1Jn 5:6-12

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1Jn 5:6-21 ASSURANCE OF ETERNAL LIFE

The basis of assurance (1Jn 5:6-12)

Those who taught Gnostic-type theories did not believe that the person who died on the cross was Jesus Christ the Son of God. They claimed that ‘the Christ’ (i.e. God) descended on Jesus (the man) in the form of a dove after his baptism and empowered him to do miracles, but departed before his crucifixion. According to them, the Jesus who suffered and died was merely a man. He was not ‘the Christ’. In other words, ‘the Christ’ came through water (his baptism) but not through blood (his death).

John emphatically denies this by saying that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, through both experiences. John quotes three witnesses as evidence to support this. The first is the water, for Jesus was already both God and man when he was baptized (cf. John 1:29-34).

The second is the blood, for the person who died on the cross was both God and man (cf. John 20:26-31; Acts 2:22-24).

The third is the Spirit, for Christ’s indwelling Spirit is the one who confirms this truth to the Christian (cf. 1 John 2:20; 3:24; 4:13).

When the testimonies of three witnesses are in agreement, they must be accepted as evidence that cannot be disputed (1Jn 5:6-8; cf. Deut 19:15).

If people accept the testimony of their fellow human beings, how much more should they accept the testimony of God. And God says that the one who died for the sins of the world was his Son. To deny the union of the divine and the human in Jesus is to call God a liar (1Jn 5:9-10).

God’s Son is the source of eternal life, and those who accept God’s testimony and believe in his Son have eternal life also (1Jn 5:11-12).