1 John 5:6-12—The Testimony About Jesus

As Joe has already done, I’d like to welcome you to Family Worship this morning at Eastern Hills Baptist Church, whether you are online or in the room. We’re excited to be able to worship the Lord together, and to open His Word together as we do. I’m Bill Connors, pastor of this church family, and if you are a guest of the Eastern Hills family this morning, I’d like the chance to meet you in person at the close of service today. At the end of service, I invite you to come down and introduce yourself, and I’d like to give you a thank you gift for being here today.

Also, if you are visiting here in the room, could you please take a moment during the service and fill out one of our Welcome cards? You can then give that to me when we meet, or you can drop it in the offering boxes by the doors if you don’t have time to meet me this morning after service. If you’re online, or if you’re in the room and you’d rather fill out a digital communication card, you can do that by texting the word “WELCOME” to 505-339-2004. You’ll get a text back that contains a link to that card, and it will ask for some basic information. Thanks for taking time to do that this morning.

If you’re wondering how to get more connected to the Eastern Hills family, I just want to let you know that the best way is through our Bible Study classes. You can find a list of classes on the Welcome desk that you saw as you came into the building this morning. If you have any questions about that, please check with someone at the Welcome desk, or feel free to ask me. I highly recommend finding a Bible study group in order to deepen your understanding of Scripture and to connect with the church family!

Announcements

AAEO: $16, 572.85 through last Sunday. Next Sunday is the last Sunday. I’m confident we will meet our goal of $17,000.

Donna Treece & Friends Benefit Concert for Children’s camp. Fri at 7pm here in the Sanctuary.

Grad Sunday May 7, reception in the FLC immediately following morning service (this is different than what we have done in the past)

Choir again: we had several new visitors to the choir this past Wednesday night, but I’d like to invite more if you’re interested. Wednesday at 6:30 pm in the choir room.

Opening

We are in the last two weeks of our study on John’s first epistle, which we are calling the Letter of Life, Light, and Love. Last week, we considered how true faith brings about victory over the world in the life of the Christian through their obedience to God. Today, we will consider the testimony about Jesus as John speaks of it in verses 6-12 of chapter 5 of this little letter. So as you are able, let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read our focal passage:

1 John 5:6–12 CSB

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. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and these three are in agreement. 9 If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son. 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. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

PRAYER (New Beginnings Crestview Community Church, Pastor Anthony Rael)

“Seeing is believing.” I’m sure that just about all of us have heard that phrase before. And while there are lots of things that we believe in that we can’t see, we tend to believe people when they say that they saw something with their own eyes. Especially in a court of law, eyewitness testimony holds substantial weight, and trouble can happen when we don’t at least listen to and consider it when it is given.

Melanie and I really enjoy the television show Everybody Loves Raymond. And perhaps my favorite episode of that show is called “She’s the One.”

In it, Robert is dating a woman named Angela, whom he thinks might be “the one.” But after dinner at Ray and Deborah’s house, Ray alone witnesses something very concerning: Angela intentionally kills and eats a housefly. After a humorous, extremely LONG time of simply standing and staring in Angela’s direction, Ray turns to Robert and simply says, “She’s not the one.” When questioned about his sudden declaration, Ray says this:

“Listen, listen. I saw something that I have to tell you because you have to know because I saw it.... Angela ate the fly.” And when Robert and Debra question further, Ray explains:

“The fly, that was flying around: Angela killed it. It fell on the table. She put in a napkin, and then she ATE IT!”

Sadly, Debra and Robert don’t believe Ray, and make him out to be lying and trying to ruin Robert’s life because of jealousy or something. But it turns out that he was telling the truth. Robert could have avoided a stressful and embarrassing situation had he simply listened to and believed Ray’s eyewitness testimony.

We have to make a choice when we hear someone say that they witnessed an event. We decide whether we believe the testimony that they share, or whether we are going to discount it as either a mistake or a falsehood. In our focal passage this week, we discover that there are several witnesses that speak to the truth about Jesus: people and events that give testimony about who He is. And what we do with the testimony about Jesus is no minor concern—in fact, it determines both how we live now and whether we will have life forever.

Our focal passage this morning picks up immediately following verse 5 of chapter 5 of 1 John, wherein John explains that it is those who believe in Jesus who conquer the world:

1 John 5:5 CSB

5 Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Then, beginning in verse 6, John goes on to explain the testimony that has been given of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. John himself has already given this testimony several times in this letter (1:3, 1:7, 2:22-23, 3:8, 3:23, 4:9-10, and 4:15). But now, he declares that there is testimony about Jesus’ life and ministry, as well as by the Spirit of God Himself that declares that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, and what that means for us. He uses the word for “witness” or “testimony” ten times in this set of seven verses.

Our first three points all come from the same verses in our focal passage, verses 6-8. We won’t re-read them every point:

1 John 5:6–8 CSB

So the first three pieces of testimony are the water, the blood, and the Spirit. The first reference—water—refers to Jesus’ baptism.

1) Jesus’ baptism testifies about Him.

Jesus’ baptism marks the beginning of His public ministry. Following His baptism, Jesus was tempted in the desert for 40 days, then returned and began to call His disciples, and then started His ministry in the towns around the Sea of Galilee.

When Jesus was baptized, there were two clear declarations of His identity as the Son of God: one came from God Himself, and the other came from John the Baptist, who gave testimony regarding what he saw and how it fulfilled what he had been told.

Matthew 3:13–17 CSB

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” 15 Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him to be baptized. 16 When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”

The Trinity is on clear display here in Matthew 3—with the Father declaring the identity of the Son while the Spirit descends on Him like a dove, reflecting both a psalm of David and a Servant Song in Isaiah:

Psalm 2:7 CSB

7 I will declare the Lord’s decree. He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.

Isaiah 42:1 CSB

1 “This is my servant; I strengthen him, this is my chosen one; I delight in him. I have put my Spirit on him; he will bring justice to the nations.

Both of these passages are about Messiah, and both of them were written hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus. The allusion to these two passages by the voice of the Father makes a clear reference to the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, and as the Messiah.

And then, John the Baptist declares what he had had revealed to him at his calling to baptize, and which he had seen fulfilled at Jesus’ baptism:

John 1:29–34 CSB

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ 31 I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. 33 I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”

There was a heretic who was a contemporary of John (the apostle, not the Baptist) named Cerinthus, whose false teaching may have played some part in the issues that John was addressing with this letter to the church. He taught that Jesus wasn’t actually the Son of God, but that the “spirit of the Christ” came on the very normal, merely human man Jesus, and then left Him either just before, or on the cross. So Jesus wasn’t God the Son, wasn’t actually sinless, and didn’t actually die in our place.

But the witness of John the Baptist in John 1 couldn’t have been more clear: Jesus is the Son of God, and He is also the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”—the Messiah. The testimony of the Father and the testimony of John the Baptist regarding Jesus’ baptism match: That Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah.

But if Jesus was perfect, why did He demand to be baptized as others were—for the sake of repentance? Daniel Akin has a great answer to this question:

“Some have pointed out that, being sinless, Jesus had no need of being baptized. He does not belong there. And that is true. He no more belongs at a baptism for repentance than He does on a cross for sinners. In both events He identifies Himself with the sinners He came to save.”

—Daniel Akin, Exalting Jesus in 1, 2, 3 John

Jesus was both fully man and fully God. In both His baptism and His crucifixion, He did what He didn’t need to do for Himself, but in order to fully identify with those He came to save. Which takes us to our second witness:

2) Jesus’ crucifixion testifies about Him.

The second witness that John mentions in verse 6-8 is the witness of “the blood.” Just as “the water” refers to Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of His public ministry, “the blood” refers to His crucifixion, where Jesus died a criminal’s death on the cross, even though He had never sinned. This was essentially the end of His public ministry, during which He even cried out, “It is finished.” The crucifixion of Jesus is absolutely central to the Christian message and faith. It is through the voluntary, innocent death of Jesus in our place that forgiveness, being made right with God again, is made possible.

There were events that took place during Jesus’ time on the cross and at His death that gave testimony to what was happening at the Place of the Skull, according to Matthew’s Gospel:

Matthew 27:45 CSB

45 From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over the whole land.

Matthew 27:51–54 CSB

51 Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

Darkness over the whole land. The unassisted tearing of the curtain in the Temple. An earthquake. The rising of the dead. These things scream that Jesus’ death was no ordinary occurrence. Even the centurion and those who were with him gave testimony about who they believed Jesus to be after all of that: That He is the Son of God.

There are those today who would claim that Jesus never lived, or that if He did live that He was just a teacher or a rebel, and if He did live then the crucifixion never happened, and even if He was crucified, then He certainly didn’t rise again. But the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus aren’t fantasy or myth. A historian from the first century named Josephus recorded in his account of the Jewish nation under Roman rule the following about Jesus:

“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

—Flavius Josephus (37-100), Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, Chapter III

Jesus’ existence, death, and resurrection are attested to by sources other than the Gospels! But again, He didn’t just die some criminal’s death for no reason. He died, as John has written in this letter, as the “atoning sacrifice for our sins.” This is why His crucifixion is so important. Without Jesus dying as our propitiation, or atoning sacrifice, we cannot experience expiation: the removal of our sins because we have been redeemed by Jesus’ blood.

Ephesians 1:7 CSB

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

Hebrews 9:12 CSB

12 he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

Colossians 1:19–20 CSB

19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

It is the sinless blood of Jesus that pays the price for our iniquities, the spotless blood of Jesus which washes us clean of sin’s stain, the perfect blood of Jesus which covers our imperfect humanity, the powerful blood of Jesus which overcomes our greatest enemy: death.

His blood—His crucifixion—gives testimony of Jesus’ identity as the Son of God and as Messiah.

What do you believe about the crucifixion? You certainly cannot believe that it simply didn’t happen. There is too much evidence. So you’re left with the question of what the testimony means. Was Jesus the sinless Son of God, who came to take our place in death so that the righteous punishment that your sin and my sin deserve would be poured out on Him instead? Have you trusted in what Jesus has done for your forgiveness and salvation, believing that His is the Son of God, the Christ, that He died in your place so you could be forgiven, and rose from the grave so that you can have eternal life?

3) The Holy Spirit testifies about Him.

The third witness that John speaks of, who testifies along with the water and the blood, is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals through His testimony the truth of the ministry of Jesus (inaugurated in the waters of baptism), the and the truth about the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins. If you have truly surrendered your life to Jesus in faith, then you have experienced both the work of the Spirit and the presence of the Spirit in your life, because no one comes to faith without the work of the Spirit, and all who come to faith in Jesus have the Spirit within them as a deposit guaranteeing our future inheritance of eternal life, according to Scripture. The Spirit is actively working in the lives of those who have Him to make us more like Jesus.

According to John in this passage, the Spirit only speaks the truth because He is the Spirit is the truth, as Jesus referred to Him in John 15:

John 15:26 CSB

26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me.

The Spirit always testifies to the glory of Jesus, because He always tells the truth about Him:

John 16:14 CSB

14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

And John in this letter has referred to Him as the Spirit of truth in contrast with the spirit of deception:

1 John 4:2–3 CSB

2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.

1 John 4:6 CSB

6 We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

The testimony of the Spirit is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come in the flesh. This is the truth. It’s not a question of opinion. It’s a testimony of fact. We can accept the fact of the testimony, or we can deny its veracity. But these three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood are in agreement, says John: they say the same thing. What is it that they say? That Jesus is the Son of God. In the Old Testament, there was a law about having the testimony of multiple witnesses in a criminal case:

Deuteronomy 19:15 CSB

15 “One witness cannot establish any iniquity or sin against a person, whatever that person has done. A fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

These three witnesses are in agreement as to the charge of whether or not Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah. We have the testimony of His baptism and ministry that He is the Son of God and the Christ, the testimony of His crucifixion that He is the Son of God and the Christ, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit that He is the Son of God and the Christ.

According to Deuteronomy, this is enough to prove the truthfulness of the claim. We have three witnesses in agreement, so we are no longer left with the option to deny the veracity of the claim… so we are only left with submitting to the truth or resisting the truth. But John doesn’t stop here. He gives yet another witness, whose testimony is greater than any human testimony:

4) The Father testifies about Him.

Now I know that because of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Spirit’s testimony about Jesus is God’s testimony about Him, because the Spirit is God. However, the way John writes this passage in the next couple of verses, there’s an important point here that we need to see:

1 John 5:9–10 CSB

9 If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son. 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.

Here John makes an argument from the lesser to the greater: if we would accept a human’s testimony in any way, we should certainly accept God’s testimony, because He is God. And what does the Father testify to? That Jesus is His Son.

We’ve already seen that the Father made a declaration about Jesus when He was baptized, as the Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove. But the Father also made almost the same declaration on the Mount of Transfiguration:

Matthew 17:5 CSB

5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!”

God’s testimony is greater than any man’s testimony. We do not have to worry if God is telling the truth when He speaks, because God cannot lie, according to Heb. 6:18. But what we do when we deny that Jesus is the Christ is we say that we don’t believe the witness of the Father. We say that He is lying about His own Son! But this is impossible, so instead, when we deny that Jesus is the Christ it is we who are the liars, as John wrote earlier in this letter:

1 John 2:22–25 CSB

22 Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well. 24 What you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.

I want you to understand something about this: Not to decide is to decide. You cannot say that God is always truthful and at the same time not believe the testimony that He has provided about Jesus, unless you say that He did not, in fact, give that testimony at all. But we saw that at Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration that the Father testified that Jesus is His Son. So not to decide is to decide: there is no neutral. Either Jesus is who He said He is, and who the Father says He is, and who the Spirit says He is, and who His baptism and crucifixion prove that He is, and He is not that at all. You either believe it or you don’t. To not decide FOR Jesus is to decide AGAINST Jesus.

So you have to answer that question: what do you believe about Jesus? Is He the Son of God? The Christ? The Messiah? There is no middle ground: the testimony about Him is either true or false. The purpose of Scriptures themselves even call us to this same decision:

John 20:31 CSB

31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

It is through the work of the Spirit in our lives and the surrender to that work by faith in Jesus that we have life. Believers have life. And that believing life is our final witness in this passage, because John said in verse 10, “The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself.”

5) Believers testify about Him.

Those who believe in Jesus have a testimony to share. Now, for many of us that saying means that we have our personal story of coming to faith in Jesus, or about how God is at work in our lives right now through that faith, or how God did a miraculous work in our lives at one point or another by His Spirit through faith. But the testimony that we have within ourselves doesn’t have to be that long or that complicated. John says that our testimony is really the summary truth of the Gospel message:

1 John 5:11–12 CSB

11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. “Life” is how he opened this letter, as he gave his own personal testimony of Jesus as “the word of life:”

1 John 1:1–2 CSB

1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—

This is what believers are to do. We should testify to the fact that in Christ, God has given us eternal life. We are to testify to the hope that we have because of the eternal life that we’ve been given, telling those who are lost that life is available to all who would believe in Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life.

The eternal life that Jesus offers is the only solution to the death that we see in the world. We can be incredibly vocal about the social and political issues that we face in the world today, and that’s not wrong. We are called to contend for the truth against the lies of the world and the devil. But are we nearly as vocal to our friends and neighbors about the true solution to the deadly ills that plague the world? Are we willing to tell them about eternal life, to call them to salvation through faith in Christ—telling them that if they have the Son, they will have life, and if they don’t have the Son, they only have death?

Again, there’s no middle ground here for John. Either you have the Son of God through faith, or your don’t. And that determines whether you have eternal life, or you don’t. Jesus said it this way in John 3:

John 3:36 CSB

36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.

What is the reality, the fruit of your salvation right now? If you have the Son, you have life. If you don’t have the Son, you don’t have life, and never did. If your hope and confidence are in Christ today, then you can rest assured that you have the Son!

And we testify to having eternal life. Not just “forever life.” True life, right now, because we have the presence of God within us through faith in Jesus. The Source of Life, the Author of Life, the Creator of Life, the Sustainer of Life, living within us by His Spirit through our faith in Jesus. Through Him we have true life to the fullest, according to John 10:10:

John 10:10 CSB

10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

This testimony of what Jesus has done for us and what it means for our eternal security was captured well by Baynard Fox in his hymn “I’ll Tell the World that I’m a Christian:”

I’ll tell the world that I’m a Christian—

I’m not ashamed His name to bear;

I’ll tell the world that I’m a Christian—

I’ll take Him with me anywhere.

I’ll tell the world how Jesus saved me,

And how He gave me a life brand new;

And I know that if you trust Him,

That all He gave me He’ll give to you.

I’ll tell the world that He’s my Savior,

No other one could love me so;

My life, my all is His forever,

And where He leads me I will go.

— Verse 1, “I’ll Tell the World That I’m A Christian” (Hymn 368, The Baptist Hymnal)

The first verse speaks to the testimony that we have to share. The second speaks to the eternal life that we are promised:

I’ll tell the world that He is coming—

It may be near or far away;

But we must live as if His coming

Would be tomorrow or today.

For when He comes and life is over,

For those who love Him there’s more to be;

Eyes have never seen the wonders

That He’s preparing for you and me.

O tell the world that you’re a Christian,

Be not ashamed His name to bear;

O tell the world that you’re a Christian,

and take Him with you everywhere.

— Verse 2, “I’ll Tell the World that I’m a Christian” (Hymn 368, The Baptist Hymnal)

Let’s tell the world that we are Christians, testifying to what God has done for us and for the world in Christ!

Closing

Will we believe the testimony of the water, the blood, the Spirit, the Father, and those who belong to Him through faith? While verse 13 is where we will start next week, I wanted to point it out this morning as we close. In it, John gives one last reason for why he wrote this letter:

1 John 5:13 CSB

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.

He writes to the church so that we might have confidence in our having eternal life.

What if you don’t have that confidence? There’s only one solution: Believe the testimony about Jesus. What if you’ve never had that confidence? There’s only one solution: believe the testimony about Jesus. What if you are absolutely confident of the fact that you are lost and bound for hell? There’s only one solution: believe the testimony about Jesus. Believe that He lived a perfect life, and then died on the cross in your place so that you could be forgiven. Believe that He rose from the grave and defeated death, so as He lives forever, so will those who have trusted Him. Turn from your sinfulness and surrender to Him as both Savior AND Lord, giving up your right to go your own way. And you will have eternal life.

This happens right where you are. And if this is what is happening in your life right now, I want to invite you to come and tell us so we can celebrate and rejoice with you.

Church membership

Prayer

Offering

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Jer 46)

No Pastor’s Study: AOM at 5:30 pm here in the Sanctuary. Plan to sit down front.

Prayer Meeting

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Hebrews 13:20–21 CSB

20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.