LIFE: UNION WITH THE HEAVENLY MAN (5:6-12)

Feb 17
16 min read

Updated: Feb 22

John is writing sixty years or so after Christ’s death, and nearly a century after the incarnation. As the only surviving eye-witness of Jesus’s ministry, he is uniquely qualified to know whether Jesus was just a man, or the Son of God. He was there at Jesus’s baptism, and was the only one of the disciples who actually saw the blood flow when the Roman soldier stabbed His dead body on the Cross.

He had written his Gospel ‘so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, you may have life in His Name’ (John 20:31). He writes his Epistle to buttress their faith in Jesus's Sonship, and undergird their awareness of the new life within them: ‘that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God’ (v13). Believing this - really believing, not just intellectual assent - is the key to receiving the life of God within you: it unlocks the door into the Presence of God, and into fellowship with the Father and the Son.

His gospel is heavy on the evidence for Christ's divinity: the Baptist's witness (Jn 1:29-36); the many 'signs' of Jesus's sovereignty over creation, sickness, sabbath, sin, birth defects and death; His frequent direct claims to be the Son of God (Jn 5:16-30), and to be attested as such by the Father both in the miracles and in the Mosaic Law, and finally the raising of Lazarus.

His epistle assumes their prior knowledge of all this, and yet he still feels the need to return to this issue of Christ's Sonship. But this time, his focus is not so much on the relationship of Father and Son, as on the relationship of the divine Son to the historic Jesus. "Without ceasing to be what He is, the Son of God has become the human Jesus; and Jesus, without ceasing to be truly human, is the Son of God" (Robert Law, p99)

In what sense did Jesus Christ come by water and blood?

This verse (v7) is one of the most contentious verses in the whole bible. There are at least ten different schools of thought, as to what John was referring to!

The three main ones are:-

(a) Christ's baptism and crucifixion: the view of Tertullian and the early Church Fathers

(b) the blood and water that came from Jesus's heart when the centurion stabbed Him to make sure He was dead (Jn 19:34): Augustine's view. John was the sole apostle left at the cross to witness this event, but obviously attached great importance to it.

So it seems that the Early Church clearly took this phrase to refer to the beginning and end of Christ's earthly ministry: but that this needn't necessarily prevent us reading it sacramentally too. We will explore this further, later.

Some grammatical analysis helps clarify:

'Came' is in the aorist tense, indicating a specific event at some point in the past - not an ongoing, repeated experience such as the sacraments. However the second time water and blood are mentioned (v8) they are said to be still witnessing in the present.
John's Gospel repreatedly refers to Messiah as 'He who came' or 'is to come': implying he is here referring to Jesus's Messianic ministry on earth (Jn 3:31,6:14,7:21,11:27,12:13)
The Greek refers first to Christ coming 'through water and blood' and then 'not in the water only, but in the water and the blood'. This doesn't really fit with reading it as the water and blood that came from Christ's side, on the cross.

If we're right, that John is here referring to Jesus's baptism and crucifixion, we could summarise it by saying

Christ came into His Messianic ministry, through His baptism. This was the moment He was revealed to Israel.
He completed that and began His eternal, Melchizedek ministry through the cross

Not through water only

'Not by water only' points to the context of doctrinal controversy. Heretics such as Cerinthus believed that the Christ-Spirit came on Jesus at His baptism, but left just before His crucifixion. (Modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses believe something very similar: that the human Jesus was taken over by an archangel at His baptism, and used as a human sacrifice - but that the archangel left Him just before the crucifixion.)

This is why John emphasises that Christ came ‘not by water only, but by water and by blood’.

John has previously said that 'Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not, ... is not ...' (4:2). A right grasp of the truth of the incarnation is the acid test of orthodoxy. 'Has come' is in the perfect tense, indicating that it refers to a specific event with ongoing effects. 'In' is en, not eis; Christ was born as a human child - he did not come into human flesh at Jesus's baptism. 'Flesh' is sarx, the same word used throughout the New Testament for human flesh - indicating the completeness of His participation in human nature.

"Gnosticism fashioned ... a god wholly transcendent and impassible, a Christ whoi only seemed to suffer and lay down His life for men, a gospel drained of its life-blood" (R Law)

"The truth taught (in the epistle) is that of one Person in two states, a pre-incarnate and an incarnate state of being. Without change of personal identity, the eternal Son of God is become, and forever continues to be, Jesus." (R Law)

Why is the Incarnation so vital a truth?

It's the foundation-stone of the Christian revelation of God. If Christ was not the Son of God, He cannot have revealed the Father's nature, or be the image of the invisible God. Those who deny the incarnation, 'have not the Father' (2:23)
It's central to the revelation that God is love. Without it, God did not give His precious Son to be the Lamb, and the idea of sacrificial love (agape) is null and void.
It's central to our salvation. If Christ was not a man, He cannot have offered His own blood in the heavenly sanctuary; and He cannot cleanse our consciences of sin.
The incarnation, and our union with Christ, is the only way in which man can participate in eternal life, and the divine nature. 'He that has the Son, has life. He that hath not the Son, hath not life'.

Water and blood, bread and wine

Earlier I mentioned that Luther and Calvin both read 'He who came by water and blood' as referring to the Christian sacraments of water baptism and communion. Even the earliest of commentators make this link: for instance...

Tertullian says, "He (Christ) had come by means of water and blood just as John had written; that He might be baptised by the water, and glorified by the blood; to make us in like manner called by water, chosen by blood. These two baptisms He sent out from the wound in His pierced side, in order that they who believed in His blood might be baptised in the water; they who had been baptised in the water might likewise drink the blood."
More recently, Robert Law comments, "The first mention of the water and blood refers to the baptism and death of Christ in answer to the Cerinthians, and the second provides a natural transition from the historical realities to the permanent memorials, the Christian sacraments.... Every successive generation of Christians has baptised and broken bread as the first company of believers did, and has received in the sacraments the same testimony to the foundation fact upon which our salvation rests. Older than the oldest of the new Testament scriptures, of an authenticity which no criticism can impugn, they (the sacraments) lead us back to the birth-hour of Christianity, and perpetuate in the church the historical basis of its faith."

Baptism has always been understood as being baptised into Christ, though perhaps that is often unconsciously limited to a change in legal status rather than a living union with Him. As for the Mass, whilst rejecting Catholic teaching that the bread and wine are physically trans-substantiated into the body and blood of Christ, the Reformers nevertheless held that celebrating communion was more than just a memorial. Something spiritually real happens, when we eat the bread and drink the wine.

Evangelicals routinely teach that the eucharist looks back to the death of Christ as our propitiation; forwards, to His return and the kingdom on earth; and inwards, in that we need to examine ourselves for any betrayal of Christ, lest we eat and drink judgement on ourselves, as Judas did. So far, so good: this is very much in line with much of St Paul's teaching, and indeed with Jesus's words of institution, when He said 'Do this in remembrance of Me'.

But Jesus also said, 'Take, eat; this is My body' and 'Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins' (Mt 26:26-28). And He had previously taught, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.… Most assuredly, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of me" (Jn 6:51-57).

And St Paul says, 'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread' (1 Cor 10:16,17). He is using the same word, koinonia, used by John to mean fellowship with the Father and the Son.

'Having the Son' is more than just a synonym for 'believing in the Son'. John is clear that eternal life, whilst it begins at rebirth, comes from remaining joined to Christ (Jn 14:23,15:4-7). It has to do with the essence or nature of our being: that we are indwelt by the Son. If baptism is participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, then the eucharist is participation in Christ’s deified humanity. The water and blood from Christ’s side are not just illustrations: they are sources of our eternal life..

Wesley held that “The grace of God is conveyed to us chiefly by the sacraments.” Baptism to him meant incorporation into Christ’s covenant life. And the eucharist was a means of present grace, not bare remembrance. One could not be perfected in love by willpower, but rather by abiding in Christ’s self-giving life, participating in it through the sacrament.

Implications for evangelicals and communion

If Christ is indeed present in the eucharist, albeit not by trans-substantiation, and the sacrament is indeed a means of grace, albeit not ex opere operato, what implications might this have for the way we evangelicals celebrate it?

Firstly, it will mean re-balancing our gospel beyond a change in our legal status before God, to focus on union with Christ. Teaching that eternal life is a present, experiential reality and that we are not only joined with Christ in His death and resurrection, but also in His ascension. Going beyond memorial, into eating His flesh and drinking His blood (Jn 6). Declaring that redemption's aim is to restore the image of God in us: love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith (1 Tim 1:5): and that perfected love can never be achieved, but only received - through our being indwelt by Christ.

Secondly, discerning the body of Christ in the ways we celebrate communion. The bread and wine may be only symbols, but the body of Christ is a spiritual reality.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul picks out various issues which undoubtedly have modern-day parallels. (a) He compares partaking of the body and blood of Christ, to Jewish sacrifices such as the peace offerings, where the offerer ate the sacrifice as a way of having fellowship with God. (b) And then he contrasts that with eating food offered to idols, which he says amounts to having fellowship with demons. Whilst idols are a spiritual nothing-burger, the real issue is that such behaviour can cause others' faith to stumble.. (c)He says that their celebrations of the Lord's Supper are null and void because of the divisions amongst them; (d) and that selfishly gorging ahead of others who then have nothing, is totally incongruous in a celebration of Christ's self-sacrifice. The Lord's Supper is a proclamation to the heavenly realms, both that Christ died and that He will return.

Any or all of these issues represent a failure to discern the body of Christ. We have failed to recognise the reality of our union with Him as one body, and in harming others' consciences, holding grudges, and selfishness we are guilty of wounding the body of Christ and despising His sacrifice. God's resulting judgement manifests in sickness and death, to avoid our ultimate condemnation when the world is judged.

The Spirit's witness

Historically, John had been present at both Jesus's baptism and crucifixion: and as the last surviving apostle, he continued to witness to the reality of Christ's liofe and death. But the Holy Spirit had also been present:

- At Jesus’s baptism, His Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). When the Spirit descended upon Him in the visible form of a dove, John knew that Jesus was the Messiah, and testified that ‘This is the Son of God’ (Jn 1:31-34).

- And at His death, the torn veil, the earthquake and the bodies emerging from tombs convinced the Centurion in charge that ‘Truly, this was the Son of God!” (Matt 27:54). The Holy Spirit declared Him to be the Son of God, by raising Him from the dead (Rom 1:4, 8:11).

But nevertheless, many of those present completely missed the significance of these events.

However the witness of the Spirit was not limited to a one-off event at the Jordan. It is a present-tense reality, says John. And the Spirit’s role par excellence is to witness to Jesus... 'The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus' (Rev 19:10).

The Spirit keeps on witnessing, because His nature is to be truthful, and to witness to the truth as Jesus had done (Jn 18:37). The truth He witnesses to, 'convicts the world of sin, and righteousness, and judgement': of sin, because men do not believe in Christ; of righteousness, because His resurrection proved death could not hold Him; and of coming judgement, because the ruler of this world is judged' (Jn 16:8-11).

His witness is to the same facts of which the water and the blood speak (vs 8). In other words, His primary testimony is that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. He testifies to the truth of the incarnation! He takes us beyond recognition of the facts, to an inner knowing. He glorifies Christ by taking truths about Jesus and declaring them to us (Jn 16:14).

[Surely if this is the Spirit's concern, it should be top of the church's agenda too?]

Some may be wary of this sense of inner conviction, wondering how to distinguish it from mere 'enthusiasm' such as the Cerinthians no doubt showed for their beliefs. But theologically, the Spirit never goes beyond what Christ revealed during his earthly ministry. The Spirit unpacks Christ's bullet points, so to speak. At the last supper, Christ acknowledged there were many things He could not yet tell them: presumably these were what He taught them during the forty days after His resurrection. But the Holy Spirit's role is to guide us into existing truth, not to declare completely new doctrines (Jn 16:12-15).

The heavenly witness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit

As well as the historical witness, John says that all three members of the Godhead speak with one voice from heaven (v7). (This verse is controversial: most manuscripts omit it).

It might seem strange to us Westerners, to appeal to invisible witnesses! But it would not have seemed so to John's readers. When defending His own claims, Jesus first lists the Baptist’s testimony, the Messianic miracles, and Moses’s writings as the Father’s corroboration of His Sonship (John 5:31-47) and then says specifically that His Father is testifying too (John 8:18). The Son of Man in His high-priestly glory, declares “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last... I am He who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore!” (Rev 1:11,18).

If the heavenly witnesses are out of earshot so to speak, there are (present tense) also three earthly witnesses ... the water and the blood continue to witness, and so does the Spirit.

The Spirit's inner witness

Mosaic Law required two or three witnesses who agreed in every detail, to prove a charge. The two earthly events of Christ's baptism and crucifixion exactly corroborate each other in declaring His divinity. But the third earthly witness, the Holy Spirit, is even more trustworthy than man's witness - for His witness is the witness of God Himself, about His own Son.

This witness of the Spirit occurs firstly in the world; He convicts men of their sin of unbelief, of the righteousness of Christ, and of the judgement of the prince of this world (Jn16:7-15). But His primary testimony is focussed on glorifying the Person of Christ (Jn 15:26). How a man reacts to the Spirit's testimony - whether he believes God's testimony about His own Son, or whether he calls God a liar - determines what happens next. If he believes in the Son of God, he receives the Spirit as a witness within himself! But if he blasphemes the Spirit by rejecting His witness, he will never be forgiven, either in this world or the next.

This inner, secondary witness of the Spirit was central to John Wesley's preaching. His father's dying words were "The inner witness - that's the proof, the strongest proof of Christianity". It was only three years later that John grasped what his father had meant, when he experienced the Holy Spirit himself, and 'his heart was strangely warmed'. Apparently his preaching was not as eloquent as his mentor, George Whitfield. But Wesley experienced revival after revival, as the Spirit’s testimony reduced hardened, bitter working men to tears of repentance.

The Spirit 'witnesses with our spirit, that we are children of God, and joint heirs with Christ' (Rom 8:15-17). He enables us to cry, 'Abba, Father'. Our spirit witnesses to us, based on the marks of the new birth which John has been discussing: believing Jesus to be the incarnate Son of God, an inner drive to obey His commands, and love for the brethren. But the Spirit's witness is much more extensive, revealing God's heart towards us, the things which He has prepared for those who love Him, the deep things of God (1 Cor 2:9-12). It was He who enabled John to receive 'the Revelation of Jesus Christ' (Rev 1:10, 4:2). And He emphasises to John that 'the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy' (Rev 19:10).

Nowhere are we told, exactly what to expect; all we know is that just as human fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Lk 11:13). Jesus describes Him as 'living water, bubbling up unto eternal life' (Jn 7:38). (Like the Yorkshire Dales, Israel has many 'karst' springs - high volume springs gushing out of the rocks to form a river). John describes Him as an anointing (2:20, 27) who enables us to distinguish truth from lies - people describe this as 'having a check in their spirit' - and who teaches us everything we need to know, For myself, I experience His witness as a bubbling in my spirit when I hear truth, especially truth about Christ. Sometimes He will manifest in the gift of tongues.

Summing it all up: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son

The Spirit's testimony is that 'God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life'. Though we are born again of the Spirit, and have the seed of God within us, we cannot live without a continual flow of zoe life from Him to us. We have died to this world, and our new zoe life is hidden with Christ, in God. He 'has zoe life in Himself' (Jn 5:26); we do not. We must abide in Him: He is the vine, we are just branches. He is the way, the truth, and the life; and apart from Him we can do nothing.

This are John's final words to his readers: What follows, is an epilogue. This is what he wants them to remember, long after he's gone. He's written to them as those who believe in the name of the Son of God, he says, so that

they may know that they have eternal life - that they may continue to experience deep joyful fellowship with the Father and His Son (1 Jn 1:4; Jn 17:3) - and
that they may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God: that no-one will be able to undermine their faith that Jesus Christ was the eternal Word of God who came in the flesh, died on the Cross, and has returned to the Father - from whence He will come to reign!

This is truly good news, which goes far beyond the limits of the traditional evangelical gospel of substitutionary atonement. Being joined with Christ is far more than a change of legal status in God's judgement. Our awareness of eternal life, like our assurance, may wax and wane under pressure from the world and from false teaching. People may tell us that we are less-than-fully born again if we do not worship angels, keep festivals, circumcise ourselves, restrict our diet to kosher etc etc. And for a time we may be tempted to believe them, until the Holy Spirit draws us back to fully trusting in the life of Christ within us.

This life-giving union with Christ is what Jesus promised His disciples in the Upper Room discourse (Jn 14-17). It is life in a new dimension! Not some theoretical state of quantum physics, but a real-life living in ongoing fellowship with the Father and the Son, through the Spirit. The sort of life that kept John's heart bubbling with joy in his eighties, despite all the trials and tribulations of Dometian's persecution and Cerinthian heresy.

This is the reality that Paul also experienced, that ...

'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' (Phil 4:13).
'I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me' (Gal 2:20).
'For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain' (Phil 2:21).

This life manifests itself in all the fruits of the Spirit, but particularly

in worshipping Christ as fully God yet fully man too;
in hungering and thirsting after righteousness, continually confessing our sins and trusting for His blood to be sprinkled on our consciences; and
in sacrificial love for our born-again siblings.