Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXXII) 02/21/23

^5:12 Whoever has the Son has life, but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

The writer of Hebrews stated that if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as we did when we first became Christians, we will share in all that belongs to the Anointed One.^[1] And in his second Epistle, the Apostle John warned that if you stray from the Anointed One’s teaching, you will leave God behind. However, if you are loyal to the Anointed One’s Gospel, you will have God within you. Then you will have both the Father and the Son.^[2]

John the Baptizer stated that all who trust Him – God’s Son – to save them would have eternal life; those who don’t believe and obey Him will never see heaven, but the coming wrath of God remains upon them.^[3] And no doubt John remembered hearing his Lord tell them that He was leaving and going back to the Father, but He wanted them as they traveled through the world to preach the Good News to everyone. So those who believe and are baptized will be saved. But those who refuse will go to their graves unforgiven and condemned.^[4]

So, for John, the question became: who do you believe? The sinner who calls God a liar, or, the Holy Spirit who says God is not a man that He can lie.  If God called Jesus His Son, that’s all the proof anyone needs. But it’s more than just believing; it is the result of believing.  Years ago, a TV quiz show hosted by comedian Groucho Marx was called “You Bet Your Life.”  Of course, there was no life-or-death factor; it was simply a play on words. However, it is the same case of betting your life by believing or not believing that Jesus is God’s Son and the only way to salvation and eternal life, it does become a matter of gambling life or death for your soul.

Therefore, the substance of the internal testimony is this – we are conscious of the Divine gift of eternal life, and this we have in God’s Son. John does not use “everlasting life,” although the idea of endlessness may be included in it, but it is not the main one. The distinction between eternity and time is what the human mind feels is authentic and necessary. But we are apt to lose ourselves when we attempt to think of eternity. We admit that it is not time, that it is the very antithesis of time, yet we try to measure it while we declare it immeasurable. We make it simply a very long time. In John’s writings, the main idea of “eternal life” has no direct reference to time. Eternal life is possessed already by believers; it is not a thing of the future.[5] Life in God includes all blessedness that remains unbroken by physical death.[6] Its opposite is permanent exclusion from God and His presence.

One of my highly admired mentors was the late Dr. Charles W. Conn, President of Lee University in Tennessee. At a Pentecostal Servicemen’s Retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany, he shared the following illustration of eternity. He told us to imagine a bird out in the universe building a new planet for another world. Every day it would fly to the earth, pick up one grain of sand, rock, dirt, or water and deposit it on the new planet. Then, when that bird completely removed all trace of the earth, not one second of eternity would have passed.

While in the military, I once discussed salvation, heaven, and hell with a fellow soldier. He told me very straight forward that he did not believe in heaven or hell. So I put this proposition to him: If there is no heaven or hell, then by living life according to God’s Word and avoiding sinful pleasures, which often can bring more pain and suffering than they do pleasure, I would have nothing to lose. But if there is a heaven and a burning hell and you reject the message of salvation, then, in the end, you will lose everything.  Either way, I can’t lose.  Why risk being wrong? He looked at me and said, “I guess you’re right.” But he decided to take his chances. I can only hope that the Holy Spirit reminded him of our conversation later somewhere down the road, and he reached out to God for salvation.

We can see that verses eleven and twelve are the climax to the Apostle John’s initial part of his letter, namely, that the Son of God is the “Word of Life.” Therefore, possession of God’s Son is the ownership of eternal life and vice versa. We cannot separate eternal life from the person of the Anointed One. False teachers tried to split John’s congregation in two.[7] The truth of eternal life is not at issue here, but only those who know God’s Son possess it. False teachers do not enjoy eternal life.[8] 

The result of God’s witness about Jesus the Anointed One is that God gives the believer eternal life through Him. The phrase “eternal life” is emphatic. The testimony is that God gave eternal life when He gave His Son. Eternal life is the final testimony to God’s Son. Eternal life is more than a quantity of life that lasts forever; it is a quality of life, the highest spiritual life, irrespective of time.[9] This life is the very life of God. Therefore, keep this in mind, eternal life is more qualitative than quantitative.

Eternal life is qualitative life because God is free from corruption. He is pure holiness. God is peace, so the eternal life He passes to us has balance. Eternal life contains unconditional love so that we can have unrestricted love. God embodies eternal life in the person of the Son of God. The person who embraces Jesus the Anointed One as their Savior begins a new kind of life. They will experience that life forever.[10] 

Therefore, the Son of God is the means to eternal life. We can find eternal life nowhere else than in God’s beloved Son. There is no compromise here. God’s Son IS life.[11]  Eternal life testifies to the Son’s life with the Father, a qualitative and eternal life. The possession of eternal life is a testimony to God’s Son. Eternal life rests in Jesus the Anointed One.[12]  

Note the sequences in John’s argument. The Father possesses eternal life and gave it to the humanity of the Anointed One.[13]  So Jesus can say, “I live because of the Father.”[14] So then, Jesus offers believers that same eternal life.[15] It proves that Jesus is God’s Son.[16] The principle is that eternal life comes exclusively through Jesus the Anointed One. It applies to believers in that the life of God’s Son brings us into God’s presence as His present possession and in the eternal state of heaven. Thus, Jesus is the only way into God’s life and fellowship.[17]

COMMENTARY AND HOMILETICS

This verse has comments, interpretations, and insights of the Early Church Fathers, Medieval Thinkers, Reformation Theologians, Revivalist Teachers, Reformed Scholars, and Modern Commentators.

With a studious monk’s spiritual insight, Bede the Venerable (672-735) states that the Apostle John does not simply say that there is life in the Son; he says that God’s Son is life itself. The Son, in turn, glorified His Father by saying: “The Father has life in Himself, and He has granted that same life-giving power to His Son.”[18] He shows how this life is common to both Father and Son when he says: “And this is the way to have eternal life – to know You, the only true God, and Jesus the Anointed One, the One you sent to earth.”[19] [20]

As a firm spiritual disciplinarian, John Owen (1616-1683) states that the reason the Apostle John proposed in his Gospel the promise of Justification as the object of our faith to eternal life. Therefore, it is considered an ordinance of God to that end. Hence, God’s love, grace, and wisdom in sending His Son comprised the same objective. Therefore, not only is it an act of God in providing the Anointed One for our justification, but all His actions towards the person of the Anointed One were to deliver Justification to us. So, “God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.”[21] “He did not spare even His Son but gave Him up for us all,”[22] and “the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.”[23] So He was “Raised to life for our justification.”[24] And our faith is in God, who “raised Him from the dead,”[25] “and in His exaltation.”[26] It is all verified by “the record God has given of His Son.”[27] ^[28]

When people first learn, by their acquaintance with the Anointed One, to place all their hopes of salvation in a personal union with Him, from whom they received a pardon through grace, righteousness, and redemption, what more could any person as for than what we read in verse twelve: “Those who have the Son have spiritual life, and those who do not have the Son have no life?” And what can having the Son signify but having an interest in Him, being made one with Him? But the phrase “having the Son” disproves that dull and moral interpretation, especially when we remember “being in the Anointed One, is abiding in Him,” which must signify a very close union between the Anointed One and us.^[29]

With a spiritually contemplative mind, Matthew Henry (1662-1714) feels that nothing can be more absurd than the conduct of those who doubt the truth of Christianity. In the ordinary affairs of life, they do not hesitate to proceed on human testimony and would consider anyone out of their senses who declined to do so. The honest Christian has seen their guilt, misery, and need for a Savior to provide for such spiritual wants and circumstances. But, on the other hand, they found and felt the power of the Word and doctrine of the Anointed One, humbling, healing, quickening, and comforting their soul. As a result, they have a new disposition and new delights and are not the person they formerly were.

Yet they still have a conflict with themselves, sin, the flesh, the world, and wicked powers. But they find strength from faith in the Anointed One to overcome the world and travel towards a better life. Every Gospel believer has such assurance as a witness in themselves. It removes doubt except in hours of darkness or conflict, but none can persuade them out of their belief in the truths of the Gospel. Here is what makes the unbeliever’s sin so awful, the sin of unbelief. He gives God the lie; because he believes not the record God provided for His Son. While rejecting this record, it is in vain for an individual to plead that they believe God’s testimony in other things. Those who refuse to trust and honor the Anointed One as God’s Son, who object to His teaching as Prophet, rely on His atonement and intercession as High Priest, or obey Him as King, are dead in sin, under condemnation. No outward morality, learning, forms, notions, or confidences avail them.^[30]

As an unapologetic Gospel preacher, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) indicates that in verse twelve, the Apostle John shows respect for the words of the Anointed One in his Gospel, “Anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life.”[31] Where the Scripture speaks of souls coming to the Anointed One, it also speaks of joining with Him as the reason to enjoy His benefits. “Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.”[32] There is a vast difference between finding it suitable that the Anointed One’s redemption and virtues should be theirs who believe. Nor have any interest in the ransom price being a fitting reward of faith. They find no relevant testimony of God’s respect for the agreeability and excellency of such grace. Likewise, they see no advantage in the Anointed One’s sacrifice just because they and the Anointed One are united. Therefore, in the eyes of the heavenly Judge, they may be looked upon and taken as one who does not care about eternal life with God.^[33]

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[1] Hebrews 3:14

[2] 2 John 1:9

[3] John 3:36

[4] Mark 16:15-16

[5] John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; 17:3

[6] Ibid. 11:25

[7] 1 John 2:25-26

[8] Ibid. 1:1-2

[9] John 17:2-3; 3:15-16; 5:24-26; 6:40, 47, 68; 10:10, 28; 11:25-26

[10] Ibid. 11:25-26

[11] 1 John 1:2; John 11:25; 14:6

[12] John 1:4

[13] Ibid. 5:26

[14] Ibid. 6:27

[15] Ibid. 3:36; 5:24; 20:31

[16] Ibid. 1:4; 5:26-27; 6:57; Acts of the Apostles 3:14-15

[17] Ibid. 14:6

[18] Ibid. 5:26

[19] Ibid. 17:3

[20] Bede the Venerable: Ancient Christian Commentary, Bray, G. (Ed.), op. cit., Vol. XI, p. 225

[21] Romans 3:25

[22] Ibid. 8:32

[23] Isaiah 53:6

[24] Romans 4:25

[25] Ibid. 10:9

[26] Acts of the Apostles 5:31

[27] 1 John 5:10-12

[28] Owen, John: The Doctrine of Justification, op. cit., pp. 145-146

[29] Owen, John: A Vindication of Some Passages in a Discourse Concerning Communion with God, op. cit., p. 45.

[30] Henry, Matthew: Concise Commentary on the Bible, op. cit., pp. 2059-2060

[31] John 1:12

[32] Ibid. 5:40

[33] Edwards, Jonathan, The Works of: Soul’s Eternal Salvation, Discourse 1, p. 329

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXXI) 02/20/23

^5:11 This is what God told us: He has given us eternal life in His Son.

Ministry & Missions Overseer Muncia Walls (1937) notes that the Apostle John again declares that the only means of salvation is through Jesus the Anointed One. To deny Him and who He is, is to reject the privilege of salvation. Eternal life can only be obtained through the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. Salvation is experienced only through Baptism in His Name and being filled with His Spirit. He IS salvation. Outside of Him, there is no hope for eternal life. ^[1]

Expositor and systematic theologist Michael Eaton (1942-2017) says that God’s witness activates spiritual life within our hearts. And this is the testimony: “God gave us eternal life,” and “this life is in His Son.” Thus, it speaks of the two sides of the witness of the Spirit. The Spirit also assures us that we have eternal life. Still, such a witness is built upon the foundation of such everlasting life in the historically manifested Son of God. The essence of the Christian Gospel is life. What happens when a person receives Jesus the Anointed One by faith? According to the apostles’ preaching, they come spiritually alive.

Such a person is made alive with spiritual life from God’s Son. It is a life full of sensitivity to God and His Spirit. It is energy, liveliness, and a desire to do things for God. It understands with clarity. When others are unsure and confused about Godly things, the Gospel is self-evident and plain for Christians. They are no longer dead to the workings of God; they are alive to them. “Eternal life” is the clear mind concerning God, appetite for God in their desires, and capacity to obey God within our willpower. And it goes on and on; it grows and develops. Eternal life is a growing life, an ever-increasing life. ^[2]

After studying the context surrounding this verse, John W. (Jack) Carter (1947) points out that in verses ten and now eleven, the Apostle John uses another legal term: “a record:” a written testimony.  The idea is that something that is written down cannot be changed. Today this is called a “disposition.” Written testimonies cannot be altered. It is a piece of solid, substantial evidence presented to the court. The final proof of salvation that John brings to the stand is the gift of eternal life found only in Jesus, the Anointed One. All religious expression and effort focus on reconciling the gap between God and mankind. John points to the gift of eternal life through Jesus the Anointed One as the only acceptable means to fill that gap. With this, John rests his case with a final summation.^[3]

A man who loves sharing God’s Word, Robert W. Yarbrough (1948) draws our attention to the first word in verse eleven, “and,” with an implication in verse ten. Objectively, God’s testimony is that He has made a saving disclosure regarding His Son.[4] But in verse eleven, John specifies what this witness amounts to: “God gave us eternal life.” “Eternal life” is placed in an emphatic position in its clause. That “God gave” it is a reminder “that we are destitute of it” without the Anointed One and “merits cannot acquire it.” Some suggest that “gave” describes the uniqueness of an event in the Anointed One’s past. This concept makes the unbelief of verse ten all the more meaningful because not only has God proclaimed the truth and attested richly to it, but His gracious act also has the gift of eternal life to its recipients as its goal. Some, however, would rather make God a liar than bow to receive God’s blessing.^[5]

Skilled in Dead Sea Scroll interpretation and New Testament writings, Colin G. Kruse (1950) sees the Apostle John now amplifying the nature of God’s witness. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Up to this point, John has emphasized God’s witness concerning the person (who came in the flesh) and work (coming by water and blood) of the historical Jesus. But here, John accentuates God’s testimony concerning the benefit made available to believers through His Son. Here is God’s testimony concerning the eternal life He gives people “in His Son.” In 1 John, eternal life is not an unending extension of life as we know it; instead, it is “having” Jesus the Anointed One. Eternal life is identified with Jesus the Anointed One. He is eternal life,[6] that was with the Father from the beginning.[7] ^[8]

Believing that Christians can fall away from the faith, Ben Witherington III (1951) tells us that here in verse eleven, we are told that God has given everlasting life to believers and that this life is in His Son. Here the act of giving is in the past tense, referring to the historical events of Jesus’ life, or at least the fact of His life. Faith is the condition of receiving God’s life, but once acquired, that life also confirms faith. John states that whoever has the Son has everlasting life, and the converse is also true. This life is available only through the Son. Without the Son, one is spiritually dead, even if one is intellectually alive and lively. Perhaps John has the heretics in view here. Notice that this is called “the witness/testimony,” by which John means the divine evidence or witness to the truth about Jesus. That believers have everlasting life in His name validates the high Christological claims about Him. It is the internal testimony to the fact about Jesus.^[9]

With her crafted spiritual insight, Judith Lieu (1951) says that characteristically, the Apostle John switches from the language of objective reality to that of the subjective appropriation that embodies that reality. The “this is” (the testimony)[10] and commentary anticipate what follows. The “that” clause that follows is not the content of the testimony, namely, (what someone asserts) but constitutes the testimony itself. It also repeats the unfulfilled definition of verse nine (“For this is the testimony of God”): God’s gift of life is God’s testimony giving. On this occasion, “the testimony” is not explicitly defined as “God’s,” perhaps because that is by now self-evident or probably because the preceding verses have excluded any suggestion that this appropriation in “us” exhausts the sum total of God’s testimony. ^[11]

Emphasizing the Apostle John’s call to Christian fellowship, Bruce B. Barton (1954) notes that this is the testimony that the false teachers refused to believe, but the Christians held on to it as the truth; that God has given us eternal life, and this life is found only in His Son. Divine, eternal life resides in the Anointed One, who makes it available to all who believe in Him. That Jesus is indeed God’s Son was established by God’s testimony.^[12] Therefore, believers have eternal life in relationship to and in union with Jesus the Anointed One, who is Himself “life,”^[13] and they have eternal life because of Him.^{[14] [15]}

With a classical thinking approach to understanding the scriptures, Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) proposes that as a complement to the paired clauses that frame (5:10a, 10b, and 5:12a, 12b) are instances of an equal clause beginning with an attention-grabbing “this is.” And this is the testimony that God has given us the life of the coming age. A statement much like the one with which the body of the Epistle begins to mark its framed end. “This” again (as in 5:3a, 4b, 6a, 9b) looks forward to the clause’s “God’s Son” and concluding references to “testimony” (5:10a, 10c). Then there is “The life of the age to come.” A prominent inaugural theme of both the prologue (see 1:1) and the beginning of the Epistle’s second half (see 3:15) helps with its references in the Epistle’s conclusion. In Jesus, the age that is to come, its kingdom, comes. Therefore, in Jesus, the life of the age to come is “received and enjoyed here and now” by all who trust in Him. ^[16]

In his unorthodox Unitarian way, Duncan Heaster (1967) understands that this God given testimony concerns His gift of eternal life through His Son. Therefore, our witness is a life lived here, like the life we will live eternally in Heaven’s Kingdom. That life given to us by the Holy Spirit is “the life” of the Lord Jesus. We now live that life in union with the mind of the exalted Jesus. Therefore, the Gospel of the future Kingdom was explained in parables about how life should be lived now; the “eternal life,” as John puts it, the Kingdom Life. But this life is a gift of the Lord’s Spirit, living and thinking as He does; the energy is “in His Son.” It is so true to practical experience; it is not the exposition of doctrinal truths that makes a powerful witness. Instead of the Kingdom Life, the Eternal Life, the life which was and is in the Anointed One, lived in human life before the eyes of our fellow believers.^[17]

Bright seminarian Karen H. Jobes (1968) tells us that God’s testimony is firm, rooted in His character, revealed in His Son, and witnessed by the Spirit, the water, and the blood. John now brings his argument back to address the assurance he wants his readers to have. God testifies, and He cannot lie,[18] that He offers to all[19] what He gave “us” (meaning John and the Apostles) who believed His testimony about His Son, namely, the gift of eternal life found in no one other than God’s Son, Jesus the Anointed One. So closely does John’s argument link God’s testimony about Jesus to the witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood that any claim that excludes the Spirit, the water, or the blood is not God’s testimony but merely human ideas devoid of the power to save and assure.[20]

A skilled sermonizer, David Legge (1969) tells us that the Greek noun martyria and verb martyreō for “testify” or “bear witness” are used no fewer than ten times in verses six to eleven. John depicts it for us in an illustration, a courtroom drama. Now, as you may be aware, if you’re familiar with the Final Covenant, the Apostle Paul uses courtroom imagery in the book of Romans.[21] Of course, specifically in some of those portions of Scripture, he presents God as our Judge, God, who is holy and righteous, weighing our sins against His law. Not only is God the Judge in Paul’s courtroom scene, but we are the accused; we are the condemned before the courtroom bar of God. Then in Paul’s scene, we also find that there’s a third party, the Anointed One, who is our Advocate.

He is the One who stands before God’s throne and pleads our case and proves that we are not guilty of breaking God’s law since evidence proves that our lawless living has been forgiven. In verse ten, John says: “All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don’t believe this call God a liar because they don’t believe what God testified concerning His Son.” This is indisputable evidence involving the Anointed One to show and prove to all without reasonable doubt that He is who He says He is. It is undeniable evidence, and to reject it is not unreasonable; it is unbelief! As John Stott said: “Unbelief is not a misfortune to be pitied; it is a sin to be deplored.”[22] The evidence is staggering, and to reject it, John says, you’re trying to make God a liar! But the evidence is stacked in the Anointed One’s complete favor.

That is the weight of their testimony after the three witnesses have given it. Then thirdly and finally, John presents the verdict on their testimony in the courtroom. “And this is the record: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” In other words, John tells it like it is. John says: “Here is the evidence, take it or leave it, here are the facts: God testified concerning His Son whom He gave so we could have eternal life, and this life is found only in His Son. It’s on record; this is the testimony; it’s indisputable.” Who could misunderstand language like that?

A Christian’s faith is in the Anointed One, from start to finish. Therefore, those with the Son have eternal life – and those who do not have the Anointed One of the Bible and human history have no eternal life. People need to hear this: you can use evangelical language, you can belong to a denomination that classes itself as evangelical, you can say, “I belong to the church, I’m Baptist, I’m Presbyterian, I’m Brethren, I’m Episcopalian, I’m Pentecostal or something other.” But listen to God’s Word: it’s got nothing to do with all that! He that has the Son has everlasting life!^[23]

^5:12 Whoever has the Son has life, but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

EXPOSITION

This same truth inspired the Apostle Paul to tell us we must keep all this in mind: God made us part of the Anointed One, Jesus. And the Anointed One has become for us wisdom from God. He is why we are right with God and pure enough to be in His presence. The Anointed One is He who set us free from following our sinful tendencies.^[24] In another letter, Paul stated he had been crucified with the Anointed One: and his old self no longer lives, but the Anointed One lives in him. And the life he now has within his body is a result of his trusting in the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him.^[25]

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[1] Walls, Muncia: Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., p. 89

[2] Eaton, Michael: Focus on the Bible, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., p. 188

[3] Carter, Dr. John W. (Jack). 1,2,3, John & Jude: (The Disciple’s Bible Commentary Book 48), op. cit., p. 126

[4] 1 John 5:9-10

[5] Yarbrough, Robert W., 1-3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., pp. 289-290

[6] 1 John 5:20

[7] Ibid. 1:2

[8] Kruse, Colin G., The Letters of John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary), op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[9] Witherington, Ben III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John, op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[10] Cf. 1 John 1:5

[11] Lieu, Judith: A New Testament Library, I, II, & III John, op. cit., p. 219

[12] 1 John 5:7-9

[13] John 1:4; 14:6

[14] 2 Timothy 1:10

[15] Barton, Bruce B., 1,2, & 3 John (Life Application Bible Commentary), op. cit., p. 112

[16] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, 1-3 John, op. cit., pp. 542-543

[17] Heaster, Duncan. New European Christadelphian Commentary: op. cit., The Letters of John, p. 76

[18] Numbers 23:19

[19] See 1 John 2:2

[20] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament Series Book 18), op. cit., p. 225

[21] Romans 3:9-28

[22] Stott, John: The Epistles of John, TNT, Eerdmans, 1964, p. 182.

[23] Legge, David: Preach the Word, 1 John, Sermon 15

[24] 1 Corinthians 1:30

[25] Galatians 2:20

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXX) 02/17/23

^5:11 This is what God told us: He has given us eternal life in His Son.

Noting the Apostle John’s doctrinal implications, John James Lias (1834-1923) feels we are permitted to grasp the truth in its fulness of God’s Word. “The Life was manifested” that it might become ours. Eternal, unchangeable life is within our reach. And this life can only be obtained in and through the Son of God, as John repeatedly tells us,[1] that we might have life. The “He gave” here refers no doubt to the first coming of the Anointed One into the world as the one-act which gave eternal life to the world. The aorist tense asks us to contemplate that this gift reached us in the Person of the Son. We should not fail to observe how the Apostle Paul comes to the same conclusion after a long argument, in almost the exact words. “The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus the Anointed One our Lord.”[2] ^[3]

A tried and tested biblical scholar who believes in the up-building of the Christian life, Robert Cameron (1839-1904) notes that the Apostle John adds to what has been said so far, “God has given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son,” and we obtain this life believing in His name. About forty times in John’s Gospel, spiritual and eternal life is said to be received by having faith in the Anointed One, but only once here in this Epistle. It is assumed that the persons to whom John writes have already believed. Then he adds in verse twelve, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” If God has given us spiritual life in the Anointed One, then we also have what God has put in Him – eternal life. If we do not accept the Anointed One, we do not have spiritual life. So, Christianity is perpetual faith in a person and not the acceptance of a creed.

The Father, the words and the works of the Anointed One, the Scriptures, John the Baptizer, and the disciples all bear their testimony that Jesus is the Son of God, notes Cameron. But God has appointed the Spirit, the water, and the blood to bear witness as well. They bear official witness to the Anointed One and point out how He is related to us in accomplishing our redemption. The Spirit, the water, and the blood are three complete testimonies. What was performed by the Anointed One, in His entrance upon His ministry by water and His exit by blood, are still visible. To reject these witnesses is to make God a liar and discard His Son. Here ends the doctrinal part of the First Epistle of John.^[4]

As a secular and sacred Law enforcer, Sir Robert Anderson (1841-1918) denotes that faith in its simplest character is not trust, nor even faith in a person, but the belief of a record. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Anointed One, is born of God.”[5] “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”[6] So, reading this fifth chapter, we find that God’s testimony is in question between sinners and themselves. “There are three who bear witness, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three agree in one. If we receive the witness of others, the witness of God is greater. They that believe in the Son of God have the witness in themselves.[7] In the whole chapter, beginning with verse six, the terms “water” and “blood” are to be interpreted by the typology of Scripture. The Anointed One came as the fulfillment not merely of “the water of purification”[8] but of “the blood of atonement.”[9] And so also if we turn to the Gospel of John. It was written that we might believe “that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God; and that, believing, we might have life through His name.”[10] ^[11]

Manifestly and distinctly, Erich Haupt (1841-1910) calculates that any explanation of the water and the blood must consider the twofold relation they assume here. First, they are witnesses or a source of testimony. Therefore, the water and the blood must represent some divine act, some heavenly institution, in virtue of which God appears on behalf of the Anointed One. Secondly, we observe that the Anointed One is said to have “come.” The Apostle John uses the word “come” concerning the Anointed One as a solemn voice that refers to Jesus’ coming as the Anointed One, not to His being born, but His manifestation as Savior of the world. The proposition before us needs to signify that Jesus attained His Messianic position through water and blood. Therefore, these two are not only the pledge of His divine Sonship but the powers through which He was established as the world’s Savior. Accordingly, the water and the blood must be pointed to as constitutive factors in the life of the Redeemer.^[12]

With his Spirit-directed calculating mind, Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) says what the Apostle John says in verse eleven is the external witness of God when the believer internally appropriates it, namely, the Divine gift of eternal life. Plummer explains that “He has given” eternal life is better translated as “He gave.” but perhaps this is a case in which the English perfect may represent the Greek aorist. But at any rate, “gave” must not be weakened into “offered,” still less into “promised.” The believer already possesses eternal life. This life is in God’s Son. Therefore, eternal life has its seat and source in the Son, the “Prince” or “Author” of life.[13] ^[14]

With regal etiquette, Ernest von Dryander (1843-1922) asks, “Who guides the arrow of the word of God so that it penetrates the conscience of man?” It is the Holy Spirit. “Who arouses death-stricken souls to yearn for peace and salvation?” It is the Holy Spirit. “Who makes the Anointed One’s presence in the preaching of His Word?” It is the Spirit of truth. So there are three testify on earth – the Spirit, the water, and the blood. Only in the power of the Spirit do the other witnesses become living and convincing. But “these three agree in one” on one shared object: declaring Jesus the Anointed One as God’s Son and Redeemer of the world.

In addition, it is decreed according to Jewish Law that two or three witnesses must substantiate every truth.[15] Since this holds true in the case of earthly tribunals and even more in the case of the heavenly, should anyone attempt to make God a liar by not believing the testimony He gave of His Son? What hinders them from joining the ranks of true believers? Why stand aloof? Why not revere the Person of Jesus the Anointed One and yet refuse to believe He is the Redeemer? Because they art lacking in one thing; even though there should be numberless witnesses, the living God provided many signs and wonders, why would they remain unconvinced? Why would they refuse to experience the unique and peculiar power these witnesses exercise in giving their testimony? Why wait until forced to confess with Jeremiah, “O Lord, you misled me, and I allowed myself to be misled. You are stronger than I am, and you overpowered me. Now I am mocked every day; everyone laughs at me.”[16] ^[17]

With his stately speaking style,  William M. Sinclair (1850-1917) says that the Christian creed is reduced here to a small scope: the gift of eternal life and the dependence of that life upon His Son. Eternal life does not mean the mere continuance of life after death, whether for good or evil. Instead, it is the expression used throughout the Apostle John’s writings for life in God without reference to time, which can have no end. As such, it implies heaven and every possible variety of blessedness and consists of believing in God the Father and His Son. Its opposite is not annihilation but the second death: existence in exclusion from God.[18] ^[19]

For R. A. Torrey (1856-1928), the expression “living,” as applied to the Word of God, noticeably means something more than partaking of the kind of life with which we are acquainted from observation. God speaks of Himself as the “Living God.” The Lord Jesus is the “Prince of Life.”[20] He announced Himself to John in the vision of Patmos as “He that lives.” Eternal life is in Him.[21] It is clear, then, that when we read, “The Word of God is living,” we are to understand that it lives with a spiritual, inexhaustible, and inextinguishable, divine life. If the Word of God is indeed living in this sense, then we have a fact of tremendous significance.^[22]

A man who appreciates Jesus’ embodiment of the divine transforming emotion on how we live in this world, Robert Law (1860-1919), asserts that spiritual and eternal Life, God, the Father revealed in the Anointed One, is the sole and absolute source. He is the true God and Eternal Life.[23] Eternal Life is His gift² to men; potentially, when He “sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him;”[24] actually, when we believe in His name.[25] The Anointed One is the sole mediator of spiritual Life. If “the witness is that God gave us Eternal spiritual and eternal Life,” it is because “this spiritual and eternal Life is in His Son.” By the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son, the Eternal Life in its Divine fulness became incorporated with humanity and remain a fountain of regenerative power to “as many as receive Him.”[26]

Also, says Law, here John’s doctrine of the Logos (“Word”) enables him to carry thought on this subject in the Final Covenant a step further than the Pauline view of the Anointed One as the Second Adam and the “Man from heaven.”[27] In what sense the Life of God is in the Anointed One and mediated through Him is unfolded in the opening verses of the Epistle, where it is said that the subject of the entire Apostolic announcement is “the Word of Life.” This announcement is possible because “the Life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the Life, the Eternal Life, which was in relation to the Father and was manifested unto us.”[28] ^[29]

With characteristic fundamental thinking, Alan England Brooke (1863-1939) says that the witness is finally defined with some of the essential characteristics already described. So far, the Apostle John only taught his readers that it is a Divine witness borne by the Father to His Son and that those who believe in the Son have it as a possession as part of themselves. Now John states what it consists of. God bore witness to His Son when He gave life to mankind – that higher spiritual life they can realize and make their own by uniting themselves to Jesus, the Anointed One, God’s Son.[30]

God’s testimony consisted of the fact that He gave life to mankind by sending His Son that they might have life in Him.[31] The sending of the Son on a mission is characterized by the Water of the Baptism and shed Blood on the Cross, the object of which was to implant a new life in believing men and women. It was the witness borne by God to the nature and character of Jesus of Nazareth. The gift was something best described as “spiritual life.” The tense emphasizes the fact, apart from its consequences. The reference is to the historical fact of the mission of Him who came by Water and by Blood. The gift of life is a witness only where it has been accepted, which is part of the “testimony,” not an additional statement about life. The witness is the gift of a life which is in God’s Son.^[32]

As a spiritual mentor, Ronald A. Ward (1920-1986) mentions that the Apostle John now analyses the content of the divine testimony. God gave us eternal life. When? It is natural to say, “when we were born again.” But Paul told Timothy that God’s grace was given to us through the Anointed One, Jesus before time began. So, there is no eternal life apart from the Anointed One – and it comes from God.[33] [34] In a spirited confrontational way, Peter S. Ruckman (1921-2016) states that from verse eleven on down, through verse fifteen, is the plainest section found anywhere in John’s first epistle. The Apostle Paul shares this theology ‒ salvation is based on believing something.[35] We need not do something or get something to “abide,” not keeping anybody’s commandments, doing, going, loving the brethren, or anything else, as we have found in the first four chapters. How can anyone not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s Son when God said so?[36] Jesus said He was God’s Son.[37] The disciples said so:[38] Matthew,[39] Mark,[40] Luke,[41] John,[42] Peter,[43] and Thomas.[44] Also, Paul,[45] Martha, [46] the demons,[47] and the Holy Spirit.[48][49] How many more witnesses does anyone need?

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[1] John 6:33, 51; 10:10

[2] Romans 6:23

[3] Lias, John James: The First Epistle of St. John with Exposition, op. cit., pp.391-392

[4] Cameron, Robert: The First Epistle of John, or, God Revealed in Light, Life, and Love, op. cit., p. 238

[5] 1 John 5:1

[6] Ibid. 5:5

[7] Ibid. 5:10

[8] Numbers 19

[9] Leviticus 16

[10] John 20:31

[11] Anderson, Sir. Robert: The Gospel and its Ministry, op. cit., p. 30

[12] Haupt, Erich: The First Epistle of St. John: Clark’s Foreign Theological Library, Vol. LXIV, op. cit., pp. 298-299, 318-319

[13] Acts of the Apostles 3:15; See John 1:4; 5:26

[14] Plummer, Alfred: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, N. T., Vol. IV, p. 163

[15] Deuteronomy 19:15

[16] Jeremiah 20:7 – New Living Translation

[17] Dryander, Ernst von: A Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John in the Form of Addresses, op. cit., XV, The Invulnerability of Faith, p. 202

[18] Cf.  1 John 2:25; John 17:3; 2 Timothy 1:10

[19] Sinclair, William M., New Testament Commentary for English Readers, Charles J. Ellicott (Ed.), op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 492

[20] Acts of the Apostles 3:15

[21] 1 John 5:11

[22] Torrey, R. A., The Fundamentals – A Testament of Truth, Vol. 2, pp. 126-127

[23] 1 John 5:20

[24] Ibid. 4:9

[25] Ibid. 5:13

[26] John 1:12

[27] 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45-49

[28] 1 John 1:2

[29] Law, Robert: The Tests of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 190-191

[30] Cf. John 3:19

[31] Cf. Ibid. 10:10

[32] Brooke, Alan E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles, op. cit., pp. 140-141

[33] See John 17:3

[34] Ward, Ronald A., The Epistles on John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 56-57

[35] Acts of the Apostles 15:11

[36] Matthew 3:17

[37] John 1:14; 5:17; Hebrews 1:8

[38] Matthew 14:33

[39] Matthew 8:29

[40] Mark 3:11

[41] Luke 1:32; 4:41

[42] John 19:7

[43] Matthew 16:16

[44] John 20:28

[45] Matthew 14:33

[46] John 11:27

[47] Luke 4:40-41

[48] Luke 3:22; John 1:32    

[49] Ruckman, Dr. Peter S., General Epistles Vol. 2 (1-2-3 John, Jude Commentary), op. cit., loc. cit. Kindle Edition

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXIX) 02/16/23

^5:11 This is what God told us: He has given us eternal life in His Son.

In his Baptist Magazine by a Clergyman in England, Welsh preacher David Thomas (1813-1894) states that Eternal life is a gift for these reasons:

I. THE SUBJECT OF THE “RECORD” – What is it? It is not endless existence. The “record” does not refer to something new. The Bible assumes mankind’s immortality. “Eternal life” consists in the soul’s well-being – its intrinsic, internal blessedness: “the kingdom of God is within you.”[1] This life is “eternal.” Its resource is the Eternal One, His principles of righteousness embedded in the heart and “springing up into everlasting life.”[2]

II. THE DOCTRINE OF THE “RECORD” (1) is a gift ‒ not something for which people need to do good deeds, but something to be received. (2) It is a gift already given. The believer has its foretaste. (3) It is a gift already given “in His Son.” God’s “grace and truth” come through Jesus the Anointed One, not in systems or churches. (4) It is for the “record.” It is a testimony that people may hear as being said by God’s authority for those who accept it to have everlasting life.^[3]

After checking the text closely, Richard H. Tuck (1817-1868) states that the Apostle John’s words in verse eleven are a statement or declaration we must believe. The Christian creed is limited in scope – the gift of eternal life and the dependence of that life upon God’s Son. Therefore, eternal life is not merely continuing life, but the new life by spiritual birth is limitless. Eternal life is that which we now understand as spiritual life. That is, in its nature, continuous. This everlasting life is not subject to the “second death.”[4] It depends on our relationship to Jesus the Anointed One. To have the Anointed One by faith is to breathe the first breath of eternal life. That life is in the Anointed One for impartation to us, and the receptivity in us is our faith.^[5]

After observing the Apostle John’s attention to detail, John Stock (1817-1884) agrees that God’s testimony surpasses all others. It is higher than heaven, is above the earth, and firmer than the rocks that girt the ocean. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not.[6] It is as unquestionable as it is infinitely gracious. An unexceptionable witness accompanies it, and happy are they who credit God and do not treat His record as false, as did the unhappy Jews as a nation, who so pushed salvation so far from them.

The whole Gospel is compacted in the words of this record, and the gift of eternal life, which we lost in the fall of Adam, which we never could regain, or merit. Now it is ours in God’s dear Son; all who believe in Him come to the Father by Him. Death, the wages of sin,[7] is all our just punishment; and the law of faith excludes boasting. We are so accustomed to sin that it is like one breathing tainted air. We don’t notice it until some wicked deed is committed.

Sin, however, is damnable, whether we perceive it or not. The law of God, which extends to the thoughts and desires of the heart, makes it known and also its sinfulness, and proclaims each transgressor cursed and brings in all the world guilty or subject to punishment⁴; and so we confess justly that we for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished¹. God in love brought us redemption from so fearful a curse by a way for us to escape through His co-equal and beloved Son. He commended His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, the Anointed One died for us:[8] in whom we have redemption through His blood,[9] the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace; wherein He hath abounded towards us, in all wisdom and prudence; saving and calling us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began.^[10]

God in love brought us redemption from so fearful a curse and so deserved and awful death and made a way of escape for us by and through His co-equal and beloved Son. He commended His love towards us that, while we were yet sinners, the Anointed One died for us.[11] In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace,[12] wherein He has abounded towards us, in all wisdom and forethought.[13] ^[14]

Known as a distinguished classical Bible scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, Gordon Calthrop (1823-1894) notes that when we hear the words “eternal life,” we turn instinctively to the opening of the great High Priestly prayer recorded in the Apostle John’s Gospel.[15] So it gives rise to three questions.

I. How do we attain this “eternal life?” (a) It is a gift of God. We cannot merit it; we cannot acquire it as compensation or the result of any amount of laborious effort or moral excellence. We have to accept it, stretch out our hand, and thankfully take what the Lord God, of His infinite bounty and goodness, sees fit to offer. (b) It is bound up with the Person of the Lord Jesus the Anointed One. In the Lord Jesus the Anointed One, we have the reservoir which contains life. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”[16] “As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself.”[17] (c) And again: we must come into contact, so to speak, with this living reservoir or fountainhead so that the stream that issues from it may flow into our being and make us partakers of its blessings. “He that has the Son has life.”[18]

II. What can we understand by “Has the Son”? The idea is that of possession, of mutual control, so that each of us shall be able to say of the Anointed One, “He is mine,” and the Anointed One, on His part, will be willing to speak of each of us, “I am His.” But how is this possession brought about? On our part, by the perfect surrender of ourselves to the Lord. As long as there is any holding back of anything from the Anointed One, He is of no benefit to us. He will not—indeed, He cannot—enter our inner being until we open the door and allow Him to come in, and even then, He will join on no other terms than that of absolute surrender.

III. What are the manifestations of “eternal life”? We find three crucial things in a living body – sensation, movement, and growth.

(a) There is a sensation we may call consciousness, or realization, of God in every living soul. God surrounds every soul as the atmosphere surrounds us. God surrounds us on every side. We exist in God as an element through creation. But it is perfectly possible for us to be utterly insensitive and not have any consciousness of Him. Our conscience is numb until we have received the new birth that the Spirit bestows. Then God flashes upon us actually as if He just came into being. We behold, we know, and delight in Him’s moral teaching and grandeur manifested in His Son, Jesus the Anointed One.

(b) Another manifestation of life is movement. And occupation for God, or mankind for God’s sake, is one of the characteristics of those born again of the Spirit and made new creations in Jesus the Anointed One. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’[19] is one of the first questions such persons always ask. Absolute silence is evidence of spiritual death. You must move, employ yourself; you must use some, at least, of your talents in the Divine service if you are “alive unto God.”

(c) Then there is growth, which is of various kinds: (i) Exercise of the graces of God bestowed upon us. (ii) Growth of intelligence in spiritual things. (iii) Maturity through advancing assimilation. Looking at the Anointed One, earnestly gazing upon Him, trying to understand Him, sympathizing with Him more and more, we catch something of His spirit; the features of His character are impressed upon us; we become, to some extent, like Him.^[20]

With precise spiritual discernment, William Alexander (1824-1911) takes verses ten and eleven as one verse: “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the truth that God told us. But people who do not believe God make God a liar because they do not believe what God told us about his Son. This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” In Alexander’s mind, the Son of God is “the living theology of Christians.” So, it makes sense then that as Christians, we “live” our theology, not just talk about it. All of Jesus’ teachings are null and void unless they are put into action daily. That’s what the Apostle John is trying to get across to his readers. If you say you love God, show it by loving each other. It’s the best witness you could have that you are a child of God. The inner witness is of no value unless it has the outer witness to agree and implements it. Any enthusiastic praise and worship is good, but not without the same excited love for our spiritual brothers and sisters in God’s family.^[21]

With holiness doctrine expertise, Daniel Steele (1824-1914) sees the phrase “That He [God] gave” as a historical fact in the mission of His Son, “He gave to us” who evangelically appropriate the Anointed One, “eternal life.” He who experimentally knows the truth of the Gospel has life eternal, which is present and future, or rather “eternal life” exists, above all time. Eternal life is a respected term in the Final Covenant, occurring forty-four times. It is found only once in the First Covenant.[22] God manifested it to us, says the Apostle John, through His Son.[23]  So, “this life is in His Son.” Its source and seat, its Prince or Author.[24] ^[25]

After sufficient examination of the Greek text, Brooke F. Westcott (1825-1901) feels that God partially unfolded His witness by giving us eternal life. The Mission of His Son was the gift of life,[26] of life in His Son.[27] The reference is to the historical facts by which God communicated this life to humanity. That which before the Anointed One’s first coming was great hope, by His coming was realized and given. It simply defines the character of life and does not identify it with the only true life. True life is not separate from God but in God. Believers are united with the Anointed One and God.[28] ^[29]

Like a spiritual farmer planting the seed of God’s Word, Henry A. Sawtelle (1832-1913) says that this verse’s contents signify God’s testimony through the water, blood, and Spirit. The water, pointing to the water of life, the blood representing the vital principle, and the Spirit, the very element of life itself. They all testify and continue to say that God gave to us who believe in the right to receive eternal life. This eternal life is not directly the state of future blessedness, described as already given because it is a promise. Still, the spiritual life in the soul commenced on earth is destined to survive the body’s demise. Therefore, true believers enter eternal life while in this world.

Observe that this life is something “given” by God’s grace. We do not earn or deserve it; we only receive it. And this life is (abidingly) in His Son. We must regard this statement as a part of the purpose of the testimony and coordinate with the latter part of the preceding sentence. The water, the blood, and the Spirit declared not only the gift of life but also that He who came that way had it absolutely and entirely in Himself. The Anointed One is the eternal vessel of the living water. It is all in Him. It is not in angels or churches but in God’s Son. Only in and through Him is life communicated to a lost world.[30] ^[31] Called the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) agrees with Sawtelle. Yes, it is all a gift. We are sent to preach this: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son born of a woman, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”[32] That is why the Apostle John says here in verse eleven, “This recorded, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” On God’s part, it is all giving; it is all receiving on our part. The promise is already offered, freely made, and fulfilled. God does not begin with giving and then charge a price. No commission is payable upon receipt of His grace. He does not ask or receive a penny; His love is altogether a gift. You may accept His promise as a gift: He will not degrade Himself by listening to other terms.^[33]

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[1] Luke 17:21

[2] John 4:14

[3] Thomas, David: Homilist Magazine, 1862

[4] See Revelation 2:10-11; 20:6, 14; 21:8; in the Jewish Targums it is used in Deuteronomy 33:6; Psalm 49:11

[5] Tuck, Richard H., The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary, op. cit., p. 329

[6] Matthew 24:35

[7] Romans 6:23

[8] Ibid. 5:8

[9] Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14

[10] Stock, John: An Exposition of the First Epistle General of St. John, op. cit., p. 430

[11] Ibid. 5:8

[12] Philippians 4:19

[13] Ephesians 1:7-8

[14] Stock, John: An Exposition of the First Epistle General of St. John, op. cit., p. 430-431

[15] John 17:1-26

[16] Ibid. 1:4

[17] Ibid. 5:26

[18] 1 John 5:12

[19] Acts of the Apostles 9:6 (KJV)

[20] Calthrop, Gordon: The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 12, pp. 322-324

[21] Alexander, William: The Holy Bible with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary, op. cit., Vol IV, p. 343

[22] Daniel 12:2

[23] 1 John 1:2

[24] See 1 John 1:4; Acts of the Apostles 3:15

[25] Steele, Daniel: Half-Hours with St. John’s Epistles, op. cit., p. 139

[26] John 10:10, 29

[27] Ibid. 20:31

[28] Cf. Romans 6:23; 2 Timothy 1:1

[29] Westcott, Brooke F., The Epistles of St. John: Greek Text with Notes, op. cit., pp. 187-188

[30] 1 John 4:9; John 10:10

[31] Sawtelle, Henry A., Commentary on the Epistles of John, op. cit., pp. 58-59

[32] John 3:16

[33] Spurgeon, Charles H., According to Promise, The Promise a Free Gift, pp. 30-31

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXVIII) 02/15/23

^5:11 This is what God told us: He has given us eternal life, which is in His Son.

With scholarly meditation, James Macknight (1721-1800) supposes that the Apostle John had in mind his Master’s words which he recorded in his Gospel.[1] Though John spoke particularly of the three in heaven and the three on earth who bear witness continually, he deferred mentioning it till now. So, what is it they are witnessing? Perhaps John felt that by introducing it last, and after so much preparation, it might make a stronger impression on the mind of his readers. In this, as in other passages of scripture, the expressing action, for example, “God has given,” is used instead of the future, God will give us eternal life, to show the certainty of obtaining that great blessing through His Son.^[2]

After skillfully scrutinizing the Apostle John’s theme, John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) describes the sum of God’s witness concerning His Son – that, in infinite love, made a full and free offer of grace and glory to us sinners in the everlasting Gospel; and, according to His eternal and infinite love, has graciously and tenderly conferred upon us who believe in him a full right and title, and beginnings, earnests, and foretastes of eternal life. It is secured, inhabited, communicated, and enjoyed in a state of union and communion with the Anointed One.^[3]

More concerned with the church than the sacraments, William Jones of Nayland (1726-1800), a British clergyman and author, treats verses six to eleven as one statement. Jones sees the fourfold witness to the Divine Sonship of Jesus in it. John states that by faith, Christians overcome the world. We have the most convincing testimony that confidence in Jesus as the Son of God is well-founded. That testimony is manifold. His homily is extensive, so I’ve included the main points here. (See Footnote #1960 to locate the full text.) Jones says we have —

I. THE TESTIMONY OF HIS BAPTISM. We regard his coming “by water” as referring to His baptism by John the Baptizer. That baptism was: (1) The inauguration of His great mission. When Jesus went to John for baptism, He finally left His private life and was just about to enter His public ministry, and His baptism was a fitting introduction to that ministry.

II. THE TESTIMONY OF HIS CRUCIFIXION. The reference is to the blood He shed on the cross for the redemption of humanity. But how did His death witness the truth that He was God’s Son? By the extraordinary phenomena associated with His death.[4] He voluntarily submitted Himself to death for the salvation of the lost world.[5] He freely surrendered Himself to the most painful and shameful death, not for Himself or his friends, but for sinners and rebels against Him and His Father so that they might have eternal life. Such self-sacrifice was more than human, more than angelic – but Divinely orchestrated to fulfill God’s Word.

“This was compassion like a God,

That when the Saviour knew

The price of pardon was His blood.

His pity ne’er withdrew.”[6]

III. THE TESTIMONY OF HIS SPIRIT. At our Lord’s baptism, the Spirit witnessed that He was God’s Son.[7] Our Lord said, “The Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father shall bear witness of me.”[8] Again He said, “The Spirit of truth … He will bring me glory by telling you whatever He receives from me.”[9] He bore witness to the Messiahship of Jesus by coming down, according to His promise, and making the Gospel of the Anointed One, which they preached, saving power to thousands of souls.[10]

IV. THE TESTIMONY OF HIS BELIEVING PEOPLE. All genuine believers in Jesus the Anointed One have their conscience as a witness that God gave them eternal life, and this life is in His Son. They are conscious that the life of love – love to God and mankind – is theirs. “We know that we have passed out of spiritual death into everlasting life because we love our fellow believers.”[11] And we know that this life was activated within us through the exercise of faith in the Anointed One. To us individually, this is the most convincing of all witnesses. “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”[12]

V. THE TESTIMONY OF ALL THE BEFORE-MENTIONED COMBINED. All the preceding witnesses are united and concurrent in their evidence. “The three agree in one.”[13] We may say that the four agree as one. Their testimony is unanimous. There is no contradiction, no discrepancy in their evidence. They declare, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”[14] “You are the Anointed One, the Son of the Living God.”[15] ^[16]

At age fifteen, a potential young theologian who preached while holding cottage prayer meetings, Joseph Benson (1749-1821), sees the Apostle John identifying the water and blood as emblems of the offices Jesus sustained and of the salvation He obtained for His people. The water is a symbol of the purity of His doctrine, instructing people in the highest morals, and of His righteous and holy example; and, what is of still greater importance, of the purifying grace of which he is the fountain, sanctifying and cleansing such as believe in him, from all filthiness of flesh and spirit: while the blood which issued from him was an emblem both of the sufferings which awaited his followers, who were to seal the truth with their blood, and of his sufferings, whereby he hath made atonement for the sins of the world and procured for his followers a free and full justification. ”^[17]

Considering everything the Apostle John has said, Adam Clarke (1774-1849) states that the great truth to which the Spirit, the water, and the blood bear testimony is now part of the record. God has given us eternal life – a right to endless appropriate glory. And this life is in His Son; it comes by and through Him; He is its author and purchaser; it is only in and through Him. No other plan of salvation can be produced; God provided no other, and a person’s invention is vain indeed.^[18]

Ranked highly by other theologians on the doctrine of the atonement, John McLeod Campbell (1800-1872), Scottish minister and Reformed theologian, writes that someone spoke of the difficulty in joining, in anticipation, “themselves and glory in one thought.” The greater difficulty is to unite ourselves and eternal life. God has already connected us in the Anointed One in an authentic way. But, we are alike slow of heart to receive the Anointed One’s revelation of ourselves and His revelation of God – to believe that God has given us eternal life in His Son and believe that God is love.^[19]

Without using complicated language, Albert Barnes (1798-1870) describes verse eleven as a summation of the testimony God gave respecting His Son. Through Him, God gave eternal life o those who believe in Him. And this life is in His Son. Therefore, I would suggest to Dr. Barnes an amendment: “And His Son in us is eternal life.” It is treasured up in Him and obtained only through Him.^[20]

With impressive theological vision, Richard Rothe (1799-1867) points out how highly the Apostle John values that which we call Christianity. According to him, it is the possession of an eternal life bestowed by God and by no means merely a kind of moral illumination. It is not a mere doctrine or hope; it is not a simple sum of new ethical motives and impulses but a complete, perfect life. It is a life, too, that is eternal and consequently independent of the conditions of our present physical existence. Furthermore, it is not directly affected by the decay of our biological natural organism. On the contrary, it has its real foundation because it is spiritual life.

It is not something we created in ourselves, says Rothe, God bestowed it on us. It is also wholly dependent on Jesus, the Son of God, as its source, dependent on the person of the Savior, not merely on an individual. It can only be received and possessed with the Son Himself; Christianity is an actual living union with the Anointed One. There is no such thing as Christianity detached from the Anointed One. We can do Christianity no worse than to lower it from this height to make it more compatible with people’s intelligence and bring it under the same categories as other religions. If that happens, it must suffer the fate of all. It must decay once it has served its purpose and raised people’s minds above its standpoint.

On the contrary, states Rothe, a Christian must be born again into the eternal life of Christianity. It does not utilize an idealism of the human spirit but faith in the historical individual, the Anointed One. Here it is, where a lofty idealism is inseparably united with an equally definite realism. ^[21]

Consistent with the Apostle John’s advice, Heinrich A. W. Meyer (1800-1882) shares how God’s witness shows itself internally to the believer. Those, who, by believing, have the experiential witness of God, it is no longer just a feeling but a divine power, which God has given them. Hence the Apostle John says in verse eleven: “And this is in the record,”^[22] with “to us who have believed” to be mentally added.

According to Robert Jamieson (1802-1880), Andrew Fausset (1821-1910), and David Brown’s (1803-1897) way of thinking, we should read the Apostle John’s words, “Here is what God told us.” So, what did God tell John? The apostle leaves no doubt. God said He gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Thus,  to have eternal life, you must have God’s Son.[23] It means that as the second Adam, God’s Son, God secured this life for us. We would have lost it like the first Adam if it depended on us.[24]

In line with Apostle John’s conclusion, Henry Alford (1810-1871) makes the point that the testimony here in verses eleven is this, that, namely, that “God gave,” not “has given.” It is essential to notice that it is not the gift’s endurance but the gift itself is highlighted. We can see the present assurance of our possessing this gift when we combine verses eleven and twelve: “This is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.”^[25]

As a faithful and zealous scholar, William Graham (1810-1883) asks, what is the sum and substance of all the testimonies of God as revealed in the Gospel of the Savior? Hear what the Apostle John says, “This is the record, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” From this record, we learn much about the nature of the Gospel. The Giver is God. He is the source and fountain from which all the gifts of providence and grace flow. The Creator and the creature come directly into contact in divine grace. He gave His Son, He shares His Spirit, and from Him, eternal life flows. On no other terms could we receive, and on none other could He dispense His blessings. If God offered salvation for our benefit, it must be free; otherwise, it is not a gift.

Hence the attitude which God assumes in the Gospel dispensation is that of a sin-pardoning Father seated on a throne of grace and freely dispensing His blessings to the nations. Eternal life is the splendid gift that the God of heaven reaches down to every person from His throne on high, inviting, commanding, and entreating us all to receive it from His hand. It is a gift worthy of God, for it contains pardon and peace here and now and the complete and blissful enjoyment of the divine glory hereafter. As opposed to the punishment and consequent death upon sin, it is the eternal gift of life, as opposed to the transient, perishable enjoyments of this temporary world. The full blissful vision of the indescribable Yahweh, into which the ransomed will enter at the return of the Lord;[26]  nor does our language contain any term more expressive of the enjoyments of the heavenly sanctuary.^[27]

With the zeal of a scriptural text examiner, William E. Jelf (811-1875) states that God’s witness is the subjective confirmation of the reality of the objective evidence of the Anointed One being God’s Son. The Father’s testimony consists of this: according to the plan of salvation, He has given us everlasting life; and this gift is in harmony with the higher instincts and desires of the soul. Therefore, the soul acknowledges its truth, just as it recognizes and acknowledges, proprio motu,[28] the existence of God. Thus, according to the Christian economy, eternal life depends on the Son of God having sacrificed Himself for us.^[29]

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[1] John 17:2

[2] Macknight, James: Apostolic Epistles with Commentary, Vol. VI, pp. 114-115

[3] Brown of Haddington, John: Self-Interpreting Bible, N. T., Vol. IV, p. 506

[4] See Matthew 27:45, 50-54; Luke 23:47-48

[5] John 10:17-18; Galarians 1:4; 1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 3:18

[6] Christ’s Dying Love, written by Isaac Watts, 1770, Stanza 2

[7] Matthew 3:16-17

[8] John 15:26

[9] Ibid. 16:14

[10] Acts of the Apostles 2; 4:31

[11] Ibid. 3:14

[12] John 9:25

[13] Acts of the Apostles 5:8

[14] John 1:49

[15] Matthew 16:16

[16] Jones, William: The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 22, pp. 161-162

[17] Benson, Joseph: Selections from Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, op. cit., p. 347

[18] Clarke, Adam: Wesleyan Heritage Commentary, op. cit., Hebrews-Revelation, p. 397

[19] Campbell, John McLeod, The Nature of the Atonement Ch. VII, p. 168

[20] Barnes, Albert: New Testament Notes, op. cit., 1 John 5, p. 4885

[21] Rothe, Richard: Exposition of the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., The Expository Times, May 1895, p. 375

[22] Meyer, Heinrich A. W., Critical and Exegetical Handbook on the General Epistles, op. cit., pp. 613-614

[23] Cf. John 1:4; 11:25; 14:6; Colossians 2:9; 2 Timothy 1:10

[24] Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, New Testament Volume, op. cit., p.720

[25] Alford, Henry: The Greek Testament, op. cit., Vol. IV., p. 507

[26] Matthew 25:46

[27] Graham, William: The Spirit of Love, op. cit., p. 329

[28] Proprio motu is a Latin term meaning: “on one’s own initiative”

[29] Jelf, William E., Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John, op. cit., p. 75

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXVII) 02/14/23

^5:11 This is what God told us: He has given us eternal life, which is in His Son.

We can also conclude that verses eleven and twelve are the climax to the Apostle John’s First Epistle. The Son of God is the “Word of Life.” Therefore, possession of the Son of God is the possession of eternal life and vice versa. John now gives the content of God’s testimony in this verse. We cannot separate eternal life from the person of the Anointed One.  False teachers tried to split the two.[1]  It is not the truth of eternal life at issue here; only those who know God’s Son possess it. Therefore, false teachers do not enjoy eternal life.

The result of God’s witness about Jesus the Anointed One is that God gives the believer in Jesus eternal life.  The words “eternal life” are for emphasis. The testimony is that God gave eternal life when He gave His Son. Eternal life is the final testimony to God’s Son. Eternal life is more than a quantity of life that lasts forever; it is a quality of life, the highest spiritual life irrespective of time.[2] This life is the very life of God Himself. It establishes that eternal life is as much a qualitative as quantitative life.

How do we apply this? Eternal life is qualitative life because God is free from corruption. He is pure holiness.  God is peace, so the eternal life He passes to us has symmetry.  Eternal life contains unconditional love, so we have the capacity for unconditional love.  God embodies eternal life in the person of the Son of God.  The person who embraces Jesus the Anointed One as their Savior begins a new kind of life. They will experience that life forever.[3]

Therefore, the Son is the means to eternal life. We can find eternal life nowhere else than in God’s beloved Son. There is no compromise here. This is because God’s Son is life.[4]  Eternal life testifies to the Son’s life with the Father, a qualitative and eternal life. The possession of eternal life is a testimony to God’s Son. This witness is because eternal life fundamentally rests in the life of Jesus the Anointed One. Note the sequence of John’s argument. The Father possesses eternal life and gave it to the Anointed One as a human.[5] So Jesus can say, “I live because of the Father.”[6]  Jesus gives believers eternal life.[7]  It provides evidence that Jesus is the Son of God.[8] Hence, eternal life comes exclusively through Jesus the Anointed One. The life of God’s Son brings us into God’s presence in the eternal state and is a present possession. Jesus is the only way into God’s life and divine presence.[9]

COMMENTARY AND HOMILETICS

This verse has comments, interpretations, and insights of the Early Church Fathers, Medieval Thinkers, Reformation Theologians, Revivalist Teachers, Reformed Scholars, and Modern Commentators.

With a studious monk’s spiritual insight, Bede the Venerable (672-735) points out that the Apostle John says that God has given us eternal life, and remember that he was saying this when he was still in the flesh and subject to physical death. But God gave us eternal life precisely the same way he gave us the power to become his children. So right now, we live on earth in the hope of his promise, which we shall receive in its fullness after we die and go to be with Him.”^[10] This evidence gave John the boldness to declare to everyone who read this letter:

In “The Shepherd of Hermas,” a book written in the late part of the second century (circa 275 AD), concerning the building of the Church, we find this testimony: “I saw six men come, tall, and distinguished, and similar in appearance, and they summoned a multitude of men. And they who came were also tall men, handsome, and powerful; the six men commanded them to build a tower³⁴⁹ for a man called the Rock. And the virgins who kept the tower ran forward and kissed Him and began to walk near Him around the tower. And that man examined the building carefully, feeling every stone separately, and holding a rod in His hand, He struck every stone in the building three times. But the other stones, which had not yet been cut for the tower, and received the seal, were put back onto the pile because they are still uneven.” What a comparison for pastors to the Rock of our Salvation and Shepherd of our souls, Jesus the Anointed One.

The Shepherd then says, “I am a messenger of repentance to those innocent as children^[11] because your part is good and honorable before God. Moreover, I say to you all, who have received the seal of the Son of God,^[12] be clothed with easiness, not focused on any offenses, nor continue sinning. He will rejoice over you and be joyful when he finds you are spiritually sound, so none of you will perish. But if He finds any one of these sheep strayed away, woe to the shepherds! – Pastors.  And if the shepherds themselves have strayed, what answer will they give Him for their flocks?^[13] Will they perhaps say that their flocks harassed them? They will not be believed, for such a thing is too incredible for a flock to say about a shepherd. Instead, the shepherd will receive punishment based on his lying. And I am a shepherd, and I am under a most stringent necessity of rendering an account of you.”^[14]

As a firm spiritual disciplinarian, John Owen (1616-1683) The Gospel is the revelation or declaration of that way of justification and salvation for sinners by Jesus Christ, which God, in infinite wisdom, love, and grace, has prepared. And upon a supposition of the reception thereof, it is accompanied by precepts of obedience and promises of rewards. “Therein is the righteousness of God,” that which he requires, accepts, and approves unto salvation — “revealed from faith unto faith,” Romans.[15] This is God’s record, “That He has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”[16] “The words of this life,”[17] “All the counsel of God.”[18]

Wherefore, in the dispensation or preaching of the Gospel, the way of salvation is offered to sinners as the significant effect of divine intervention and grace. Unbelief is the rejection, neglect, non-admission, or disapprobation of it, on the terms whereon, and for the ends, it was proposed. So in John, the Baptizer’s preparatory preaching, the Pharisees’ unbelief is called the “rejecting of the counsel of God against themselves” to their ruin.[19] “They would have none of my counsel” is an expression of the same purpose;[20] so is the “neglecting this great salvation,”[21] Not giving it that admission that excellence requires. A disallowing of the Anointed One, the Stone “the builders disapproved of,”[22] as not meet for that place and work whereunto it was designed,[23] this is unbelief; to disapprove of the Anointed One, and His way of salvation as not answering divine wisdom, nor suited for its scheduled end. So is it described by the refusing or not receiving Him; all go to one purpose.^[24]

Regarding the Anointed One’s priestly office and its ministry, in and by human nature, He offered Himself a sacrifice for us,[25] and the Spirit prepared to give Him a body for this purpose.[26] But it was not the work of any human, by one offering, and that of Himself, to compensate for the sins of the whole church, and forever to perfect them that are sanctified, which He did.[27] Jesus was to purchase His church “with His blood.”[28] Suppose we have no consideration for the offices of the Anointed One. In that case, we can not receive any benefit through them nor perform any act of duty concerning them unless faith in His divine person is the foundation.^[29]

In his fiery manner, John Flavel (1627-1691) states that this new life with which the regenerate come alive is also an everlasting life.[30] This principle of life is the seed of God, and that remains in the soul forever.[31] It is no transient, vanishing thing but a fixed, permanent principle that abides in the soul forever. A person may lose their gifts, but grace abides; the soul may and must be separated from the body, but grace cannot be separated from the soul: when all forsake us, this will not leave us. Therefore, this principle implanted by the Spirit is vastly different, both from the extraordinary gifts of prophecy wherein the Spirit was sometimes said to come upon men under the First Covenant[32] and from the common vanishing effects He sometimes produces in the Final Covenant.[33] It is one thing for the Spirit to visit an individual in the way of present influence and assistance and another thing to dwell in them as His temple.^[34]

As a non-conformist to the Church of England orthodoxy, John Bunyan (1628-1688), English writer and Puritan preacher, shared these poetic words of inspiration:

“How the brave sun doth peep up from beneath,

Shows us his golden face, doth on us breath;

Yea, he doth compass us around with glories,

Whilst he ascends to his highest stories,

Where his banner over us displays

And gives us light to see our works and ways.

Nor are we now, as at the peep of light.

To question is it day or is it night;

The night is gone, the shadows fled away,

And now we are most certain that ’tis day.

And that it is when Jesus shows His face,

And doth assure us of His love and grace.”^[35]

From his strategic viewpoint as a biblical expositor and educational pioneer, William Burkitt (1650-1703) says it is as though the Apostle John said, “The sum of God’s testimony recorded in the Gospel concerning His Son Jesus the Anointed One is that God for His sake made pardon and salvation a gift to the world.”  He did so to assure them of grace here and eternal life hereafter, upon the condition of their believing acceptance, that is, of faith and obedience; accordingly, they have the Anointed One. They accept the merit of His blood and submit to the authority of His law. Thus they have eternal life, that is, have an undoubted right and assurance of it being theirs. Yes, they have it already, and its first fruits. But they that, either by unbelief or disobedience, refuse the Anointed One, shall never see life, but God’s wrath on them. Hence we learn 1) Eternal life is a gift from God. 2) This gift is available for us in His Son. 3) Our having or not having union with and interest in the Son depends on whether we have eternal life.^[36]

With all the Apostle John’s themes in mind, John Wesley (1703-1791) asks, “What is the witness of the Spirit?” The Greek word martyria may be rendered either the witness or, less ambiguously, the testimony or the record. The Spirit of God gives the testimony now under consideration to and with our spirit: He is the person testifying. He testifies to us is “we are the children of God.” The immediate result of this testimony is “the fruit of the Spirit,” namely, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness.” And without these, the testimony itself cannot continue. It is inevitably destroyed, not only by the commission of any outward sign or the omission of known duty but by giving way to any inward sin; in a word, by whatever grieves the Holy Spirit of God.^[37]

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[1] See 1 John 2:25-26

[2] John 17:2-3; 3:15-16; 5:24-26; 6:40,47, 68; 10:10, 28; 11:25-26

[3] Ibid. 1:25-26

[4] 1 John 1:2; John 11:25; 14:6

[5] John 5:26

[6] Ibid. 5:27

[7] Ibid. 3:36; 5:24; 20:31

[8] Ibid. 1:4; 5:26-27; 6:57; Acts of the Apostles 3:14-15

[9] Ibid. 14:6

[10] Bede the Venerable, Ancient Christian Commentary, Bray, G. (Ed.), James, op. cit., Vol. XI, p. 225

[11] Matthew 18:3; 19:14

[12] 1 John 5:11

[13] Jeremiah 13:20; Zechariah 11:15-17

[14] Shepherd of Hermas, The great mysteries in the building of the Militant and Triumphant Church. Vision iii, 1-2, Similitude 9, Ch. XVI, pp. 49; Ch. XXI, p. 54

[15] Romans 1:17

[16] John 5:11; 3:14-17

[17] Acts of the Apostles 5:20

[18] Ibid. 20:27

[19] Luke 7:30

[20] Proverbs 1:30

[21] Hebrews 2:3

[22] 1 Peter 2:7

[23] Acts of the Apostles 4:11

[24] Owen, John: The Doctrine of Justification, op. cit., pp. 150-151

[25] Hebrews 8:3

[26] Ibid. 10:5

[27] Ibid. 10:4

[28] Acts of the Apostles 20:28

[29] Owen, John: Christologia, op. cit., pp. 132-133

[30] 1 John 5:11

[31] Ibid. 3:9

[32] 1 Samuel 10:6, 10

[33] Hebrews 2:4; John 5:35

[34] Flavel, John: The Method of Grace: How the Spirit Works, Ch. 5, op. cit., pp. 92-93

[35] Bunyan, John: On the Rising of the Sun, written in 1628 and published in 1688

[36] Burkitt, William: Expository Notes, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 737

[37] Wesley, John, The Works of: First Series of Sermons, vol. 5, Sermon, 11, p. 188

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXVI) 02/13/23

^5:10 All who believe this know in their hearts that it is correct. If anyone doesn’t believe this, they say God is lying because they refuse to believe what He said about His Son.

Contextual interpretation specialist Gary M. Burge says that interpreting John’s thought requires thinking of the Father’s testimony as separate from the Spirit, the water, and the blood. Indeed, John does not indicate how the Father gave His testimony (he merely refers to its fact). In John’s Gospel, we find a similar case, where Jesus includes the Father as supporting His case but does not explicitly say how in His roll call of witnesses.[1] Instead, John urges that since we accept human testimonies, we should receive divine testimony. God’s spiritual authority rests behind the water and blood testimony. God’s Spirit affirms truths about the Gospel of Jesus the Anointed One. It is impossible to avoid thinking about the schism in John’s church at this point. Human testimonies were struggling for acceptance.

John says that these testimonies come up against other points of view and God. God’s point of view, expressed in the historical life of Jesus and kept alive in the church’s witness through the Spirit, must now win the day. Indeed, God’s witness is exclusive to His Son. Thus, the test of whether or not we accept God’s testimony rests here: Do we embrace the truth about Jesus the Anointed One? Do we concur with the apostolic eyewitness? Put in another light (as John is prone to do), to reject the truth about Jesus, to reject the “water and the blood,” is to stand opposed to God and contradict His witness.^[2]

Emphasizing the Apostle John’s call to Christian fellowship, Bruce B. Barton (1954) states that when people become God’s children, they know that salvation is sure because they have the testimony in their hearts ‒ God’s witness.[3] They know that the Spirit who regenerated them gives them an inner witness to that reality.[4] God’s Spirit, alive in their spirit, witnesses that everything Jesus said and did was proper. That is the primary function of the Spirit – to testify and reveal Jesus to every believer.[5] They should realize that they are calling Him a liar by rejecting what God has so plainly said. This has two aspects: refusing to believe what God said about His Son and, consequently, refusing to accept the Anointed One who can save people from sin’s spiritual death penalty. The Apostle John blasted the false teachers who claimed to know God but did not believe God’s words concerning His Son. Their theory was logically impossible and amounted to calling God an outright liar.^[6]

A scholar who truly inspires Christian missionaries, Daniel L. Akin (1957), points to where the Apostle Paul stated, “The Spirit testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children.”[7] Then he adds that the internal witness of God’s Spirit in the heart confirms to the child of God that they were right to believe that Jesus is God’s Son who alone gives the gift of eternal life.[8] This internal testimony is God’s presence in us. It beautifully balances and complements the external and historical witness of the baptism and crucifixion of Jesus, all witnessed by the Holy Spirit.

In the context of pastoral theology and practical application, this verse is of great value. John does not point us back to a prior experience. Instead, he leads us now to look at a present testimony and witness. So, who are you trusting today? Who are you believing in today? Where are your hope and confidence today? Is it the Anointed One? If so, rest assured that you have the Son and His gift of eternal life. Not knowing the exact moment, you were converted does not mean you are not saved. An experience can be helpful, but present-day testimony provides confirmation and assurance that God wants you to enjoy and that your soul longs to have – “I believe in Jesus, the only Anointed One.” You will find that confession to be a blessed avenue of assurance that will cause you to proclaim with passion and conviction, “Jesus is the Son of God.”^[9]

With a classical thinking approach to understanding the scriptures, Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) notes that the last of three references to “everyone / the one who believes” that the man Jesus is the Anointed One, God’s Son, marks another beginning. Here, John turns from the “witness of God to His Son” to accepting or rejecting that testimony. Cited previously with little explanation, God’s testimony to His Son now becomes the theme that unifies this concluding passage’s final subunit. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in themselves. The person who does not believe God has acted as if He were a liar. It’s because they have rejected His testimony concerning His Son.^[10]

Great expositional teacher David Guzik (1961) feels that the Apostle John does not want us to believe with blind faith. Instead, our faith is founded on reliable testimony. And we have the most reliable witness possible, God. Thus, John exposes the great sin of unbelief. Most everyone who refuses to believe God (in the complete sense of the word believes) doesn’t intend to call God a liar. But they do it, nonetheless. What hope can there be for the one who persists in hearing what God says and then calling Him a liar?^[11]

In his unorthodox Unitarian way, Duncan Heaster (1967) states that the Lord Jesus didn’t witness to His word by giving out bits of paper or teaching a catechism; He was, in person, the constant exhibition of the word He proclaimed. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t write books, pass out literature, or speak words from a platform. Our Christian lifestyle is the essential witness to people, that witness which wells up from the Anointed One’s teachings and spiritual life within us. We can see how God’s Word became flesh in the prophet Hosea’s writings.[12] The command to go and marry her was not “the word of the Lord” to Israel, as was his marriage and example of true love to his wife. Hosea’s example in his marriage was the word of the Lord to Israel. He made the word flesh.[13] The Lord did this to perfection, yet like Hosea, we must do the same in principle. Not believing in God and not believing in His word of the Gospel are paralleled here in verse ten. David parallels trusting in God and His word.[14] ^[15]

Bright seminarian Karen H. Jobes (1968) observes that a Christian is, by the Apostle John’s definition, one who heard the witness of the Final Covenant, recognized it as God’s interpretation of the significance of the life and death of Jesus His Son, and internalized it as their belief. But the rejection of the Gospel of Jesus the Anointed One is not a morally neutral act. John would not look favorably on the pluralistic, culturally centered view of religious belief that is so popular today, that “one’s belief is what is true for you but has no claim on me.” Because the apostolic testimony about Jesus is God’s testimony, to hear it and not believe it entails making God a liar.

This is the second time John mentions making God a liar. The first time involves the denial of personal sin.[16] God says humans are sinners alienated from Him, living in spiritual darkness with death as their only future. But in His love, He sent his Son to atone for that sin, to reconcile people to Himself. God has given His testimony, and it stands for all time. When someone rejects God’s love offered in the Anointed One in favor of some other belief system (or nonbelief), they implicitly declare that they know better than God, thus “making” Him a liar.^[17]

^5:11 This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

EXPOSITION

So, anyone who wants to dispute the evidence must disprove what God said.  Jesus disagreed with the Pharisees after they heard Him say, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never exist in darkness. They will have the light that gives life.” But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “When you talk about yourself, you are the only one to say that these things are true. So, we cannot accept what you say.” Jesus answered, “Yes, I am saying these things about myself. But people can believe what I say because I know from where I came. And I know where I am going. But you don’t know where I came from or where I am going. You judge me the way people judge other people. I don’t judge anyone. But if I judge, my judgment is true because I am not alone when I judge. The Father who sent me is with me. Your law says you must accept what they say when two witnesses say the same thing. I am one of the witnesses who speaks about myself. And the Father who sent me is my other witness.”^[18]

So as far as John is concerned, when Jesus speaks, God is speaking.  So he now introduces his sixth test, the Test of Truth. If God could heal, cause the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the mute to talk, the lame to walk and raise the dead, and Jesus did all these things, then anyone begging for more proof is what David  called a “fool.”^[19] So the key phrase in what Jesus said to the Pharisees in His defense is that the Light is the One who gives spiritual and eternal Life.

Also, in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, we find an apparent reference to this provision, “Moses hung the snake in the desert. It is the same with the Son of man. Therefore, He must also be crucified. Then everyone who believes in Him can have eternal life.”^[20]  This led John to close that chapter by declaring, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. But those who do not obey the Son will never have that life.”^[21]

When Jesus was feeding the 5,000 listeners near the Sea of Galilee, He made this a point of reference to His mission when He said, “I came down from heaven to do what God wants, not what I want. I must not lose anyone God has given me. But I must raise them on the last day. This is what the one who sent me wants me to do. Everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him has eternal life. I will resurrect them in the final days is the belief my Father wants.”^[22] When the subject returned to the bread, Jesus told them, “I can assure you that anyone who believes has eternal life. I am the Bread that gives life.”^[23]

When Jesus’ teaching turned somewhat esoteric, and many who had been following Him for the bread turned and left, He asked His disciples if they also planned on leaving.  It was then that Peter stood up and said, “Lord, where would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe in you. We know that you are the Anointed One from God.”^[24] Then after Jesus used His parable of the true shepherd and the sheep, and the Pharisees objected to His making that claim, Jesus made it clear, “I give my sheep eternal life. They will never die, and no one can take them out of my hand.”^[25]

Afterward, Jesus was informed that some Greeks who came to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem, our Lord began to describe why everything that happened at that time was so vital to His plans.  He told all who listened, “The Father who sent me told me what to say and what to teach. And I know that whatever He says to do will bring eternal life. So, the things I say are exactly what the Father told me to say.”^[26]

Later on, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as the Master was agonizing in prayer that God’s will, not His will, be done, He told His heavenly Father just before His arrest, “You gave the Son power over all people so that He could give eternal life to all those you have given to Him. And this is eternal life: that people can have a personal relationship with You, the only true God, and have a personal relationship with the Savior, the Son of man, the one You sent.”^[27]

In verse eleven, we have the substance of the internal testimony mentioned in verse ten. It is this – we are conscious of the Divine gift of eternal life, and this we have in the Son of God. The distinction between eternity and time is what the human mind feels to be natural and necessary. But we might become confused when we try to think of eternity. The Apostle John’s idea of endlessness may be included in it, but it is not the main one. We admit that it is not time, that it is the very antithesis of time, yet we attempt to measure it while we declare it immeasurable. We make it simply a very long time. In John’s writings, the main idea of “eternal life” has no direct reference to time. Eternal life is possessed already by believers; it is not a thing of the future.[28] It is that life in God that includes all blessedness and is not broken by physical death.[29] Its opposite is exclusion from God.

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[1] John 5:37

[2] Burge, Gary M., The Letters of John (The NIV Application Commentary), op. cit., pp. 204-205

[3] 1 John 5:9

[4] See Romans 8:16; Galatians 4:6

[5] See John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-13

[6] Barton, Bruce B., 1, 2, & 3 John (Life Application Bible Commentary), op. cit., p. 112

[7] Romans 8:16

[8] 1 John 5:11-12

[9] Akin, Dr. Daniel L., Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary), op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[10] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, 1-3 John, op. cit., pp. 540-541

[11] Guzik, David: Enduring Word, 1,2, & 3 John & Jude, op. cit., pp. 94-96

[12] Hosea 1:2

[13] John 1:14

[14] Psalm 56:3-4

[15] Heaster, Duncan. New European Christadelphian Commentary: op. cit., The Letters of John, pp. 73-74

[16] 1 John 1:10

[17] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament Series Book 18), op. cit., p. 224

[18] John 8:12-19

[19] Psalm 14:1

[20] John 3:14-15

[21] Ibid. 3:36

[22] Ibid. 6:38-40

[23] Ibid. 6:47

[24] Ibid. 6:68-69

[25] Ibid. 10:28

[26] Ibid. 12:49-50

[27] Ibid. 17:2-3

[28] John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; 17:3

[29] 1 John 1:25

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXV) 02/10/23

^5:10 All who believe this know in their hearts that it is correct. If anyone doesn’t believe this, they say God is lying because they refuse to believe what He said about His Son.

As a spiritual mentor, Ronald A. Ward (1920-1986) feels that whoever commits themselves to trust in God’s Son as the true Anointed One will find that the objective (based on what we know things are) amd subjective (being told what things are) testimonies confirm what is in their hearts. They have the eivdence that is already inside and coming from the outside. This confirmation is especially valid of a person abiding in union with Go and God dwelling in them.[1]

With academic precision, Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) states that the Apostle John spoke earlier of the character of the divine witness to Jesus, the Son of God and Anointed One; now, he moves to a discussion of the results of that witness. First, John claims that keeping faith in God’s Son includes accepting the Father’s testimony and that witness is both the cause and effect of Christian faith. Namely, “the one who believes has that witness within himself.” Furthermore, we find in verse ten; several phrases are echoed from earlier verses and repeated for emphasis. For instance, for verse 10a, see verses 5b and 9a; for verse 10b, see 9b. Sometimes a phrase is used positively, “believe,” and negatively, “believe not.” It is all intended to focus on faith and trust in Jesus as God’s Son.^[2]

As a seasoned essayist on the Apostle John’s writings, John Painter (1935) notes that this is the third of four uses of the Greek verb pisteuō (“believe”) by the Apostle John in this epistle.[3] This construction is used thirty-six times in John and only ten times in the rest of the Final Covenant. While pisteuō often means to believe what is said and draws attention to the content of belief, it often portrays a personal commitment, though it need not be complete and firm.[4] We should not treat these distinctions as hard-and-fast rules, as the second and third parallels show in this tenth verse. There is also a question of not believing what was said. When the witness is to the Son, achieving the testimony means believing in the Son. The explanation is little more than a repetition of God’s word from verse nine that he (the one not believing God) “has made Him a liar.”[5]

Ministry & Missions Overseer Muncia Walls (1937) says that the witness is in the believer in the form of the Holy Spirit; as the Apostle Paul wrote, the Anointed One in you, the hope of glory.[6] Jesus had promised His disciples that although He would leave them, another Comforter would come to them, and that Comforter would be the Anointed One. Note His words, “1 will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”[7] The Spirit which indwells the believer is the Spirit of Jesus the Anointed One – the Holy Spirit. We know we are children of God because the witness dwells within!

John’s argument against the Gnostics here is that you can’t claim to know God and at the same time ignore the Incarnation. You can’t have one without the other. And those who refuse to believe in the deity of Jesus the Anointed One deny God’s witness and make God out a liar. To reject Jesus, the Anointed One who was God manifest in the flesh is to deny what God has openly declared to be fact, and to do God is a liar. ^[8]

Expositor and systematic theologist Michael Eaton (1942-2017) hears the Apostle John saying that a Christian will be a person of assurance and conviction. That’s because the believer possesses the indwelling Spirit and thus has certainty that the testimony to the Gospel, they heard is the truth. The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in themselves. This explains the difference between human testimony and the testimony of the Spirit. Human testimony is external. It consists of historical witnesses and evidence of one kind or another. Human testimony may be forgotten, becoming lost in antiquity. But the testimony of the Spirit is a testimony within. When a person becomes a Christian, the Spirit is given to dwell within them. From that point on, they “have the testimony in themselves.” It is something that he or she is conscious of.

What would be the value of a witness that we did not know about? It gives us joy. We find delight in our salvation springing up within us. It provides assurance and boldness. It gives us love for God because the witness of the Spirit makes us realize how much God loves us. It has the effect of stirring up our love for God. We can endure almost anything, and make any sacrifice, if the witness of the Spirit is strong and powerful in our lives. The witness of the Spirit makes God real to us. When the Spirit is witnessing that we are children of God, it is like being in heaven already.

It follows then that to resist the claims of the Lord Jesus; the Anointed One is in effect to call God a liar. Unbelief is a sin against God’s testimony. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar because they have not considered God’s testimony concerning His Son. God asks us to accept the revelation He has already given. He has no plans to add anything further to convince us. He wants us to be convinced by His Word, coining to us in the testimony of the apostles.^[9]

Great Commission practitioner David Jackman (1945) says that we must be careful to preserve the Apostle John’s strong emphasis on believing, intensified by the negative correlative in the second part of verse ten. For it is not our subjective experience of the Anointed One that saves us, but our belief in Him confirmed and deepened by the inner witness of the Spirit. It echoes Apostle Paul’s teaching, “The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children,”[10] and “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father.’”[11] A significant theme of biblical theology is that God wants His people to be assured of their relationship with Him as reconciled, forgiven sinners. The only alternative is to make God out to be a liar.

That is how the Bible draws the line between faith in Jesus and unbelief. This is not surprising when considering how strong the evidence for belief is presented. In human nature, there is a natural element of unwillingness to believe. We see it in the rejection of God’s witness and is still giving through His Spirit concerning His Son; there is ample evidence for faith. But mankind’s problem is not ignorance so much as rebellion; not that we cannot believe but we refuse to believe.^[12]

After analyzing the Apostle John’s teaching in verses six to ten, Earl S. Johnson Jr (1947-2020) is persuaded that the Apostle John wants to finalize his argument about the truth that is found in Jesus the Anointed One God’s Son. In these verses he uses words that come from the same Greek verb meaning to witness nine different times in only seven verses. This is the same root word from which we derive our English word martyr. Johnson is sure that the three witnesses mention by the Apostle John are to be interpreted as “water” – His baptism; “blood” – His crucifixion; and the “Spirit” who was present at His baptism and guided Him into the wilderness to overcome Satan’s temptation and anointed Him for His ministry. The final witness is His heavenly Father.[13] [14]

After studying the context surrounding this verse, John W. (Jack) Carter (1947) notes that another witness that the Apostle John brings to the stand is the Holy Spirit, who speaks to the heart of every believer. These words are more for the fellowship of believers than it is for the heretics. Every believer has a relationship with the Holy Spirit, who teaches the truth of Jesus’ nature through the deep recesses of their heart. True believers have accepted the Lordship of Jesus the Anointed One and the reality of His nature and purpose by faith. However, once that decision is made, as they grow in faith, they come to understand the truths of the Gospel as the Holy Spirit illuminates it as they become immersed in the Word of God.

Consequently, John calls upon every believer as a testimony to the true nature and purpose of Jesus the Anointed One, a population who all agree to a truth taught to them by one source: the Holy Spirit. Those who have not placed their faith and trust in God do not have this resource. They do not hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Consequently, it is easy for them to reject the Gospel and proclaim that what God says, what the Holy Spirit says, or what Jesus says is all a lie.^[15]

A man who loves sharing God’s Word, Robert W. Yarbrough (1948) notes that the first half of verse ten is a commendation of the faith made possible and constituted by God’s self-testimony. Believing “God” is shorthand for the fullness of God’s self-disclosure in Jesus the Anointed One, a significant theme of the whole epistle, namely, those who believe receive the testimony and enjoy its beneficial transformative working within. The second portion of verse ten joins the two halves of the sentence, highlighting the opposite effect of the contrasting assertions.

In John’s continuing pastoral orientation, we should note that his rhetoric is not a condemnation but essentially an appeal. Starkly parallel to the one who believes is the “unbelieving” one. While saving belief in the Son implies personal commitment, the negative counterpart reflects not believing in God. It probably means (not) to give Him credence.[16] This person not only fails to trust God personally; they do not even grant God the respect for a careful hearing. It is consistent with Jesus’s statement in John that those who belong to God hear his voice.[17] Those who listen to God and learn from Him are drawn to the Anointed One.[18] The person here in verse then has not listened or learned and does not respond to His call.[19] ^[20]

Skilled in Dead Sea Scroll interpretation and New Testament writings, Colin G. Kruse (1950) states that in verse ten, the Apostle John explains that the divine testimony is appropriated internally by those who believe in the Anointed One: Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in their heart. The witness referred to here is God’s testimony to His Son made known through the testimony of the eyewitnesses.

There are two ways of interpreting this statement. First, in the light of verse six, we might say that it refers to the inner witness of the Spirit. And it cannot be denied that the role of the Spirit in this letter and the Fourth Gospel is to testify to Jesus. But this verse does not actually say that believers have ‘the inner testimony of the Spirit in their hearts; it simply states that they have the testimony’ in themselves. So, the second and more likely interpretation is that the testimony believers have in themselves is the true testimony concerning Jesus the Anointed One, which they heard from the eyewitnesses and have accepted and internalized.^[21]

Believing that Christians can fall away from the faith, Ben Witherington III (1951) focuses on two ideas here in verse ten: the testimony of God to the Son and the divine and internal testimony that comes through the Spirit when one accepts on faith the external testimony. The one who believes in the Son of God has assurance from the internal testimony of the Spirit that this faith is not held in vain. Here the emphasis is on the individual – the one who believes. Thus, quite logically, the work of confirmation by the Spirit follows belief in the external testimony and the making of the good confession.^[22]

With her crafted spiritual insight, Judith Lieu (1951), the damaging alternative is not “the one who does not believe in the Son of God” but “who does not believe God.” Although, given the fluidity of construction of the verb “to believe,” it would be a mistake to overemphasize the simple dative verb used here.[23] The implication appears to be that to refuse to acknowledge and respond to God’s Son, whose status relies on God’s testimony, is nothing less than to refuse to trust God. It is to treat God as a liar – within the dualistic framework; this is to place God firmly alongside all that opposes God’s truth and light.[24]

This is not a misapprehension or an erroneous judgment; it is not a failure to believe a secondary article of faith nor an understandable mistaken difference of opinion. On the contrary, it is a fundamental denial – the perfect “has made” who God is and what God has done and does do. The sonorous tones of the final clause of verse ten reinforce the seriousness. The two perfect verbs, one negative (“has not believed”), the other positive (“has testified”), are set in a sustained opposition to those two fundamental acts of commitment, and they effectively exclude the one who does the former from the benefits of the latter. The verse climaxes by repeating the final words of verse nine; there is no attempt to argue or to persuade, no appeal to specific evidence or support: God’s testimony given concerning His Son, and there is no room for its reversal, for negotiation, or for debate. ^[25]

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[1] Ward, Ronald A., The Epistles on John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 56

[2] Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., p. 285

[3] See 1 John 5:1, 5, 10. 13

[4] John 8:31-32

[5] Painter, John. Sacra Pagina: 1, 2, and 3 John: Volume 18, op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[6] Colossians 1:27

[7] John 14:18

[8] Walls, Muncia: Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., pp. 68-69

[9] Eaton, Michael: Focus on the Bible, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., pp. 186-187

[10] Romans 8:16

[11] Galatians 4:6

[12] Jackman, David: The Message of John’s Letters, op. cit., p. 153

[13] 1 John 5:9-11

[14] Johnson Jr, Earl S, Basic Bible Commentary, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, and Jude, op. cit., pp. 121-122

[15] Carter, Dr. John W. (Jack). 1,2,3, John & Jude: (The Disciple’s Bible Commentary Book 48), op. cit., pp. 125-126

[16] Cf. John 4:21; 8:31

[17] Ibid. 8:47

[18] Ibid. 6:45

[19] Matthew 11:28

[20] Yarbrough, Robert W. 1-3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., p. 288

[21] Kruse, Colin G., The Letters of John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary), op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[22] Witherington, Ben III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John, op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[23] The Dative case shows the relationship of an indirect object to a verb

[24] 1 John 1:10; 2:21-22

[25] Lieu, Judith: A New Testament Library, I, II, & III John, op. cit., pp. 218-219

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXIV) 02/09/23

^5:10 All who believe this know in their hearts that it is correct. If anyone doesn’t believe this, they say God is lying because they refuse to believe what He said about His Son.

Every prayer, happiness, every joyful obedience to the will of God, the hour of peace, and new experience and conviction of forgiven sin testify to the living power of the Anointed One within us, in His Holy Spirit. The more earnestly a person clings to their Savior in faith. The more natural and visible eternal life becomes to them, the more genuine their sanctification is, and the more all earth’s fading pleasures lose their charm. With the blessed hope of eternal life before them, they lose all delight in those childish, foolish fancies that are the best the world offers. This personal experience is accomplished in believers through those witnesses of God. So John speaks of them in the verses we have been considering. Those who have received this power will be able to declare with the prophet: “You are stronger than I am, and you overpowered me.”[1] ^[2]

As the author of a distinguished history of the Oxford Movement[3] written from an unsympathetic viewpoint, English bishop of Manchester Edmund Arbuthnott Knox (1847-1937) emphasizes that the foundation stone laid by God is Jesus the Anointed One. Our faith rests on Him, and the text warns us how to build on this foundation. Jesus the Anointed One is not a dead but a living Rock whose witness is within us. Therefore, we rest upon a live person, not on a thread of facts or a string of events. As a matter of fact and history, we believe that our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, lived upon the earth, died, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven. But a person might consider all this the same way we think that Pontius Pilate or King Herod once lived and died.

Yet, a person might complain, “It is all true, I have no doubt, every word of it, but it is no use to me. It does not help me to know that the four Gospels are all true when tempted to do wrong. What is the use of events that happened long ago to stem the flood of my sins? You might as well try to keep back the Atlantic Ocean with a few decayed beams of wrecked vessels as to dismiss my sins with Bible stories. The power of sin is within me. To resist it, I must have a more potent force within me.

The words of our text meet this need. God the Father, God the Son dwelling in us through God the Holy Spirit, is a sufficient witness. God in us – this is the power, the only force strong enough to stem the flood, to stay the corruption within. This is just what the world cannot understand. The prophecies of our Lord’s coming were fulfilled when He revealed Himself to His disciples, but not the world. The person who does not love Jesus the Anointed One hears the same Gospel and reads the same Bible as the true believer but sees no value in it. They bring their body, eyes, ears, quick intellect, and reasoning powers to church, but not their heart. They do not know what it is to love the Anointed One.

Perhaps we might understand more clearly the witness within if we go back to the saints of old, and think of their faith. Enoch walked with God before a line of the Bible was written; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all knew, loved, and feared God before Moses wrote the first chapter of Genesis. The Apostle Paul believed in Jesus the Anointed One before Matthew penned his Gospel. For more than two hundred years, Christians in different places probably knew only parts of the Final Covenant. But why go so far back? How many devout and humble Christians, full of love for Jesus the Anointed One, sat in church and lifted prayer and praise from the very depths of their hearts, though they could not read a page of their Bibles and only knew portions here and there?

What was the reason? They had the witness in themselves, Jesus the Anointed One dwelling in them by His Holy Spirit. This is the only foundation. No other foundation can anyone build than that already laid, which is Jesus the Anointed One. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. God can dwell in us by His Spirit as He pleases. But He sent us His confirmation through His written Word, the testimony of apostles and prophets.^[4]

As a prolific writer on the New Testament Epistles, George G. Findlay (1849-1919) urges us to get behind the Apostle John’s words in this passage, asking from them two things: First, what was the specific object of the world-conquering faith, as John held it and witnessed its early triumphs? Second, what were its characteristic marks and the methods of its working? The answer to our first inquiry lies close at hand, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Anointed One is born of God. Furthermore, whatever is born of God, overcomes the world.” Again, “Who is it that overcomes the world, but those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” In verses nine and ten, we read: “This is the witness of God, namely, that He has borne witness about His Son.… Those who do not believe God make Him out to be a liar, in that they have not believed in the testimony God gave concerning His Son.”

In 1 John 4:14-15, we read, “We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the world’s Savior, and this is what we tell people now. Anyone who says, ‘I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,’ is a person who lives in God, and God lives in that person.” The assertion of the Divine Sonship of Jesus was the Apostle John’s battle cry. It is not a stereotypical conventional article of a long-accepted creed; instead, as the utterance of a passionate conviction, the condensed record of a profound and vivid life experience shared by John with numerous companions. They practiced fruitful salvation that was real to the consciousness of the earliest believers: that “Jesus is the Son of God,” and “the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses from sin.” These facts were the life of John’s fellowship with those around him. In these two certainties lay the kernel and essence of the faith contained in the Church’s testimony.^[5]

With his stately speaking style, William Macdonald Sinclair (1850-1917) points out that believers who have a three-fold testimony of God no longer see Him as an external object of thought to be contemplated and grasped: it has become part of their nature. The three separate messages produced the appropriate result, and they can no more doubt the testimonies than they can doubt themselves. The water has assured them that they are no longer under the Law but under grace and taught them the necessity of the new birth for living right.[6] The blood has shown them that they cannot face God unless their sins are forgiven, enabling them to feel they have received a pardon. Also, they are being cleansed daily. They also have in themselves the assurance of eternal life[7] And the Spirit, which has had a part in both these, is daily making them grow in grace.[8]

Then the Apostle John presents the negative contrast, as usual, to strengthen the affirmative. He regards the evidence as so certain that those to whom this message is delivered yet reject it seem as if they are boldly asserting that what God had said was false. The skeptical reply that the news did not come from God is not John’s purpose to consider; his object is to warn his friends of the light in which they ought to regard the opponents of the truth. There should be no complacent condoning; from the point of view of the Christians themselves, such unbelievers were throwing the truth back in God’s face.^[9]

Beyond any doubt, remarks Alonzo R. Cocke (1858-1901), the one who receives the outward testimony of the Spirit has something conferred even more intimate: they have “the witness in themselves.” The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. The testimony becomes a part of our inner life, and now abides with us, a living factor in their spiritual consciousness. How sweet to have such assurance as a live element in our souls. But the one who rejects God’s testimony concerning Jesus incurs terrible guilt. They practically declare those divine facts which testify of God’s Son of God to be false and, in effect, make God a liar. Unbelief stamps God’s testimony as false and rules the all-truthful One, who cannot lie, out of court. It is a fearful position to occupy, throwing God’s words into His face and calling Him a liar.^[10]

Esteemed ministry veteran James B. Morgan (1859-1942) implies that nothing could be more satisfactory than the external evidence in favor of the Anointed One, which competent and credible witnesses have proven the facts of His history. Jesus founded His Gospel doctrines on these truths. Our Lord established public ordinances to illustrate and confirm these truths. Water Baptism and the Lord’s Supper seem to be referred to in the context as “water and blood.” But, above all, the Spirit gave witness through the miracles that His apostles performed and the gifts and graces He conferred upon His followers. The evidence thus becomes such as leaves everyone without excuse.

The argument of the apostle, founded on its nature and fulness, is irresistible. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” However, this external evidence is satisfactory as it is. He “that knew what was in man”[11] saw that many of His people would be ill-qualified to examine the credibility of such evidence. He has therefore furnished them with another. Whenever they receive the Gospel, He has caused it to spring up in their minds. So, our text speaks, “He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself.”^[12]

In reviewing what the Apostle John says in this verse, Archibald T. Robertson (1863-1934) sees the Apostle John distinguishing between “not believing” God’s witness and “surrender to and reliance on” His testimony concerning His Son. See the same distinction less clearly drawn in John’s Gospel.[13] See a similar occasion of “believing” after “witnessing” in John’s Gospel.[14] Furthermore, those who believe God’s testimony have the witness within themselves. By using perfect active indicative tense, it implies a permanent state.^[15]

With characteristic fundamental thinking, Alan England Brooke (1863-1939) proclaims that those who trust the guidance of God’s Son have in their experience the testimony which God gave on His behalf, which became part of themselves. Those who do not accept the witness as accurate dismiss the truth and make God a liar. There is no room here for ignorance or misconception. To reject the witness is to deny the truthfulness of God. He spoke and acted with absolute clearness. His testimony is an open record, not hidden in a dark corner. The witness must, therefore, either be accepted or rejected. It cannot be ignored or explained away. The rejection and its effects are inevitable. With the choice made, its consequences became manifest.

The nearest parallel to this expression is John 2:23. It involved believing in Jesus as Anointed One, which His name implied, and the readiness to follow Him as Anointed One (until they discovered how different His conception of the Messianic office was from theirs). It seems to denote devotion to a person possessed of those qualities that the witness borne to him, or at least to the idea expressed in that witness. Note that the phrases of verse nine are repeated for emphasis, each point examined. The witness has spoken; it cannot be ignored or set aside because it comes from God, in a case where His word alone can be final, as it concerns His Son. In John’s view, there can be no excuse for refusing to accept evidence that is so clear and satisfactory.^[16]

With an eye for detail, David Smith (1866-1932) sees the Apostle John’s statement here in verse ten as a subtle and profound analysis of the exercise of the soul. It brings blessed assurance in three stages:

   (1) “Believe God,” accept His testimony concerning His Son, not simply His Baptism[17] but the historical manifestation of God in the Anointed One, the Incarnation. God speaks not by words but by acts, and to set aside His supreme act and all the forces it has put in operation is to “make Him a liar” by treating His historical testimony as unworthy of credit.

   (2) “Believe in the Son of God” makes the believing soul surrender, which is the reasonable and inevitable consequence of contemplating the Incarnation and recognizing its wonder.[18]   

(3) “The Internal Testimony.” The love of Jesus satisfies the deepest need of our nature. When He is welcomed, the soul rises and greets Him as “all its salvation and desire.” The testimony is no longer external in history but an inward experience and, therefore, definite. These three stages are, according to the metaphor in the Apostle John’s Revelation, is (a) hearing the Savior’s voice, (b) opening the door, and (c) communion.[19]^[20]

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[1] Jeremiah 20:7 New Living Translation (NLT)

[2] Dryander, Ernst von: A Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John in the Form of Addresses, op. cit., p. 206

[3] The Oxford Movement consisted of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. 

[4] Knox, Edmund A., The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol., pp. 319-321

[5] Findlay, George G: Fellowship in the Life Eternal: An Exposition of the Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 362

[6] John 3:5; Titus 3:5

[7] John 1:7; 1 John 2:2; John 6:53

[8] Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:9

[9] Sinclair, William J., New Testament Commentary for English Readers, Charles J. Ellicott (Ed.) Vol. 3, p. 492

[10] Cocke, Alonzo R: Studies in the Epistles of John; or, The Manifested Life, op. cit., pp. 128-130

[11] John 2:25

[12] Morgan, James B., An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., Lecture XLV, p. 447

[13] John 6:30ff

[14] Ibid. 2:23

[15] Robertson, Archibald T., Word Pictures in the New Testament, op. cit., p. 1969

[16] Brooke, Alan E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles, op. cit., pp. 138-140

[17] Matthew 3:17

[18] Romans 12:1

[19] Revelation 3:20

[20] Smith, David: Expositor’s Greek Testament, 1 John, op. cit., p. 196

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

By Dr. Robert R. Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FIVE (Lesson LXIII) 02/08/23

^5:10 All who believe this know in their hearts that it is correct. If anyone doesn’t believe this, they say God is lying because they refuse to believe what He said about His Son.

In his negative discussion of the subject, notes Sawtelle, John brings out the impressive fact that the unbeliever not only fails as the inward witness of the truth but positively impeaches God’s integrity. The word “because” (KJV & NIV) introduces a further statement in verse ten, confirming the awful truth about unbelief – boasting rationally in an irrational way! By being the least conscious of a fault or sin, you are the more sinful! You put God with liars and His Gospel with fables.^[1]

With Spirit-led certainty, William Baxter Godbey (1833-1920) says that we constantly receive human testimony in all the interests of life, jurisprudence, and litigation, with fewer and less reliable witnesses than these three who fortify the significant problem of salvation, revelatory and experimental.[2] Intellectual faith, exercised by worldly people, has no power to save. Saving faith is not academic but spiritual, inspired by the Holy Spirit and bringing the human spirit in touch with God. Since the Holy Spirit constantly witnesses, His work and faith are the infallible human condition of regeneration and sanctification. Therefore every believer receiving according to their faith is attested by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, the Christian religion is the most luminous and intelligent reality in the universe.^[3]

Called the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) states that practical trust in the living God, easy as it seems to be, is a virtue never practiced by an unregenerate heart. The glorious atonement made by the incarnate Son of God is worthy of everyone’s trust. One would imagine that every sinner would have instantly washed in this cleansing fountain and without hesitation believed in the divine Redeemer: but it is not going to happen. Sinners will not come to the Anointed One that they may have spiritual life. They would rather trust in anything than belief in Jesus’ sacrifice. Until the Holy Spirit works a miracle, they will not confess that God’s great sacrifice removes all guilt. Hence, this simple, common-place matter of faith, yet becomes the distinguishing mark of the chosen of the Lord. No other token is so infallible. Feelings and actions may all serve as evidence, but the master evidence of interest in God’s promise of salvation is faith in Him like Abraham.[4] There were many other good points in the patriarch’s character, but this was the decisive one – he believed God; indeed, this was the root of all else that was commendable in him.^[5]

Noting the Apostle John’s doctrinal implications, John James Lias (1834-1923) feels that verse ten is an expansion of verse five. Those who believe in the Son overcome the world by having faith in God’s witness. They are convinced that He in whom they believe is no other than the Only Begotten of the Father, capable of inspiring them with every “good and perfect gift” which comes from that “Father of all light.”[6] The present tense “believing” signifies either the habitual, permanent attitude of the soul or the only condition by which the believer accepts the testimony.

The statement “Those that do not believe makes God a liar,” causes some confusion. Some Greek manuscripts have “God,” some “Son,” some “Son of God,” and so on. But there can be little doubt that “God” is the accurate reading. “Son” undoubtedly comes from a similar passage in John’s Gospel,[7] where belief in the Son is taught, and the desire to make this part of the antithesis correspond more precisely to the one in John’s epistle. The whole point of this part of the passage is belief in God. Those who believe in the Son of God has God’s testimony within. Not to believe this testimony is to disbelieve God, and to disbelieve God is to make Him a liar because it is a fact that God bore witness, and not to believe that witness is neither more nor less than deliberately accuse God of lying.^[8]

The Apostle John goes on to ask, what is the secret of that power of faith that enables us to overcome the world? It is this – faith is the appropriation by the individual of the witness God has given. Faith is the acceptance of His testimony, the principle which causes us to act on it. Believe in God’s testimony, and subsequently, the testimony is within. And it will not be long before it manifests its presence by the working of the Divine power that changes the heart.

Then John points out the daring nature of unbelief. God has borne witness concerning His Son. The witness is clear enough to those who will receive it. What it is we have already seen. What is involved in rejecting it, we are now told. It is to accuse God of untruth, to insult Him by denying His testimony. It is not merely blindness, misfortune, or excusable ignorance; it is a downright sin. Nevertheless, God’s witness concerning His Son manifests itself to those who do not willfully shut their eyes. We must, therefore, not shrink from warning people of the danger of refusing to believe God’s word, as well as of the infinite blessing of hearing God’s voice and acknowledging His revelation of His Son.^[9]

Famous evangelist and publisher Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) decided to say a word about unbelief at this point in his commentary. Some people told him that it is a hard thing when he says that unbelief is the greatest sin – greater than blasphemy, drunkenness, and the like. You can’t offer anyone a greater insult than to accuse them of telling a willful lie. So many people have had their reputations destroyed because they called someone else a liar. The sin of unbelief is putting a lie in God’s mouth and calling Him a liar.^[10]

Distinguished for his outstanding scholarship, especially in connection with the New Testament canon, Theodore Zahn (1838-1933) states that this witness by God is not the Word of Life which the Apostles proclaimed, but the person on which their preaching centers, namely, Jesus.[11] In the preceding clauses, this person who always existed, all the manifestations of whose life and whose physical qualities were sensibly perceived by the Apostles with ears, eyes, and hands, is described impersonally and paraphrased. All that was audible, visible, and tangible that the disciples could perceive in their interaction with Jesus is summed up in “the Word of Life”[12] and, as the change in the construction shows, referred back to its center. But the personal Logos is not called the Word of Life because He gives life, but because He is spiritual and eternal Life.[13] He is described as the one who is the personification of Life.[14] ^[15]

A tried and tested biblical scholar who believes in the up-building of the Christian life, Robert Cameron (1839-1904) calls verse ten a startling sentence that should cause all of us to pause before doubting a single utterance from God’s mouth. The Apostle John says, “Those who do not believe God has made Him a liar.” It should take everyone’s breath! In the original, the force of the words implies a refusal to believe. When one refuses God’s testimony concerning His Son and therefore refuses to cast themselves entirely upon Him, they reject God and impeach His character for accuracy. They not only refuse to believe what God says, but this refusal makes God false, a deceiver, a liar. Will God tolerate being made a liar by a sinner whose heart is deceitful? What sort of a place would heaven be to a person who makes God a liar in their heart?

But the Apostle John, who does not want his readers to be intimidated, doesn’t leave it there. He counters with what John the Baptizer had to say about Jesus, “He tells what He has seen and heard, but people don’t accept what he says. Whoever accepts what He says has given proof that God speaks the truth.”[16] Therefore, let us receive the witness of God and set our seal of approval on his unquestioned truthfulness so that we do not become guilty of the awful sin of making God a liar. Remember the words of the Father, the works of the Anointed One, the Scriptures, John the Baptist, and the disciples, all bear their testimony that Jesus is God’s Son.

Furthermore, God has appointed the Spirit, the water, and the blood to testify. They bear official witness to the Anointed One and point out how He is related to us in accomplishing our redemption. The Spirit, the water, and the blood are three complete testimonies. What was performed by the Anointed One, in His entrance, His ministry by water, and His exit by blood, are still valid. To reject these witnesses is to make God a liar. Refusing to believe His Son ends any possibility of spiritual and eternal life.[17] ^[18]

With his Spirit-directed calculating mind, Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) notes that for the first time in this Epistle, we have the complete phrase “to believe on,” which the Apostle John uses forty times in his Gospel. Elsewhere in Final Covenant, it occurs only about ten times. It expresses the most assertive confidence and trust; faith moves towards and clings to its object. Whereas “to believe a person” means nothing more than to believe what they say.[19] Thus, “to believe on or in a person” means to have total trust in their character. They [KJV “he has”] have an abiding presence in them.[20] Have does not mean merely “they accept it.”[21] Likewise “in them”’ in this context cannot mean anything but “in themselves.”^[22]

From a Pentecostal perspective, Samuel Ashton Keen (1842-1895) points out that the faith which saves the soul is believing what God says, and believing it because He says it. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. When God told him He was going to give him a son, Abraham, without any outward proof and against hope, chose to believe God simply because He’s the one who said it, so, according to Abraham’s faith it was granted him. God’s word is His testimony concerning the divine purpose to save the soul that believes in Jesus. If we receive the witness of others (which we do), the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He testified of His Son. So, if you say: “I know what is to be believed; that the infallible word of God is the sole ground of faith,” can you agree that you trust the word of the Lord?

Not long since, says Keen, a gentleman, a comparative stranger to me but who had reasonable trust in my integrity, said to me: I owe a fellow Christian in your town seventy-five dollars. I want to pay it but cannot leave my home to do so. Will you take the money to him? I said: I will. He handed me the amount. When I took it, I saw an expression of relief come to his face, and he felt an evident satisfaction that showed he thought his debt was now paid. Moreover, he trusted me to cancel the IOU note held by this other gentleman. He believed I would do it.

I could tell the burden was off his mind; he felt that my integrity for faithfulness in meeting his claims was vindicated. His conscious commitment to me of this business brought him the rest, which the witness of faith always insures. He stopped worrying about it hours before I could make the payment because I took the responsibility of paying off his shoulders, which I could not have done if he had not confided in my word of promise to him. So, when the soul commits the concern of its salvation to Him who can save unto the uttermost, it begins to take up the triumphant shout that the witness of faith always inspires.^[23]

With regal etiquette, Ernest von Dryander (1843-1922) states that the Anointed One is not merely a great reformer, whose words are echoed by thousands of followers, but the Head of renovated humanity, greater – infinitely greater – than the first Adam. He is the Vine Who nourishes the branches with His never-failing strength.[24] He is the grain of corn that lives in a more beauteous form after death.[25] He is for us not only a significant religious prophet, but He is the Head who guides us, the members of His Body, the Church; with His Word and Sacraments He nourishes and strengthens us, and gives us renewed life; He is among His faithful ones wherever they are gathered together in His name;[26] He lifts them upon the wings of faith; gives strength to the weary, rest to the heavy-laden, power of sanctification to the weak and tempted, courage to the fearful – to all He gives the vigor of life from above. He brings peace, joy, and happiness – all that makes existence holy and rich – into our transient life here.

This is the witness of God, which He testified of His Son through the Spirit, namely of Him, “Who came by water and blood.” There can be no testimony more powerful, and no other is needed. Anyone who stands in the sun’s rays needs no proof that the sun is shining; they have more than proof: they have experienced it. Those who have the spiritual life of the Anointed One need no further evidence of salvation given to them; they live in a world of life as long as they live by faith in the Anointed One. It is the Spirit of God Himself Who daily witnesses to this.

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[1] Sawtelle, Henry A., Commentary on the Epistles of John, op. cit., p. 58

[2] See Romans 10:10

[3] Godbey, William Baxter: Commentary on the New Testament, Vol. II, op. cit., pp. 396-397

[4] Genesis 15:6; cf. Romans 4:3

[5] Spurgeon, Charles H., According to Promise, Whose Are the Promises? pp. 28-29

[6] James 1:17

[7] John 3:18

[8] Lias, John James: The First Epistle of St. John with Exposition, op. cit., pp. 388-391

[9] Ibid. The First Epistle of St. John with Homiletical Treatment, op. cit., pp. 386-388

[10] Moody, Dwight L, The Homework of, Ch. 4, pp. 47-48

[11] 1 John 5:9, 10; John 1:7, 15, 5:31-46; 10:41; 12:41; 15:26; Romans 1:3; 15:21; Acts of the Apostles 8:12

[12] Ibid. 1:1

[13] Ibid. 1:4

[14] Cf. John 11;25; 14:6

[15] Zahn, Theodor: Introduction to the New Testament, op. cit., p. 329

[16] John 3:32-33

[17] 1 John 5:12

[18] Cameron, Robert: The First Epistle of John, or, God Revealed in Light, Life, and Love, op. cit. p. 236

[19] See 1 John 4:1

[20] See John 5:38; Hebrews 10:34

[21] Cf. Romans 8:16; Galatians 4:6

[22] Plummer Alfred: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, N. T., Vol. IV., p. 162-163

[23] Keen, Ashton: Faith Papers, Paper Third, The Way of Faith: How to Believe, pp. 13, 20

[24] John 15:4-5

[25] Ibid. 12:24

[26] Matthew 18:20