr. Hammond.