09. God's testimony: eternal life in His Son (1Jn_5:6-8; 1Jn_5:11-13)
(9) God’s testimony: eternal life in His Son (1 John 5:6-8;1 John 5:11-13) The last mention of the Holy Spirit in this epistle is about God’s testimony concerning eternal life who is in His Son, Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus came in the power of water (1 John 5:6). The emblem of water in Scripture is manifold and must be interpreted with caution: it may represent death and judgment (like the Red Sea or Jordan) or life eternal and blessing (the waters of life, particularly in John’s writings). Here, the text seems to refer to the fact that water which flowed from the pierced side of our Lord after His death is the powerful testimony that life is not to be found in the first Adam, but only in Christ who must die (or else He, the true corn of wheat would have remained alone in glory; John 12:24) in order to communicate life in resurrection. Purification is by death alone. But the Lord Jesus came also in the power of blood. Atonement for our sins was also necessary, and it was achieved by the shedding of the precious blood of God’s Lamb at the cross. Atonement is also by death alone.
Remarkably, John alone reports in his gospel about water and blood shedding at the cross (John 19:34-35), and his writings display its marvellous results. In that respect, the first nineteen chapters of the Gospel are complemented by his three epistles, while the last two chapters of the Gospel are continued in the book of Revelation. The Hoy Spirit, characterised here as being the truth (1 John 5:6), is the third witness. It is placed here first in the order of the testimony (1 John 5:7), because His power in our hearts enables us to comprehend the value of the two other witnesses (the water and the blood). Historically, however, the water and the blood came first and the Spirit afterwards (at the day of Pentecost).
These three witnesses agree on one single testimony: life eternal is in the Lord Jesus, in the Son of God. In His infinite grace, God gives us eternal life, and that life is in His Son (1 John 5:11). Without Jesus and His finished work accepted by whosoever believes in Him, there is no life, but rather eternal condemnation: such is the most simple and powerful message of the gospel, the good news of salvation. It is in fact the true subject of the epistle.
Mark again how this record about eternal life by the three witnesses (the Spirit, the water and the blood) had been already stated at the cross and at the resurrection day (John 19:35; John 20:31), a proof of the remarkable harmony prevailing in the inspired writings of the disciple whom Jesus loved.