1-3 John - 1st John 5:6-8 The Testimony of the Sprit - part 1

I'd like to have Vani read, I'd like to go back to what Bob did last week and then read through basically chapter 5 verses 4-12, which basically is today's lesson and next week. Yeah, 1 John chapter 5 verses 4-12. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

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.

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For the testimony of God is this, that he has testified concerning his Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. 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. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Thanks, Bonnie. Before I turn to the passage here, I'd just like to... If you listen to what was read, the word testimony comes up quite a few times. And if it wasn't for this textual problem we're going to have, if everyone had the, you know, the reading that Bonnie read, I think that the reading that we're going to see that has some issues kind of clouds the issue. this idea of testimony or bearing witness is really key to this passage, especially if I label the testimony of the Spirit part 1 and 2. So that's kind of key to what we're going to be talking about. Today we'll only get into that thing. The next week we're going to expand on that in verses 9 through 12.

So there's two different readings. If you have a King James Bible, you have the reading at the top. If you have a New American Standard, NIV, Almost and I'm not sure all the translations that didn't come from the source that the King James was written from. So there's a difference in the reading and we're going to talk about that.

That's not going to be the primary focus of I'm not a textual critic. There's this guy named Wallace who I passed his paper out to you. I'm going to summarize his paper when we get to that section. It basically affects verses 7 and 8. There's basically what I believe are some additional words.

This is not a new issue. It's only been going on since the 1600s, so this is no new issue. In fact, this issue has a name. It's called the comma for short sometimes. So we'll get into that later. But I think it's important to, and I think if you read this, I think it hangs together. If you read that, it gets off into another topic. And you say, well, why is another topic in there? And I think that's part of the issue, and we'll see that later on.

So we're going to focus on verse 6 here to start with. So hopefully this won't I was talking to Bernie and Mike about this and I said, hopefully nobody will run out of the room saying, Heretic! Heretic! He's taking verses out of the Bible, what's he doing? Now we're just going to string you.

Okay, well thank you. We don't have to worry about that. Okay, alright, fair enough. Okay, so we're going to start off with the first part, the A part of the verse here. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. So my first question is, what is the one referring to in this passage? And this isn't hard. Like I said, I try not to ask hard questions. I try to ask... Okay, excellent, excellent.

Okay, so it's referring to Jesus Christ. And literally, actually what's interesting is when it says this, where this could be probably better translated this one so it's kind of a hard sentence to read this one is the one who came by water and blood seems a little bit repetitive but this one and in the sentence tells you it's Jesus Christ this one is the one who came by water and blood okay so the who came, or having come, it's a participle, so we have participles usually as having, some kind of ing, and it's this word echomei, denotes either coming or going, so this is going to talk about how Jesus Christ came, and you kind of think, well we kind of know that, you know there's lots of scripture that talk about how Jesus Christ came, well this is going to maybe give you a different view about His coming and what testimony about His coming, because we're going to talk about the testimony here quite a bit, the spirit testifying.

So I thought it would be good to look at some other verses that talk about Christ coming. So let's look at John chapter 8. And what's wonderful about 1 John, as all the teachers have realized, is that the Gospel of John has just such a wonderful field of verses to draw from to help expand on 1 John. So, Gospel of John chapter 8. And could someone read verse 42 for us? John 8, 42.

Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God, and now am here. I have not come on my own, but he sent me. Right. So he talks about his coming. He says, I have come from God. He establishes who he is, his deity, in that sense. He says, I've come from God. The same word, echomai, he came from God. Actually, let's go back to the epistle here, 1 John. We had this verse earlier, 1 John chapter 4. First John chapter 4 and verse 2. I thought we had it fairly recently. First John chapter 4 and verse 2. Could someone read that?

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses the Lord Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Right. Actually, mine has come from God, confesses that Jesus Christ has come from God and it's our word. So I think they have a little bit different, but it's the same Greek word. And in this case, it says he came in the flesh. He came from God and he came in the flesh.

So there's some additional information there. And then actually, we'll get to this verse a little bit later in 2 John, verse 7. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

So once again, focusing on his coming in the flesh. And that's going to be something we're going to see as we talk about the water and the blood. I think that's part of a central theme that we're going to see. He did come in the flesh. He did have an earthly ministry. He was here on this earth. and things happen to them and they're historical facts. They're not just hearsay. They're historical facts that have been recorded. Then we're going to see a couple of prepositions that kind of show up here. This preposition by or dia means through. So it's basically saying that this one is the one who came by or through water blood so it talks about the it's a agency what what was the medium he came through and You know there's di used a lot in scripture, and I there's one I kind of just picked I'm not sure why I picked this one after I thought about it for a while But there's one that uses the same preposition that means if you do a search in prepositions like di you're going to find hundreds So don't think this is nothing But actually it does have an interesting little, it does talk about water.

1 Peter 3.20. I'll just read this one.

1 Peter 3.20 says that It kind of starts in the middle. Let me just go back to verse 18.

It says, For Christ also died for sins, once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. In which he also went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting for the days of Noah during the construction of the ark in which a few, that is eight people, were brought safely, here's our word, dia, through the water. So it's used translated through many times.

So we're going to see through show up here, and then we're going to see another preposition show up a little bit later on. So it's going to focus. This passage has three parts to it, water, blood, and the spirit. And it's going to talk about those. And basically, John uses those and explains those. But those are the three things that we're going to see. So that kind of leads me to the next chart here. What is water referring to? This is one, I started studying this. I had studied it before, but I had kind of forgotten. What is water referring to? What do you think? The word. Okay. The cleansing. I think a lot of times it's sort of analogous of a cleansing. Okay.

It has issues that way sometimes. I've wondered sometimes if it isn't the water that came from the spirit that was thrust into Christ's side when he was crucified. It was a miracle. So it testifies to the Old Testament. I came across that verse too. It talks about water and blood. Other thoughts? He uses it in his gospel about the living water, not thirsting again because of the living water. I don't know that that's related to this at all, but that's another way that John uses it.

Right, and that's true. I thought about this one thought I had before I started looking, and then I said, well, let me see what so-and-so says. So I got some ideas from other people. But, well, you know, everyone comes, when you're in your mother's womb, there is water there, you could think, well, that talks of his humanity. He came as a human, right? Every person has to have the fluid in the womb is water-based.

So that's another, but Scripture doesn't really talk much about that. I was looking at Ephesians 5, 25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. Right, right. And I think that was how he mentioned, I think when he mentioned that, the word is talked about that. Well, I'll give you, I'll give you what, and I think the more I thought about this, I think it's probably, you know, the thing is we don't have an exact verse that explains this. So, what seems to make sense, and as we go through this, And let's just look and see here. Actually, I'm going to skip ahead. Well, let's just go ahead. I'm not going to tell you first what I think.

What do you think blood is referring to? Let's talk about, we've got some answers about what's the blood referring to? It's death on the cross. Okay, that one is pretty straightforward. It's blood. But don't you think it also refers to everything that was talked about in the Old Testament about the blood being the atonement? Before he came. Before he came. And now, I mean, he was the ultimate blood for the sacraments. Not just the covering, but the real deal.

Right, right. Okay. That makes me think of a verse that says, without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. Right, right. No, that's good. That's excellent. So, let's look at the verse again. It says, this is the one who came, Diyah, through And it's like, he came through the medium of water and blood, Jesus Christ. So, okay, so, alright. Any other thoughts before I, I'll give you my, I'm going to give you verses and you'll see if, you know, you can, go ahead.

Pat, you go first. Very pivotable. Pivotable. I can't even say the word either. I kind of missed that. I was looking at something else. The one we talked about back here. Through. I think that helps, I think. That helps. The context here having to do with those Gnostic mindset about differentiating between Christ as a man and Christ as a spirit and John has been as we just read, been referring to the fact that Jesus came in the flesh, he is both divinity and man, and so it would seem that these words are pointing to his humanity, the flesh side of Christ, so that he can build the doctrine of the incarnation. in such a way that they're not swayed by the false teachers here. So it would seem that just contextually that's, I mean, he's just referring to humanity, the humanity of Christ here. Right. I think you're on, I think that's the right path.

I think, you know, if you think about, so he's trying to nail this down to historical events, flesh and blood. This is something that happened. You can't dispute It's history. It's not ethereal stuff. This is historical events. And that's what seems to be pivotal. And it's like these are two benchmarks. Water is one benchmark, and blood is another benchmark. You can probably see why I'm the heavier one.

Let's look at the first one. Once we read the first verse, you'll kind of see where I'm coming from. Let's go to Matthew 3. Could someone read Matthew 3.13-17. Thank you.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I have need to be baptized by you. And are you convinced? But Jesus answered and said to him, permitted to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he allowed him.

Then Jesus, when he had been baptized, came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

So, and the rest of the verses here are all the same account, just the different Gospels, all those three other verses, all the other Gospels that talk about the account of the baptism. So, does baptism qualify, does it fit water? And I've seen some wrinkled noses. And I had that feeling to some degree too, but if you think about it, baptism doesn't, this is water baptism, he was baptized and He told them, permit this. I think verse 15 is kind of interesting.

Permit this at this time for in this the way is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. So you could argue that was God's plan for Christ to be baptized, to undergo water baptism. And then in 17 he says, this is my son. He identifies who he is. And he actually had the whole trinity there in that passage with the spirit descending. So this is like the beginning of Christ's ministry, right? I mean, this is when he, from then on, in fact, other passages talk about he started his ministry after he was baptized. That started his ministry. He was declared to be the Son of God.

He was declared to be who he is. That was a fact, and he proceeded on. So that's benchmark one. And then benchmark two, is the blood. And these passages here, let's look at the first one. I struggle a little bit with this. We could go look at the account of the crucifixion. I decide not to do that. These passages talk about the effect of his blood for the believer.

1 Corinthians 10.16. Can someone read that?

1 Corinthians 10.16. The cup of blessing of which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? So this talks about, speaking of the Lord's table I believe, the cup of blessing which we bless, a sharing in the blood of Christ. And then the other verses here, especially the ones, let's just go over to Ephesians real quickly here. These are the ones that talk about the wonderful blessings we have being identified with Christ.

And in Ephesians 1.7 it says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. And that we have there, that's a possession of ours, we have that, we have redemption. And then 2.13 says, We've been brought near by the blood of Christ. Then in Colossians it talks about, in 120, it talks about having been made, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

So all the, I kind of chose the ones that talk about the effect of what His blood accomplished. So we kind of have two, I'm going to call them two benchmarks, and it seems to be, It kind of fits with what John is trying to express. I think what Jim was pointing out was good. He's trying to make sure you understand this is a real, this is not some, he's a real man and he's truly God and he's truly man. And he's defining this, water and blood are testifying to what Christ did.

So now we have the second preposition and it's this with or in. the sphere of. So actually what we have here, we have two, and Pat was talking about that, we have two prepositions. The first one said, Dia, it said he came through Dia, water and blood, and this one says he came in, in the water and in the blood, or in the sphere of water and blood. So those two prepositions try to expand.

And I found them very similar. I kind of had a hard time between what's the difference between the medium and the sphere. It seemed to be very much the same thing. And I looked at some commentators. They tried to make something of that. I didn't really see that the sphere, the N versus the DI, maybe there's something there I didn't dig out. There are different prepositions.

Sometimes that can be a good, you come across that and that can be a great thing to see. Why do we have to have water and blood? In fact, it's going to ask that question just shortly here. Why do we have to have both? Why don't we just focus on this blood?

Well, it seems like you have to have both. You have to have the beginning and then a culmination. OK. OK. One other thing. Go ahead. In my inner linear. OK. It uses, for in, it has by, by the water. Yeah, I know. I found that too. Sometimes you'll have, yeah, I know. So it kind of gets confusing. You had to, because we had in the previous one, we had by, di was translated by. I know. And I. In the Greek, for the first time it did have, that they die or whatever. The D.I.A. right. Well, it's just had this D.I. OK.

And then the second one has. But by the water found all this interlinear had the two different words. Well, there are two different words. One is D.R. One is N.E.N. But I'm just saying in this in this whole situation, they translated the N to be by. Yeah, I know. And I had noticed that I had noticed that I I don't know. There's something. I know some Greek. Here's a picture, I don't know, this is my picture, trying to put the two boundaries.

This is John, he's trying to say Christ had a ministry on this earth, it began at his baptism, it ended at his death. That's that is testimony to who he is if you think about what he said during that although That's what that's the that's what we have all his words. We're in that that boundary between the water his baptism and his death That's Christ's ministry, and that's that's a testimony, and it's going to say that's a that's a pretty powerful testimony first coming up here It's going to say that testimony It is hard to believe it's equal to the Spirit of God's testimony Which is I think pretty pretty incredible statement I? Those two, water and blood, and the Spirit's testimony are one. They testify to what Christ did and who He is.

But I wonder about that. His death. Maybe I should have put His blood. That probably would have been better. His blood. That's what the text says. He did die. He was resurrected. the thing he was resurrected to, I think was far superior to what he had before. As a gift from the Father. For a fairly good part of the eternal covenant. Right, right. Roger? Sure, keep going.

Spirit, I mean as far as the spirit testifying, I think of the Old Testament that foretold it. the virgin birth, and all the things, the prophecies. So when it says that the Spirit testifies, how did the Spirit testify? Was it through the Word? We're going to see that. We're going to see how the whole Trinity testifies, because we're going to spend some time on that Word. So let's just kind of move on here. Okay, so here's the C part of the verse. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. So here's the key word for the next week, and actually we'll be covering this a lot next week.

It's to bear witness. Sometimes it's translated to bear witness, to testify the truth of what one has seen or knows. So what I found was, and actually if you look at what I did, you can find verses for the Father, Son, and Spirit, and how they testify. So I think it's instructive to kind of go through those and look at those. So we won't have time for all of them, but let's just kind of, so let's look at, John 5, 30-32. Anyone who wants to read it is welcome.

I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge. And my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. If I alone testify about myself, my testimony is not true. there is another who testifies of me and I know that the testimony which he gives about me is true.

So here in verse 32 he talks about there is another and that's one of the neat words you know that another is there's another of the same kind which is alos and there's another of a different kind which is heteros and this is another of the same kind so he's saying Christ is saying another of the same kind as me I believe referring to the father and look back in the context There's another of the same kind as me who bears witness of me, and I know that his testimony which he bears of me is true. So that was one. And a couple of other ones I think actually, let's look down at verse 37. I'll just read this one. Same chapter, John 5, 37.

And the Father who sent me, he has borne witness, this is the word testify, of me. You have neither heard his word at any time, nor seen his form. And you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom he has sent." So basically he says, and the father who sent me, he bears witness or testifies of me.

And then down, and then let's go to chapter 8 of the Gospel of John, 8.18. A very similar kind of A18 says, I am he who bears witness of myself and the father who sent me bears witness of me. So many times you'll see they're kind of coupled together the father and son bearing witness and Christ will say, you know, it's the father who testifies of me.

So that's a group of verses there. There's probably more. Then we have ones about Christ, still in the Gospel of John. Go back to chapter 7. You could actually count some of the ones I did for the Son too. I mean, I count them separately, but anyway. You can count differently if you like. 7-7.

The wolf cannot... The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. So he's testifying of the world and what it's like. It's a word, but a little bit different context. And then John 18.37. This is before Pilate. Pilate therefore said to him, so you are a king Jesus answered you say correctly that I am a king for I have been Born for this for this I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth Every everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. I So he uses it there. And then lastly in Timothy, I'll just read it. I have my notes here.

It says, of Christ who testified the good confession before Pilate. Basically referring to the same one. And then we have the spirit. And we have the one here, the spirit who testifies of Christ. If you go back in the context. And then this one here in John 15, 26.

John 15.26 says, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I said to you. Okay, Roger. Yeah, I know, it doesn't have to testify, does it? Mine does say he will testify of me. Mine is King James and it says he shall testify of me. That's how it ends, that verse. What version do you have? You have King James.

So the reason I did that, just to show you that many times you'll see attributes that are given to one person of the Trinity. You can find verses, and this is always, I always find this kind of a neat thing. You can find verses about the other two members of the Trinity. It's always a neat thing to think, wow, look at the consistency here.

The whole Godhead is testifying about themselves, who they are, what they've done. They testify about each other, right? I mean, the father's talking about the son, the son testifies about the father, and so on. So basically, it basically says, it's the spirit who testifies.

And then the last part of the verse, it kind of gives his credentials. It says, well, why should you believe him? So he's going to answer that because, well, actually, I just have a different rendering here. The spirit, and this is another participle, is the one who is giving testimony. And then, it is the spirit who testifies because the spirit is the truth. And this is the cool thing. That's his very character. That's his very nature. The construction here is that the spirit is truth.

And is is that Greek word ami, the state in which something continuously exists. So the spirit continuously exists as the truth. And you think, wow, that's neat, because I remember this other verse here in John 14. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus Christ is the singular truth. So here we have another wonderful thing about the Godhead.

The Spirit and the Son both are truth. We wouldn't expect less, right? And then there's a whole bunch of verses that talk about the Spirit of truth. The Spirit is truth, and then the Spirit of truth. And let's just pick one of those in the interest of time here. Let's look at John 14. Gospel of John 14. And I'll just read that. John 14, verses 16 and 17.

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. That is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not know Him, not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him, because He abides in you, and you will be in Him. So he's called the Spirit of Truth. The Helper is called the Spirit of Truth. It's at least three parts here, and they're all in the Gospel of John. It talks about the Spirit of Truth.

Go ahead, Pat. The Spirit testifies. How does he testify? That's an excellent question. Actually, why don't you hold on to that question? Hold on to that question, because the last part, we're going to talk some more about that. I was just looking ahead there. But that's the question there. Let's hold on to that question.

OK, so now, put on your textual criticism hats. And I'm not a textual criticism person. The paper is excellent. You should read that. It has a few expressions and things that I wasn't familiar with, but Daniel B. Wallace, So the text that's in question is what's underlying there. And if you look at the reading, for there are three that bear record, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three agree in one. So without those underlying part of the text, the King James would be the same as the New American Standard.

So it's this little section in here that is in question, in heaven, And it seems like the more you look at that, the more you think, it's interesting how it's kind of put in there. They're trying to make another point, it seems like. So I'll give you some. And all these comments come from Dr. Wallace here.

OK, the underlying words are called the comma, Johannium, and are found in the King James translation. I didn't try to do a search on how many other translations might have it. I looked at the New King James, for example. The New King James had them in there, but it had a note saying they didn't think they belonged in there, but they left them in there. So some Bibles will choose to leave them in there, but say, I don't think they should be in there. Other ones say, some get rid of verse 7 entirely, and they make a comment about verse 8.

So there's kind of a variety of what different translations will do. But the real crux comes down to is that these words are not just somebody taking the Greek text and kind of doing their own thing. Well, they probably are, but there's actually some manuscripts that have these words in the Greek in there. So this is what happened apparently.

According to Dr. Wallace, there are only eight Greek manuscripts. And I wonder, well, how many manuscripts are there? So in talking with Vern, there's something about 5,000 Greek manuscripts, something like that. And some are full, some are pieces. So eight out of that 5,000, say. And these Greek manuscripts only came about in the 16th century. There were Greek manuscripts much before that.

And four of the eight have these words underlined in the margin. So that's not too good. It's like you're making notes in your Bible, right? And all of a sudden, that winds up getting into the text. That's not a good thing normally. Erasmus struggled with these words. His first Greek New Testament he published from the manuscripts available to him didn't have the underlying words in there. But then, about how many years later, six years later, his third edition, they were in there. And apparently, if you look in Dr. Wallace's paper, someone produced these one of these eight manuscripts and said hey I got a manuscript here Rasmus you're not faithful to the word or they give him a hard time and so he's under pressure and apparently I don't know he's under pressure and he put him in there that's what is felt so it seems like that they were added to reinforce the Trinity because you look at the way it reads the Father and the Word and the Holy Ghost these three are one And they don't, you know, scripture has so much about the Trinity without those words.

So, and there's other, let's see, I'm trying to think of something, other things to say about this. So this has been going on for a long time. I mean, this is nothing new. There's actually, Wallace has a little statement where he says, he thinks it's more a question of, historical records of manuscripts versus people that believe the King James is the translation. This is one of the areas they'll point to. So we'll see people have corrupted it. They're trying to take out those verses.

The Trinity is well established. You don't really need that additional underlying to make the Trinity scriptural. Well, that's about it. Questions or thoughts on this? Go ahead, Pat. Well, when you take three, and then you say this equals the other three, it doesn't work. The three in the middle there, underlined? Yeah. Yeah, well, no, it's a different three.

They both have spirit, but word and blood don't equal the Father and the Son. Amen. Well, those other three here, and these three are in heaven, these three are on earth, don't know I have a similar thought it seemed like that I take those out it's much easier to understand this passage it stays focused on the testimony so I recommend you reading that reading the paper it's quite good okay so with that in mind I'm going to move on for there are three that testify I think this is how are they That's what Pat was asking.

How does the baptism of Christ testify about who He is? First of all, it's a historical fact, right? If you recorded history, it's a recorded event. And also, Scripture Testifies about that that God was well pleased with that. So there's a testimony about his baptism, right? So that's that's one of them the blood The blood testifies, you know in so many ways. I mean scripture is just I replete, plus the historical fact of Christ's death. So that's testifying.

And then the Spirit is testifying through Scripture constantly, right? And we saw a whole bunch of those in those verses there. Well, and then we also have the verses that talk about why the Spirit was sent. The Spirit was sent to glorify the Lord and to teach us. Right, and to testify about who He is and what He's done. And that's what He was. Absolutely.

And so that's the job of the Holy Spirit. But what's interesting about this, it's going to combine, it's going to make, this is the next statement in verse 8. The spirit and the water and the blood, the three are in agreement. Yeah, actually, literally, the three, spirit, water, and blood, are one and the same. So it's interesting. Their testimony, the testimony of the water and blood are put on a level with the spirit, which I thought was pretty, his testimony, which is pretty impressive.

This kind of looks like to me, if you look at the water as far as baptism, the beginning of Jesus' ministry, like a beginning of a stewardship. And if you think of the Jews, The Jews were on the earth to testify of God and bless the earth and bless all peoples of the earth. And the Jews were baptized into Moses. And that was a stewardship. And then you look at this ministry of Jesus and it was a stewardship. It was to glorify God and to testify of God. And it just seems like a pattern. that fits for me, that helps me understand what's going on there. Right. That's good. That's good. Roger? Sure. Go ahead.

Well, it seems like there's two ways the Spirit testifies. One is in the Word. Right. And then the other, it seems like it is the comfort of direct revelation. Why do I believe in God and the guy that I work with doesn't? Right, exactly. But it seems like there is a direct revelation. Right, he's testifying to us personally. But what's interesting is, and this is just a little translation, and the three are one, united in one and the same witness. I mean, that's a paraphrase of that, or trying to bring out the Greek. Hey, Roger. Yeah.

What one thought about, because the water and the blood being the beginning and the end of his testimony. those are historical events, they bear testimony, they're written of, and then you've got the Holy Spirit, and I was just trying to think about when did the Holy Spirit come into a time in history where, and you go back even to Acts 1-8 where it talks about He came so that you could bear witness and testimony, and so you have, Even though the Spirit can be seen as a much bigger aspect of testimony, there is a specific historical time when the Spirit did come to give. It came upon the apostles, and John is actually experiencing Acts 1-8 as he writes these words. And as each of the apostles write and bear witness, they are experiencing what happened in Acts 1-8 where the Spirit came upon them and gave them the ability to bear witness to actually the testimony of Even though the spiritual testimony goes beyond that, seeing it in light of the historical, these three things happen, and I know the Spirit is much bigger, but it does kind of You've got the beginning, the end, and then the ongoing testimony that never fails and ends. So it's pretty powerful, and I think that's why this combination of three is so unique in John's book, because it encompasses beginning until this very moment where we sit today. Now I'm out of time. And Roger, it's almost as if the interpreters back in 1500 we're trying in some way to make this part of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When in fact, it's not what it was about at all. It was about the testimony. It doesn't have anything to do with specifically the Father, the Son, the Trinity. That's not what it's about. And that's exactly what I thought too. If I look at it with it and without it, it seems... You have to put it in context. Most people didn't read back then. They were trying to explain further what they thought meant, the Trinity, and not taking it to really understand that it was the testimony. Right. And the focus of these three verses, this is testifying to what Christ, who He is. He's a real man. Historically it happened. And those three things, the water, the blood, and the Spirit of God testify to Jesus Christ and what He's done.

And don't delude that. And it was deluded by this other part that was put in there. And apparently it was some, according to Wallace, it was some kind of Homily that was that somebody gave and it kind of got people liked it. So they put it The fact it only made well actually four manuscripts in the real text and four in the in the notes out of 5,000 is You know not a good sign. So no, I and the more I looked at this myself It really hangs together at the end of the day you think okay, the bottom line is verse 8 Okay, the spirit and the water and the blood are They're in agreement about who Christ is and what he's done. And that's powerful. That really is. Roger? Sure.

So when you say there's some 5,000 texts, are you talking about 5,000 texts? 5,000 manuscripts. Parts of and whatever. This particular passage, or of the New Testament? Okay. I don't have the exact count, but there are a certain number of complete, almost complete, and then there are portions of it. So the 5,000 count is not necessarily all of this one here. So it might be a little bit less. So if you're actually doing an exact comparison, we have to go look and figure that out. But there's 5,000. I saw the number 5,200 is quoted that are New Testament manuscripts. Of various parts. Of various parts or fairly complete. Not just this one. You're right.

So actually, we're going to carry on testimony next week. In fact, actually, I looked at the count of the word testimony. We have it, this time we have it in two verses, two times. Jeremy gets to have it in six times. So we're going to be testifying and bearing witness a lot more next week. And Jeremy offered to take the class next week. We're going to be gone again. We're going to be here, but we'll be here. But we're just going to screech in. And Jeremy was kind enough to Other thoughts? Okay, let's close.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Lord. We thank you so much, Lord, that you're a God that is testifying about what your Son has done here on the earth, and you've done that through the water and the blood and the Spirit of God, and we thank you that that that continues. And we thank you for your blessing upon this day. In Christ's name, Amen.