Tag Archives: the spirit

THREE WITNESSES TESTIFY

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THREE WITNESSES TESTIFY

Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept human testimony but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God which He has given about His Son (1 John 5: 5-9).

In this letter, we again encounter the writing of a Jew who needed to ensure that his readers believe what he had written. It was important to prove authenticity of what he wrote if his readers were to believe his testimony about Jesus.

During a debate with the Pharisees, Jesus also produced witnesses to the claims He made. Without genuine witnesses, He had no case for His expectation that they would believe what He said would witness to Himself. Their law did not permit a person to charge another of wrongdoing without calling at least two witnesses who saw the accused committing the crime.

One witness is not enough to convict any accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses (Deut. 19: 15).

Jesus appealed to three witnesses to establish the accuracy of His claim:

If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies in my favour, and I know that his testimony about me is true. You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth (John 5: 31-33).

Jesus appealed to John’s testimony about Him because the people revered John and believed that he was a prophet of God.

I have a testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish – the very works that I am doing – testify that the Father has sent me (John 5: 36).

Jesus’ miracles testified to His identity as the Son of God.

And the Father who sent me has Himself testified concerning me. You have never heard His voice nor seen His form, nor does His word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one He sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life (John 5: 37-40).

His hearers supposedly believed the Scriptures, but they refused to believe that Jesus was the Son of God although God wrote the Scriptures and His word testified to Jesus as their Messiah.

In this letter, John also produced three witnesses to testify about Jesus: the Spirit, the water and the blood. It is difficult to understand this verse because John does not explain what he had in mind. He seems to take for granted that his readers knew what he meant. Was he referring to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as witnesses to Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God?

It is important to remember that the reality of Jesus’ work on the cross depended on His identity as the Son of God.  If He was not God’s Son, His death on the cross would mean no more than the death of any other sinner. Saying He was the Son of God was not enough. We need proof if we are to believe what He said and what He did to save us from sin. We have no right to approach God without the forgiveness of our sins.

Why did John appeal to the Holy Spirit as a witness that Jesus is the Son of God? The Holy Spirit applies the blood of Jesus to those who believe in Him. He quickened our spirits and made us alive when we were dead in sin. He witnesses with our spirits that we are children of God (Rom. 8: 15-16). The Holy Spirit produces the fruit of God’s nature in us (Gal. 5: 22-23).

When we participate in the ordinances Jesus commanded us to observe, i.e., baptism and the Lord’s Supper, we testify to our faith in Him and to our identity with Him in His death and resurrection (Rom. 6: 4-5).

Anyone who believes in Jesus does not subscribe to a doctrine but participates in the life of Jesus. He is much more than a historical figure who taught us some important truths. He is the Son of God who lives in us by His Spirit and who transforms us from one degree of glory to another as we continue to contemplate Him (2 Cor. 3:18). 

So, water points to the historicity of the human Jesus. The “Spirit” and “the blood” bear witness to the power of God in us to reconcile us to God.  If “water” refers to His baptism as a truly human Jewish man whose baptism identified Him with humanity, and the Spirit and the blood witness to the work He did on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit to apply that work in our lives, then we have every confidence to believe in the message John brought to his readers as the truth from God.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

TWO REALMS

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TWO REALMS

“So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” Romans 7:4-6.

Two realms – the natural, physical realm and the realm of the unseen – are operative in the universe. The physical realm is more real to us because we function in it in our everyday lives. However, with the harnessing of the energy waves, for example, microwaves, wireless, light etc., we have become much more aware of the unseen realm. It amazes me how, with a single touch on the screen of my android tablet, I can order a book from an internet company anywhere in the world and in a few minutes, via energy that I can neither see nor understand, the book appears on my device and I can begin reading!

It is not difficult for us to understand, then, that we can live in two realms spiritually. We have bodies that relate to and function in the world. We eat food from the ground, and our bodies convert it into energy which drives our systems, but we also function in an unseen dimension which is just as real. The world we live in is immersed in the presence of its Creator. The Bible says that He fills heaven and earth. He is fully involved in what happens on earth, and that includes us.

The very breath we breathe is His breath – life. When He removes our breath, we die. We have no life apart from Him. If it were possible, scientists could put all the elements of a human body together but they cannot produce life because both physical life and spiritual life come from God.  That means, of course, that if life comes from Him then we are dependent on Him and accountable to Him whether we acknowledge it or not.

Therefore, He has the right to dictate the way our lives are to be lived. When we confirmed our forefather’s disobedience by our own, we suffered the same consequences as he did, alienation from God. However, God did everything to put us back on track and to restore the connection between the seen and the unseen realms.

So, Paul says, we were cut off from the power of the sinful world to influence us when we died with Jesus. It is a fact. It’s real. It happened. God did it in the unseen realm when we turned to Him through Jesus. We died to our old lives and the power of sin to keep us enslaved but the reality of it is activated by faith, that unseen power, like the unseen waves of energy that network our planet and our universe, has connected us to a new power, the power of God.

From what were we cut off? Paul said we were cut off from the power of the law. Why the law? The law has the mysterious power to arouse sin in us. We know how this works. Just tell a kid not to do something and he will do it! Before you told him not to, he didn’t even think about doing it but, the moment you said, “Don’t,” he wanted to do it! Take away the prohibition and the desire to do it goes as well. That’s how we were wired by the sin nature in us with which we were born “in Adam”.

However, Jesus destroyed that perverse nature by His perfect obedience to all God’s “prohibitions”. He killed the desire, then they killed Him but He rose again and would never be subject to temptation again. Now, through faith, we are in Him, and have the potential to live as He did. In addition, He took away the necessity to have rules and regulations, and replaced them all with one “rule” if you like, the law of love. Then, just to make sure that we would follow that law, He gave us His Holy Spirit to produce His love in our hearts…

…which makes it all about Him and not about us. Paul said, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” This means that Jesus in us by His Spirit makes it possible for us to reflect His character in the way we live. The old, rotten fruit of self-centredness and greed has been replaced by a new life of pleasing God by caring for others.

It’s the power of heaven breaking into the earthly realm and showing us what God is really like. It’s about having God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. It’s about us being mirrors of Jesus. It’s about living in the realm of the Spirit while we are still in the flesh.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.