1 John 5: 6 is the first verse in a section
(see vs 6–12) of the Epistle in which the word
witness occurs several times and is clearly the subject. Researching
the four Gospels further reveals that John speaks of witness or
testimony more than twice as many times as the other three
Evangelists put together (the words
witness and
testimony come from the
same root word in Greek). Again, John
alone uses the word
witness for the Baptist’s
ministry (see John 1: 7, 8, 15, 19, 32, 34; 3: 26, 28; 5: 33).
Furthermore, while the Synoptics record the Lord speaking of witness
and testimony, it is only in John’s Gospel that we read of Him
speaking of His witness, especially in
chapter five. Again, in the Revelation John speaks four times of
“the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1: 9; 12: 17; 19: 10; 20: 4). Thus
testimony or witness is a significant part of John’s record.
Returning to the relevant section of the
Epistle there are three witnesses (the section from “in heaven” (v7;
AV) to … “on earth” (v 8; AV) having no real manuscript authority).
The testimony of these three witnesses
has a singular object (“agree in one”—v8), and the prominent witness
underpinning the other two is the Spirit, “for the Spirit is the
truth” (v6). The preceding words “This is he that came by water and
blood, Jesus [the] Christ; not by water only, but by water and
blood” show that the coming of the Christ is marked by two elements:
water and blood in that order.
These elements describe
how He came. The phrase “not by water only” clearly implies that
Jesus the Christ
could have come by
water
alone, but He did not.
How did He come? Scripture speaks of the Lord coming
from heaven (see John
3: 13; 6: 38, 41, 42, 51, 58), but
never to earth. When a
destination is in view, it is
never to but always
into the world (see
John 1: 9; 3: 19; 9: 39; 11: 27; 12: 46; 16: 28; 18: 37; Heb. 10:
5)—for the word world in
the NT does not describe a physical place but the sphere of public
testimony where men live. Hence, the Lord said to Pilate “Thou
sayest [it], that I am a king. I have been born for this, and for
this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the
truth” (John 18: 37). So when did the Lord come into the world? When
He began His public ministry. This was at His baptism. John the
Baptist says “And I knew him not; but that he might be
manifested to Israel,
therefore have I come baptising with
water” (John 1: 31, my
emphasis). This, I believe, was the coming by water.
John’s baptism is identified with the Kingdom
on earth and his associated preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of
the heavens has drawn nigh” (Matt. 3: 2) was
for Israel alone. Now
while John could rightly be described as coming
by water only, for he
was known
as the Baptist, this
could not be said of the Lord since His coming was twofold. With
Him, there was the answer to prophecy in coming to Israel by water
as the Baptist testified, but there was also the far deeper and
wider motive: and that was to deal with sin. Again, the Baptist
testified “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world” (John 1: 29)—again, a testimony peculiar to John’s Gospel.
Elsewhere we read “Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1: 15, my emphasis)
or as John puts it “he has
been
manifested that he
might take away our sins” (1 John 3 5, my emphasis). This required
the blood. The difference between the two is denoted by the language
of Scripture: the testimony of the Kingdom to Israel was “hidden
from [the] world’s
foundation” (Matt. 13: 35, my emphasis); the blood was “foreknown
indeed
before [the]
foundation of [the] world” (1 Pet. 1: 20, my emphasis). The Lord’s
baptism was at the beginning of His public testimony; His
crucifixion, when the blood was shed, terminated that testimony,
being the last time the world heard and saw Him. John
alone gives the record “when they saw that he was already dead
they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his
side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.
And he who saw it bears witness, and his witness is true, and he
knows that he says true that ye also may believe” (John 19: 33–35).
The Lord was able to say “Thy sins are forgiven” (Luke 7: 48, for
example), during his public testimony, because His words always
looked on to the shedding of His blood, for “without blood–shedding
there is no remission” (Heb. 9: 22).
Summing up then, the coming of Jesus Christ by
water was on the line of the ways of God (see Is. 2: 3; Mic. 4: 2;
Rom. 11: 33), ways that may change, but His coming by blood, “the
blood of his cross” (Col. 1: 20), answered to “the unchangeableness
of his purpose” (Heb. 6: 17).
