1 John 5.7–8

v 7–8 For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Testimony is a critical aspect in the execution of righteousness, authority or claims to power, and all forms of wisdom. While in the abstract and absolute terms these can appeal directly to Truth itself, in practical experience within the flesh, itself intrinsically separated by the only near proximity of history and space and ways of knowing, there is reliance always on testimony as a subject to corroborate the details of these discernments. Limited as the flesh is when seeking or holding truth, the practice of testing and validating the testimony of subjects was encouraged by the law which was provided to the children of Israel to be their guardian until Christ came that men might be justified by faith (Galatians 3.24). The Law was provided by God’s Word, that sin might not destroy his chosen people, and that the promises to Abraham might be delivered by his offspring. Moving in Israel’s history, God provided his people the Scripture which locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe (Galatians 3.22). God’s Word provided the guardian which challenged man to validate and steel the truths that he accepted, with the will that this might also teach the children of Abraham to not accept the truth of man as the Truth of God, and to not accept the Truth of God without the Authority of God. In this measure, we see the will of God delivering, preserving, and preparing the hearts of some of his people for the message by Jesus Christ, which was the message of God, the Word of God, the Truth of God, by the Authority of God. We see the Law served its role as guardian of this truth when the crowds responded to Jesus’ sermon on the mount: When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law (Matthew 7.28–29). It was by the Law as guardian that the crowds knew to discern this testimony as different, but it was by the Grace of God that the crowds would see the true Authority by which Jesus Christ the Son of God was speaking the Word of God, their hearts given faith to believe. What then of the Law; is it to no longer apply where Christ is speaking? Absolutely not, for he as Word of God came to fulfill and not abolish the Law. In keeping with the strictness of the Law, being above reproach God willed that there are three that testify and the three are in agreement. God’s movement within man’s history, by the coming of the Son in the flesh, was to provide, for those God calls to know him, no doubts about the Testimony of the Word based on the provisions of the Law. God’s movement by the Son’s life was to dispel any doubt and to provide the Way that the man who devoutly believed in the God who provided the Law, and loved the God who loved man by the Law, and sought the will of the God who curbed the will of man by the Law, would be given faith to believe by and in the coming of Jesus Christ. By the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, this man is made a believer, and is made into the miraculous delivery of what was promised: he is no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since he is his child, God has made him also an heir (Galatians 4.7).

How is this provided for such a man? The testimony is related to man by the Spirit, the water and the blood. John the Baptist was sent by the Holy Spirit to go into the wilderness, preach of the coming kingdom of heaven, and begin baptizing with water that he [the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!] might be revealed to Israel (John 1.29–31). God’s revealing of the Son of God Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, was by the fulfillment of the prophecy that God provided John: the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is God’s Chosen One (John 1.34). Here such a man sees the testimony of the water, which marks the moment in history when the Son of God began his ministry (Luke 3.23). Punctuating the end of this worldly ministry is the death in weakness by Jesus Christ on the Cross, that by his foreordained death he may triumph over the bondage of man to sin that we might be justified by faith, so now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the guardian of the Law (Galatians 3.24–25). This testimony related by the blood, which needed to be shed on the Cross for the atonement of sins and the imparting of undeserved righteousness to man, echoes louder the claims of Truth in the testimony of Jesus Christ, for in the testimony of the blood the centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”, and as for all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away (Luke 23.47–48). The testimony of the water spoke to some who were ready to believe, and some of the disciples of John the Baptist began to follow and place their faith in Jesus the Christ. The testimony of the blood echoed out louder, bringing even sinful gentiles who had no knowledge of the Law as guardian of their hearts to the beginning of recognition of the Testimony of Jesus Christ. But it is the testimony of the Spirit which makes this Truth sure in the hearts of the individual man, baptizing the individual man into the miracle of God’s Will for the salvation of the world; moving this Truth from one of the history of God and men, to one which is the anointing of the individual man for the purposes that God has willed of him in history and in the unfolding of God’s will for reconciliation and fellowship with him from the beginning. In history, in the flesh we see and are brought to understand the water and the blood, but further God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So we are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since we are his child, God has made us also an heir. (Galatians 4.6–7). Like the crowds, man may not immediately understand, and may simply be astonished. Like the Centurion, he may realize that something is different and that this man Jesus Christ was something special. But when the Spirit moves, those who are called to be given faith by the Word understand, they notice the Authority of God, and by faith in Jesus Christ they accept the Testimony of God which brings man to a richer understanding of God. In this richer understanding of God, man in history and creatureliness will still be incomplete in his subjective understanding of the Testimony, and his ability to testify of this to others. Yet this is to his joy in the Glory for God. For when the believer speaks truth from the Truth of God, and when he moves by the motion of God, and when he wills to do by the Will of God’s Spirit, it will no longer be a man who testifies but it shall be God who testifies, and whoever belongs to God hears what God says (John 8.47).