I John, 5:6-8

All right. Well, let's see here. Bradley's not here today. So he started a tradition months back where we read this together. This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement."

So first I wanted to mention that if you have a King James version, you would notice that what we just read is different. And what I have on the screen was the New American Standard updated and it's different than the King James. And here's the King James and the blue text is the. is what the King James has that the New American Standard does not have. So this is the King James, so why does it have something different than the New American Standard? The portion in question, or the portion that was in the blue text there, it actually has a name, and they call it the Comma Johannium, or the Johannine Comma.

So, this longer reading that we saw in the King James is only found in eight late manuscripts, and four of these manuscripts have the words in a marginal note. And when I say late, we're talking like the 16th century, that late. Not all of them in the 16th century, but most are in the 16th century. And then if if the words of if these words are in the margin, what that means is I don't have a picture, but if you have the actual text, then someone wrote up in the margin the the words that I had in blue there. So about the Trinity. The earliest of these eight manuscripts is from the 10th century. And it also has the words in a marginal note. And that marginal note was added at a later time.

They can tell that too. So, kind of in conclusion, what we see is that there is not any evidence of that reading in any Greek manuscript until the 16th century. And so most Bible students and scholars and people that study those details have decided that, yeah, that's one instance where the scribes actually added something that shouldn't have been there. Most cases in the Bible where there's textual variance, it's not the case. But anyway, this is one where, in the King James Version, they added something that probably shouldn't have been there. So, kind of interesting.

So, where did the words come from then? If they were added, where did they come from? Well, it seems that the words came from a 4th century sermon where the 1st John 5-7-8 text was allegorized to refer to the members of the Trinity. So, about the 4th century, they think it came from about the 4th century in the Latin version, but it's not in the Greek versions until the 1500s.

And so in this case, the added portions appear to just be added. And then what I did is at the end of your notes, I put a paper by Daniel Wallace and it has all of this information came from that paper. And it's a pretty good paper and it gives you a lot more details if you want to look into that.

So. Yeah. That is exactly as it was taught here before. Is it? This is my wife's Bible. I don't know here. Verse seven. But there is one thing I think I noticed it, too. If you look here, the new American standard. With the old Americans, this is the King James.

But people have moved the words between verses around, which makes it even a little more confusing. The same words are there. Everybody agrees in the same words, but they moved them from verse number to verse number. I noticed between the updated. In the New American Standard, they've moved some words around. The same words are there. They just moved them from one verse to the other. So, just be a little bit careful when you look.

I think everybody agrees those extra words should not be there, but where they place them and what verse they call them. So, in other words, it's the same, it's this text, but they just put verse 7 up here somewhere? Is that what they did? Yeah, that's where it's a little confusing, but you can't say, well, omit verse seven because it depends upon what translate, what, what version you're using. So just be careful. So what you're saying, you can't just say verse seven is gone. You say, well, what words are in verse seven?

So, yeah, I mean, it's complicated, but I've heard the same. Yeah, it's a little tricky. This is a tricky one. Okay, what we do, and for my dad and mom, what we do is we go through kind of each word, look at it in kind of detail, and then summarize and make sense out of it all, hopefully. So this first one is this.

It's a near demonstrative pronoun, meaning this or these. And I gave you this really pertinent information a couple weeks ago, if you like even more detail here. But a near demonstrative pronoun would be like near. A far demonstrative pronoun would be far. A near demonstrative pronoun is this, these.

So what's it referring to? This refers to Jesus, the Son of God of verse 5, near to verse 6. Is the verb amy to be? It's an essence verb and the tense is present tense, right now and continuing. And of course everybody here knows this word well. We see it every week. It's used 99 times in all. And today we're going to get quite tired of seeing that word too. It shows up a lot today.

The one who came, this is the verb erkemi, to come, and here it's a participle, so it's like a verbal noun. The one who came, it's the whole phrase. It's Aorist tense, and most people interpret that to be a past tense in this case. Even though with participles, it's a little more tricky when you look at the Aorist tense. Okay. Erkemiah is used five times in 1 John.

The One Who Came. This refers to Christ's manifestation to the Jews and the world at His first coming. And believe it or not, there are people who, I have to say that because they interpret that this differently. I think it was some of the reformers interpret this present tense, the one who comes, and they refer to Jesus coming kind of into your life in a spiritual way. So, it's interesting. But if we're going to interpret God's Word based on a literal, hermeneutic, then this would be best here. And avoid allegorizing when it's not in the text. So anyway, here's a little chart, diagram.

Of course, this is Christ's first coming. So, the one who came by water and blood. This preposition by is dia. through or by means of. And in this case, it marks the instrument by which something is accomplished. So how did Jesus come? Or what circumstances attended His coming? It would be water and blood. We'll get into that.

Okay, this is just interesting. D.I. is used 670 times in the New Testament and John only uses it 88 times. Paul uses it a lot and some of the other authors of the Gospels use it a lot. But John doesn't use it very much. Now water here, hudor. Four times in 1 John. And now, here's kind of a flip-flop, 48 of 79 occurrences in New Testament are by John.

So what is this water referring to? The one who came by water and blood. What is water referring to? What does it mean that Jesus came by water? We're going to come back to this. This is Kai. You know Kai now, probably. It's just a conjunction that joins two words together in most instances.

Blood. Haima. This one shows up four times in 1 John. And so, what does it mean that Jesus came by blood? We're going to come back to this too. Okay. Jesus Christ. This is his name, his title, and together, Jesus Christ is used 135 times in the New Testament. John uses it 6 times in this book. And we've gone over this before, so this is review.

Jesus is then a transliteration of the Hebrew word Joshua, which means Jehovah saved or Jehovah saves, present tense. And then Christ means the anointed one and denotes his work as Messiah to physically and spiritually save the nation of Israel. Is that your way? So put them together, you have Jesus' work of saving, and then you have his work in relation to the nation of Israel.

So he came by water and blood. but not with water only, and this is just ooch, not, negative particle, not with the water only. Now here's another preposition, it's different. Last time we had dia in the last phrase, now we have en. And this preposition has various meanings, and normally it means to be entirely in someone or something, and we've seen that a lot. When the Bible talks about our being in Christ Jesus, it means we're entirely in Christ Jesus. Well, here it's used a little differently. And this usage, by, doesn't differ very much from dia in the previous phrase. They both refer to the way something's done.

And there are a couple other New Testament examples of this, where dia and en are used interchangeably. And we're not going to go into them, but it's an unusual situation where dia and en are used interchangeably. And so, if you're interested, you can look those up. Just to tell you a lot of... There are quite a few Bible teachers who make a distinction between dia and en here, and they teach a little differently here. But then I think, and the way I interpret it, I think it's correct to say that they're used interchangeably here.

Okay, the water, hudur again. And we're going to get there. only, manan. This is an adverb. So not with the water only. And we'll talk about why John added that phrase when we summarize this verse. Not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. And now we have but, but or rather, Allah.

And in this context, Allah is contrastive or adversative And here's a that's kind of a. Some weird, weird terms that you don't use these every day. So here's here's a definition of a contrast of conjunction. This use suggests a contrast or opposing thought to the idea to which it is connected. And in Koine Greek, this is the strongest adversative conjunction.

And Verns emphasized that in the main hour as well in the past couple of years. So this is a pretty strong but, not with water only but, In contrast to water only, he came with the water and with the blood. With the water, this is the same phrase. I'm just going to throw it up on the screen. It uses the preposition and again. There's Kai, again. And with the blood, just the same phrase again. It uses the preposition and.

Okay. Alright, so normally what we do is we finish this entire verse and then we'll summarize it. But since there's so much here that we need to answer before we move on, we'll go ahead and we'll summarize the first half of verse 6 here. Okay, so what does it mean that Jesus Christ came by water and blood? Alright, okay, gotta throw this up there again.

1 John 5-6 is considered the most perplexing verse of 1 John. And it was pretty tricky. And also, historically, throughout church history, the interpretations of this verse are quite varied. People come up with at least four different interpretations.

And I thought you'd be interested to know what those are. So I'm going to give you those four, and then I'll teach you which one I think is actually the correct one. I'm not going to give you a lot of details because it would take probably a bit of time, but here they are. Here's the first.

So again, we're looking at this entire phrase, the one who came by water and blood. What do the words water and blood stand for and mean? The first is that this phrase refers to the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Table. Remember, I mentioned some of the Reformers interpret this Cain as being a present tense, the one who comes by water and blood. So they would say that Jesus comes to you, personally or spiritually, as you partake in water baptism and the Lord's Supper. Here's a couple of guys that taught that. Augustine, going way back, and Chrysostom, Calvin, Luther. Secondly, some teach that this refers to the Incarnation, and specifically to Jesus' birth. Water and blood. Just wait. A lot of water, blood.

Okay, this is taught by one Bible teacher, a contemporary Bible teacher named Larson, for example. Another interpretation is that this phrase refers to the baptism, the water baptism of Christ. and to the death of Christ on the cross. A few guys that teach this are Bruce, Weiss, Plummer, Westcott, not Jake, different guy. Not after this week, he's not a Bible teacher. And then other Bible teachers have taught this, number four, that it refers just to the death of Christ. So, not to the baptism and the death of Christ, but just to the death of Christ. And there's a verse in John, the Gospel, describing the crucifixion, where it says that it reverses this, it says that blood and water flowed out of Christ.

So some Bible teachers go to that. Okay, so those are the four. Raymond Brown is a contemporary teacher that goes with number four. Alright, so which interpretation best fits the context of 1 John and the larger context of the New Testament? And what I discover in studying is that number three is the best interpretation.

This phrase refers to the baptism, the water baptism of Christ. and to the death of Christ. I already had established that the one who came, this phrase, the participle refers to his first coming, when he came into the world to do several things, one of which was to die for the sins of the world. Okay, and we'll get into this a little bit. then speaks of Christ's historical baptism by John the Baptist, where he officially began his earthly ministry. That was the moment where the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, and then we have Christ going into temptation by Satan, and then bam, he's off traveling and calling his disciples and showing himself to the Jews. Blood speaks of Christ's historical substitutionary death on the cross.

I didn't add it to this bullet, but remember in 1 John 4 verses 1, 2, and 3 maybe, where we have that figure of speech called a metonymy. This is another example. I should have thrown it up there, but I forgot about it until last night after this was all done. But a metonymy is a figure of speech where one entity is substituted for another associated entity.

So you have the water. of the Jordan, where Christ was baptized, speaking of the event of Christ's water baptism. Then you have the blood, which of course was Christ's own blood, but it speaks of his death on the cross, the crucifixion, the whole deal.

That's what's going on there. Okay, so here's a verse. If you look at this, 1 John 5, 6, this is what we're studying. And this is the one who came by water and blood. And then John adds this, not with the water only phrase, but with the water and the blood. And we saw that this is a pretty strong conjunction.

So why did John add this phrase? What do you think? Why did he have to throw that in there? to refute the Gnostics. Does anybody remember what they were teaching in relation to the baptism? And I've ignored them. What is that? He didn't go to the cross, yeah.

And it's bizarre, but there was a guy named Serenthes, or Serenthes as it's sometimes spelled, and not the Bible, but church tradition tells us that the Apostle John actually debated and struggled with Serenthes in Ephesus. And of course, this is, Ephesus is most likely where John wrote this letter from. Well, Serenthes taught that Christ, The Christ descended upon Jesus, the mere man Jesus, had his baptism. And the Christ, the divine Christ, stayed on this man until just before the crucifixion, and then the Christ left him. Because the Gnostics didn't believe that the Christ could be affected by death and all that shame. So, that seems to be why John throws it in there.

But not with the water only. Yes, Christ's first company, I'm sorry, Christ's first coming was associated with water and blood. He came by water and blood. The baptism and the cross. But not with the water only. It wasn't just the baptism that is significant in Christ's earthly life. But the water and the blood.

That seems to be what's going on. So again, in conclusion, John is saying that Jesus Christ's first coming was attended by the following circumstances. He came by water, baptism, and the crucifixion. And this would have corrected the false teachings of the Gnostics, because John affirms that Jesus Christ died on the cross.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the water baptism, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, it does. It does. Because that's where the Father, well, It's usually the event that denotes or marks the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry. Yeah, that one's dia. Yeah. His coming, and his coming, was his first coming, the duration, was by water and blood. In other words, those are two events that set it off. Obviously, they're not the only things that happened during Christ's first coming, but those are two events that did occur and that are pretty prominent. Does that make sense? Kind of? I'm just thinking if it was instrumentally used, the water and the blood were the things that made him come.

Yeah, yeah. And there are some people who do interpret it that way. In other words, it's just at his birth, this is referring to. Right. And so it depends on how you interpret this, the one who came. Would that be like his earthly ministry? Yeah. That's when he came for his earthly ministry? Right.

In other words, the one who came, this is Christ at His first coming. This isn't referring just to His birth, it's referring to His earthly life ministry, the whole first coming. I don't know. It's just that describes, to some extent, his first coming. It's a summary statement. He's summarizing, this is Christ. He came by water and blood.

It's not trying to single out either one of us. It's a summary. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, we'll bring it up again here at the end after we get to seven and eight and kind of talk about a little more. Yeah, it's a little tricky passage. OK, so we'll go. Wow. What happened here?

And it is the Spirit who testifies. Okay, I think a couple of my slides got out of order here. So we're moving on with 6b, last half of verse 6. And it is the Spirit who testifies. And Chi again. What's that? I did something unusual. Yeah, I just summarized the first half of 6. Because we left so much unanswered there. So this picks back up in the middle of verse 6. And Kai...

What's that? Oh, that's right. Okay, here's where it is. Is that what your Bible says? Or do you have NASB? This is still verse six in the new one. Okay. That is where you're confused. Okay. So, okay. Anyway, so sixth year seven. Here we go. And this isn't in the new American standard underline. So I added it because it's in the Greek. Just another guy. Again, you're going to be first. It isn't. Okay. So.

You're going to be tired of Kai and you're going to be tired of Amy by the end of this morning. Because here it is again, it is the Spirit who testifies. It's the same verb, right now, present tense, the Spirit. Ta-neuma, pa-neuma, if you want. And this is one of our key words used 13 times in 1 John, the Spirit.

And if you remember back to chapter 4, we saw that pneuma in the New Testament can mean many different things. Totally unrelated. Wind, breath, spiritual gifts, angels, demons, the Holy Spirit, purpose, or character. I won't put you through all those details. But here, it clearly refers to the Holy Spirit. And that we know from the next phrase. Because it says, the Spirit is the truth. So, there's no doubt about this. It is the Spirit who testifies.

Martur eto, and this is where we get our English word, martyr, to be a witness, to bear witness, to testify. It can be translated in those ways. It's used nine times in 1 John, quite a few times in our context this morning. It's also a participle, so it's the one who is testifying. The Spirit is the one who is testifying. And it's a present tense testifying, active voice. So what does the Holy Spirit testify? Spirit testifies, what does He testify? And we're going to come back to this a little later as well. Yeah, okay. There we go. Because, Hati. That or because. It's a subordinating conjunction.

And we saw last week that Hati serves two purposes in Koine Greek. The first is that it marks the substance or contents of a statement. Or secondly, it explains the reason that anything is said or done. And the second definition is what's going on here.

It explains the reason that the Spirit is testifying, because the Spirit is the truth. The Spirit is pneuma again. is, yeah, Amy again here, and the truth, Alephia, the truth, this word Alephia shows up nine times in 1 John. Okay, alright, so we're actually going to keep going here, go through the rest, all the way through the end of verse 8, and then we'll summarize it at the end. Okay, for there are three that testify. Now this is Hati again, we just had Hati, because the Spirit is the truth, and now we have, for there are three that testify, and Hati is here also explaining the reason that anything is said or done.

For there are three, there are, any guesses? Amy again here. Trace. Sounds like a Spanish. Just the number three. Just an adjective, numerical adjective. It shows up four times in 1 John and they're all in our little passage this morning that we're studying. Martureo again, same verb. Here it's a participle as well. So literally it's the ones who are testifying. There are three who are testifying. Present tense, active voice. That's verse 7. Back one slide, that word martureo, is that where we get the word martyr? Yeah, it is.

And what they did, and you'll notice this a lot if you look at the Greek fonts, is this U, the Upsilon in Greek, they made that a Y when they brought words over into English. I don't know why they did it, but a lot of Greek words were in the Greek. If you study out the history of the word, it would be actually a U, but then when they brought it over into English, they made it a Y. I can't think of any examples, but that happens quite a bit. All right, so... Oh, Psyche is one. Psyche. It's actually in Greek, it's a U. But in English, when they brought it over, it's Psyche. Psycho, or Psyche, or whatever. Psyche.

So, they made it a Y. Okay, verse 8 here. The spirit and the water and the blood, for the three are in agreement. The spirit, Yuma. Water, same. Blood, same as before. And two instances of Kai here. All right. Kai again. And let me remind you of this. On average, Kai occurs about one time. in every verse of the New Testament. And you can see that this morning. We've had it about five times in two verses. And the three are in agreement. Well, this is just our adjective three again. Same as before. Amy. Will it ever end? No more. These guys are tired of Amy.

Okay. In agreement. This is actually a little prepositional phrase. Literally, into the one. Eis, ta, hen. And it occurs in at least two other verses in the New Testament. John 17, 23. I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity. So it's translated in unity here. And then in John 11, in order that he might also gather together into one, the children of God who are scattered abroad. It's the same phrase. In unity, into one, and then here it's translated in agreement.

And the reason they do it is this preposition, ace, plus the accusative, that's usually the subject of the sentence, occasionally replaces the predicate nominative in the New Testament. If that doesn't make any sense to you, ignore it. It's a little bit of detail there. and also this idiom referring to this preposition plus an accusative word. This idiom is common in the many Greek papyri documents, but it's usually the result of a Hebrew influence.

In the Old Testament, In Deuteronomy 17 and in Deuteronomy 19, it was taught that you needed three witnesses to establish a legal matter. So, it could be what's going on here behind the scenes. The three are in agreement. John's referring to the Jewish practice of having three witnesses, and that's what he's saying here. There's three that testify. There's three that witness. The Spirit, the water, and the blood.

In fact, Matthew 18.16 quotes from the Old Testament. It's Jesus, and he says, By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. So John, who grew up a Jew, is saying that there are three that testify. And they're testifying of Christ's humanity and of His salvation.

Alright, so, I have something extra I wanted to read that I found after this was done. Okay, so let's summarize the last half of our passage. And so, what does it mean that the Spirit testifies? It is the Spirit who testifies. So what does it mean? Well, in looking at the context, I concluded that the Spirit testifies simply means that the Spirit witnesses or testifies of the truth of salvation. And that seems to be taught pretty clearly in the context, mainly after passage this morning that Brad and Roger will get into in the next couple weeks. And here's kind of a look ahead.

The one who does not believe God has made him a liar. Because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. Testimony is the noun form of the verb that we just have seen, martureo. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. So in our verse, still 6b or 7, it says the Spirit is testifying. What is He testifying? Well, verse 11 tells us, this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. So, if you just looked at verse 6, I don't know what you would be able to come up with, but because of the context, I believe it's pretty clear that it's talking about the Spirit testifying or bearing witness to the Gospel.

Now, here's a question for you. Does the Spirit testify of the truth by Himself? That is, does he independently reveal the truth of the gospel to unbelievers? That could still be a little unclear. What am I getting at? Brad is shaking his head no. Another question is, is not a person needed to communicate the gospel to the unbeliever?

And the answer is yes. Romans 10, 13-15 teaches this. This is a pretty neat passage. For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And then Paul asks the question. That's a quote from the Old Testament. And then Paul asks the question, How then will they call on Him in whom they haven't believed?

Well, how will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And then how will they even hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. So Paul is teaching that all they have to do to be saved is believe, but how can they believe if they haven't heard the gospel? And then how can they hear if they haven't had a preacher? So it's teaching the importance of missions, local missions, foreign missions. Well, another verse that teaches something similar to this is John 17, 20. I think the Bible student B.F. Westcott mentioned this in his commentary, so I threw it in there. I didn't find this one.

This is pretty neat. Jesus, this is in his prayer to the Father, says, I do not ask on behalf of these alone, his disciples who were with him, but for those also who believe in me through their word. referring to the disciples' word, sharing the gospel. That's pretty cool. Yeah? I'm kind of looking ahead here to verse 10. It kind of fits in here. It says, He who believes in the Son of God has a testimony in himself, which would correlate with, you know, who believe in me through their word, because the Holy Spirit continues to testify in us all about who Christ is. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that's saying something similar to. All right. So back to this slide. So this is the reason we need to be involved in local and foreign missions.

So this is something that. isn't in the text, because the text says that the Spirit testifies, but if we look at the context of the New Testament, we see that the Holy Spirit doesn't have a church service where He teaches the truth in some city, some location. He teaches the truth, testifies the truth through you and me to unbelievers, if that's what we're talking about. So the Spirit testifies or witnesses to the truth presented by the Christian to the unbeliever because the Spirit is the truth.

That's what He does. He witnesses to the truth. He testifies to the truth. He convicts. For the believer, He'll convict as well. But He also illumines for us the meaning of the Word of God. Next, John teaches that there are three that testify or witness.

The spirit, the water, and the blood. And we understand how the spirit testifies, but how do the water and the blood testify? And this is where some Bible teachers will bring in the Lord's Supper and the baptism for the believer. but I didn't think that was the best interpretation. So, from the context, I believe that the water and the blood refer to the truth of Christ's baptism and death at His first coming, that I've already taught.

These two testify of the truth of salvation because they are the truth themselves. So, when it says that the water testifies, the blood testifies, it's speaking, it's saying that they are testifying of the truth of salvation. Because in the context, that's what's being testified, that's what's being witnessed. The spirits witnessing are testifying of the gospel, and so these two, the water and the blood, would also be witnessing or testifying of the truth of salvation.

And I add, because they are the truth themselves, that's a little unclear. What I mean is that the blood is the truth. That's where he died on the cross. That refers to his death on the cross. That's the truth that we're sharing with unbelievers. His blood.

How water fits into that, we'll get to in a minute. Okay, lastly, the phrase, the three are in agreement, means that they are saying the same thing. And again, that would be the truth of salvation and life in the Son as a result of His first coming and the work He accomplished at His first coming. So, when it says the three are in agreement, it means that they're testifying of the same thing. So, here's a question for myself.

If the Spirit and the water and the blood are all testifying of the truth of Christ's salvation, the salvation that He made possible, how does the water baptism of Christ relate to His work on the cross? I kind of alluded to that earlier. Does that make sense? Do you understand what I'm asking? If I'm saying that the water and the blood testify about the gospel or about Christ's work on the cross, how does the water relate to that? I think I did. Oh yeah, and you did. And that's also a great question. You're right, Larry. Doug did answer it.

What significant event occurred at Christ's baptism? And that would be? No, Christ didn't descend upon Jesus. The Spirit did descend upon Jesus Christ in the form of the dove at the baptism, and the voice of the Father was heard, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. The water baptism event marked the beginning of Christ's earthly public ministry, which culminated in his substitutionary death for all mankind. So that's why the water and the blood and the spirit all testify of the gospel.

How's that? It's not just a man up there on the cross dying for our sins, it's God dying on the cross for the sins he paid the price for. I think that's a lot more significant than the fact that that's what the ministry began. Okay, no, and I would have emphasized that here at the end, but what you're saying is that it wasn't just a man, but it was God who did that. And the Father...

You know, you've referred several times today, and it's all true, the fact that's when Christ's ministry started. Right. I was thinking when you said that earlier, you know, Christ's ministry really started when He was a small child. when he was in the synagogue answering questions, etc. etc. Obviously, that wasn't just a boy in the synagogue.

That was before this happened. To me, the significant part here is the fact that God's man, Hypostatic Union, came to earth to pay the price for what he did wrong. And that's good, because at the baptism, In a sense, that's what the father was saying, that this is my beloved son.

So, in conclusion, the phrase, the water and blood, really covers the two main events of Christ's first coming. We kind of went over that earlier. So, looking back at this diagram, the first coming and the water and the blood characterize the first coming. Per John, here in our verse. There's a lot more that happened and went on. But those events of baptism and the crucifixion were sort of key events of his first coming. So that's all I had. Question then.

Yeah. How does that influence what some people say? The baptism that we're going to have today is baptism. That's right. So, the individual is baptism. Or does it? Yeah, and I don't think it does in this passage. In other words, what I'm saying, some people will say that baptism is important. You have to be baptized before you're saved.

Right, and that's... The Bible doesn't teach that, right? Well, and people have. Throughout church history, they have taught that. And again, it was taught that Jesus Christ comes to you personally by the water, by the baptism, water baptism, your own personal water baptism, and then by the blood, by partaking of Mass every week, you are being saved, in the process of being saved. That was taught.

Anything else to add? Yeah, really, you know, if you think about it, if people understood Romans 6 better, they would see, they would see that that's really describing, that's the picture we're going to see today here, where the picture is we've been united with Christ. In Romans 6 it says we've been united with Christ and His death and burial and resurrection. So that's a picture that baptism is that, you know, we go into the water, that union is in view, not this picture. They're coming up with the wrong picture. The picture is a baptism that has been united with Christ.

And actually, what's cool is and never taken out. I always thought it was an impossibility. You know, you're in the water and you never come out. Well, that would be too good. But that's actually the picture. We're immersed into Christ and never removed. It's a permanent thing. And that's a wonderful thing.

Maybe we just shouldn't show the person coming out. I didn't talk before that. But you carry on. There's a picture of the sense that when you come out of the water, you're raised in the midst of the water. So there are pictures of that. But it's a picture, it's not the reality that's already happened. It should have happened already, but it's not.

So you probably kept up with 1 John. And with the way that people have taught on water baptism in the past. Yeah, that's right. It kind of shows maybe the misunderstanding or the Romans 6, 7, 8 not being understood as well. If that's understood better, then they wouldn't... go to passages like this to try it. That's right.

I'm thinking back, even back when the Anabaptists really were emphasizing adult baptism again. I'm not too good on all my Anabaptist history, but I don't remember identification being one of the reasons that they wanted to be baptized. Again, back at the time of the Reformation, when the Anabaptists were being killed by the Reformers for being baptized again as adults, and so all these Anabaptists were risking it to be baptized, which the Bible teaches, it's an important thing to do for a Christian, not essential to salvation, but it's a neat picture. But I remember that identification was part of it. It was more of a, it's my witness to the world, my testimony that I'm a Christian. Which I think is part of it too, but it's not the key teaching, or the key point, maybe. Personally, when I came to understand identification through you, I thought, wow, baptism, look at water baptism.

That is really physically showing my identification with Christ. Yeah, that's pretty neat. It makes a deeper, richer understanding of water baptism. That's pretty neat, yeah. That's what, you know, in terms of seeing the significance, you know, why it's a wonderful thing, Joe, that I've been identified with Christ, in a visual sense. Yeah. Neat.

So we'll get to that. Watch that later this morning. Alright, let's pray. Dear Lord, thanks for letting us study your word in some detail and hopefully we can apply it by faith and even remember the importance of sharing your truth with unbelievers and then even your truth that relates to believers that's necessary for a Christian to glorify you. And just name him in.