For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 1 John 5:7-8
This verse has generally left me scratching my head over the years. I didn't understand the symbolism of the water, blood and Spirit. I'd heard a number of sermons over time, but they left me still mostly just a little less confused. I struggled with how water and blood were witnesses.
"As a result, lets read a little from Charles Spurgeons message delivered in 1874:
I shall note, first, that OUR LORD HIMSELF WAS ATTESTED BY THESE THREE WITNESSES. If you will carefully read in the twenty-ninth chapter of the Book of Exodus, or in the eighth chapter of the Book of Leviticus, you will see that when a priest was ordained three things were always used: he was washed with water in every case, a sacrifice was brought, and his ear, his thumb, and his toe were touched with blood, and then he was anointed with oil, in token of that unction of the Spirit with which the coming High Priest of our profession would be anointed. So that every priest came by the anointing Spirit, by water, and by blood, as a matter of type, and if Jesus Christ be indeed the priest that was for to come, he will be known by these three signs."
We know that Jesus's signs and miracles attested of His holiness, but God Himself spoke numerous times telling us who He was. Jesus was also washed with water by John the Baptist so that leaves the blood. Again, lets look to Spurgeon for comment:
"With Jesus also was the blood. This distinguished him from John the Baptist, who came by water, but Jesus came not by water only, but by water and blood.’ We must not prefer any one of the three witnesses to another, but what a wonderful testimony to Christ was the blood! From the very first he came with blood, for John the Baptist cried, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world! Now, the lamb which takes away sin is a slaughtered lamb, a bleeding lamb; so that at the time when the baptismal waters were upon him, John saw that he must bleed for human sin. In his ministry there was often a clear testimony to his future sufferings and shedding of blood, for to the assembled crowd he said, Except a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in him:’ while to his disciples he spake of the decease which he should shortly accomplish at Jerusalem. Then at the last, taking all our sins upon his shoulders, in the agony of Gethsemane, the blood bore witness that he was indeed the Lamb of God".
Join me in reading 1 John 5 and be encouraged!
