For an explanation of this layout and the key to the books referenced, read here. https://stevehusting.com/alivetogod/meditations-on-1-john-11-4-with-notes/
v. 6, Jesus Christ — he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) Water = baptism. Blood = death. “5:6-8. But the object of this faith must aways be the One who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. … suggests that he was refuting a false notion of the type held by Cerinthus. … taught that the divine Christ descended on the man Jesus at His baptism and left Him before His crucifixion. Thus he denied … [Jesus] came by both water and blood.”
(Vincent’s II) “By water and blood. Water refers to Christ’s baptism at the beginning of His Messianic work … Blood refers to His bloody death upon the cross.” Here are two principles of interpretation: “(1.) Water and blood must point both to some purely historical facts in the life of our Lord on earth… (2.) They must not be interpreted symbolically, but understood of something so real and powerful.” (Recovery) “… and the Spirit, who is the truth, the reality in life (Rom. 8:2), germinates those whom God has redeemed out of the old creation, by regenerating them with the divine life. Thus they are born of God and become His children.”
v. 7, For there are three that testify:
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “The Spirit’s witness may be thought of as coming through the prophets (including John the Baptist). The Spirit’s witness, then, was augmented by the historical realities involved in ‘the water’ and ‘the blood.’ ”
(Life) “5:7-9 The Gospels twice record God’s clear declaration that Jesus as his Son—at Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:16-17), and at his transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).”
(ESV) “5:7-8 … The gospel is not based on merely human testimony.”
v. 8, the Spirit, the water, and the blood — and these three are in agreement.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “are in agreement that a single divine Person, Jesus Christ, was involved in these events.”
(Vincent’s II) “Agree in one. Lit., are for the one. They converge upon the one truth, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh.”
v. 9, If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “5:9-12. If man’s testimony can be accepted when adequately attested (Deut. 19:15), God’s testimony, being greater, ought also be accepted.”
(ESV) “It is not merely his [John’s] testimony; it is God’s.”
v. 10, The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony God has given about his Son.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) The believer has this testimony internalized. “5:9-12. Each believer has God’s truth in his heart.” God’s testimony is truth or we are calling Him a liar. “There is no middle ground.” [This passage is] “perhaps better taken as commencing a new thought” [in vv. 11-12].
(Vincent’s II) “On the Son of God. Faith in the person of Christ, not merely in the fact that Jesus is the Son of God.”
(ESV) “This is the ‘inward testimony of the Spirit,’ the internal realization that Christians have of the Holy Spirit’s presence and work within them.”
(Recovery) “If we believe into His Son, we receive and have His testimony in ourselves.”
v. 11, And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) In vv. 11-12, “John returned to the content of the testimony.”
(ESV) “The testimony supporting faith in Christ is not a vague spiritual inkling but has definite substance.”
(Recovery) “His Son is the means through which He gives us His eternal life, which is His goal for us.”
v. 12, The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) Here is the testimony. Perhaps the antichrists were claiming “that the readers did not really have eternal life through God’s Son.”
(Life) “You don’t need to wait for eternal life because it begins the moment you believe. You don’t need to work for it, because it is already yours.”
(ESV) “Has the Son implies a faith that is evident in love for others and devotion to God.”
v. 13, I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “What John had just written about God’s testimony (5:9-12) aims to assure his readers that … believers do indeed possess eternal life.” KJV has “and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” “Perhaps [scribes thought this passage redundant and]… eliminated from his manuscript. But it actually prepares the ground for the discussion about prayer which follows. … Prayer too is an expression of trust in the name of God’s Son.”
(Vincent’s II) “May know. Not perceive, but know with settled and absolute knowledge.” “Ye have eternal life. ‘that ye have life—yes, eternal life.’ ”
(Life) “Eternal life is not based on feelings, but on facts.”
(ESV) “that you may know implies that it is possible for Christians to have assurance of salvation.”
(Recovery) “The written words of the Scriptures are the assurance to the believers, who believe into the name of the Son of God, that they have eternal life.”
FIRST JOHN 5 MEDITATION vv. 6-13.
The true Jesus Christ had a human birth, born of Mary, the Word incarnate, who ended His human life on the cross, shedding His own blood to pay the penalty for our sins. He did not, as some antichrists supposed, have a pretense of a human body, nor become divine some time after His birth or after His baptism, nor become a Christ idea, nor die on the cross symbolically and rise merely spiritually, His body decaying. The enemies in the church want to propose ideas like these, including that Christ did not come in the flesh, and it is not enough to have eternal life by believing in Jesus the Son of God. If our beliefs lean away from any of these latter truths, then we have drunk the poison of the antichrists.
The water baptism is where the Father witnessed of His Son, and the cross witnessed of His love, for He shed His human blood when He died. Both witness to His humanity and to His divinity. The Spirit bears witness to all, both in our hearts and in the prophets who spoke by the Spirit of these things to come. The Spirit debunks the antichrists and so does the written record.
The antichrist will deny that we can have eternal life by faith in Jesus the Son of God. Yet the Scriptures bear testimony to this fact (John 3:16). And when we trust in this Jesus of history then we receive the Spirit of regeneration and are born again with a spiritual birth, able to receive the testimony of the Spirit. We can know spiritual realities by His Spirit in us (1 Corinthians 2). Through the Spirit we can know that what the Scriptures say is true of us, and find assurance that we are born again. When we know these things, then we have the Spirit in us, and He will whisper that assurance.
Many in the church are not born again. They are believing a doctrine is true, but not trusting in the Person to which the doctrine points. Beware of a deceitful faith. The Spirit-filled believer is studying God’s Word to receive God’s command for himself, fasten his faith on the Savior and Lord, and embody the message in his sphere of influence, loving his neighbor as himself with God’s own love. This is the believer’s goal; this is the message of 1 John, to love the Lord and prove that love by loving the neighbor in the local church community, and beyond.
