Water. Blood and Spirit, Part 2

John is spending this time, he's referring to a trinity of undeniable evidence and now the testimony of truth bound up in the third person of the Godhead who came to exalt Christ who is the Son of God. And by the way, the Holy Spirit is at work in your life.

You will come to no other conclusion than that Jesus is the Son of God. If you've come to a different conclusion, it isn't the Holy Spirit at work. It's a deceiving spirit. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is clear and consistent. In other words, the Holy Spirit will always be perfectly aligned with God the Father. Because of that, God's Spirit will testify with your spirit that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

That's why Christians can know with absolute certainty that yes, Jesus Christ is God. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen takes us back to 1 John 5. He's looking at three undeniable proofs that Jesus Christ really is the Messiah. This message is called Water, Blood, and Spirit. God the Father is quoting scripture here. It's always interesting when God quotes his own inspired word. The first part, this is my beloved Son, is a quote strategically intentionally to convey to the Jewish nation. It's from Psalm chapter 2 verse 7, a psalm every Jew accepted as a description of the coming Messiah, the mighty King who will come.

God effectively says, here he is. The second part, in whom I am well pleased, is from Isaiah chapter 42 verse 1. In that text, you find a description of the suffering Messiah culminating in chapter 53, that the Messiah is going to come as a lamb to the slaughter. The Son of God, the Messiah, here's the shocking news, is destined to suffer. He's a lamb. He's come to die for the sins of the world.

The King has come, yes, but his first crown will be made of thorns. His first throne to be seated on the sedulum, the saddle, that block of wood on a cross. His signature miraculous moment, his baptism is presented as evidence, number 1. Now John makes very clear back in 1 John chapter 5 and verse 6, if you turn back there, that the evidence of Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, is not only this event involving water but a separate event involving blood. Nowhere in scripture is the term blood alone used to designate the Lord's Supper. Certainly his blood is pictured metaphorically in the element of the wine.

Grapes surrendered to be crushed to release their sweet juice. John is referring here not to a metaphor in the wine of communion, but to the reality of an historical event so closely associated with bloodshed that none of his readers needed any further commentary, they knew what he was talking about. Blood represents life. In shedding his blood, Jesus gave up his life. But John has more in mind by bringing up the crucifixion. You see, the false teachers were telling the church then that the true Son of God couldn't die. God can't die, but Jesus, having taken on the flesh of a man, can. He will be proven to be the Son of God by the voice of God the Father at his baptism, and he will shed his blood as God the Son as he dies.

There's even more here at stake with this piece of evidence. The Gnostic false teachers then and now, repackaged in a variety of ways, were saying that Christ was just this divine, ethereal spirit, just the spirit of a Christ. Liberals in the Protestant world talk about that today. That it's just some mystical thing, and it descended upon Jesus at his baptism, but it departed from Jesus at his crucifixion. In fact, one Gnostic teacher said Christ sat on a hill and watched Jesus die an ordinary man.

It certainly can't be combined. Well, watch how John dismantles that false teaching in verse 6. Again, this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus what? Christ.

Not with water only, but with the water and with the blood. Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one. That's why throughout the Epistles, as God's revelation progresses, you have more often than not, Jesus referred to not only as Jesus, in fact it's rarely alone, it's typically the Lord Jesus, or Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus, or the Lord Jesus Christ. See, they're trying to overturn the heresies of their generation.

It'd be a good idea for us as well to give him that tribute more often than not when we speak of him. He's dismantling this teaching almost as a lawyer. In fact, when Jesus Christ, when he rose from the dead, you remember those two disciples that were walking along that road to where?

Emmaus. They're discouraged. As far as they're concerned, they just threw three and a half years of their life away. All for naught, their leader's dead. They'd missed the prophetic connections in his own teaching. And all of a sudden Jesus appears, they didn't notice that at first, but he just sort of saddles up beside them and he begins to walk with them. And while he's walking with them, he begins to connect the prophetic dots of the Messiah, eventually revealing himself to them and then he disappears.

But one of the things he says to them which is so significant is this. He says to them, was it not necessary for the Christ, the anointed one, to suffer? Jesus, the anointed one, Jesus the Christ, Jesus who is Christ, was baptized with water and Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross where he shed his blood. Christianity is associated with blood. Christianity is a bloody religion. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 7, he must shed his blood as the lamb and in that the giving up of his life.

Christianity then is not a religion where mankind sheds his blood for his God, it's a religion where God shed his blood for man. Christ's sacrifice is pictured in the Old Testament and culminates in the New, his sacrifice is pictured in the Passover lamb centuries earlier. Christ shed blood was illustrated in the sacrifices daily in the tabernacle and then in the temple.

If you could go back in time, you'd see those priests splattered with blood, their arms drenched red. Christ's bloodshed summarized, it consummated the gospel of atoning sacrifice. So the Bible throughout presents consistent evidence about the lamb. The Passover illustrated the sacrifice of the lamb. Isaiah 53 prophesied of the suffering of the lamb. John the Baptist identified the person of the lamb. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Here he is, the cross of Calvary bore the blood drenched final lamb. And the hosts of heaven, by the way, are still singing about him as the lamb. Worthy, John would see as he toured heaven in Revelation, is the lamb, they're singing to him, who is slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And John says, I heard everything in heaven, every creature in heaven and every creature on earth and under the earth saying, chanting, singing to him who sits upon the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and power forever and ever.

Amen. Listen, the most important decision you'll ever make is the verdict you deliver from your own heart about this lamb. Is he your dying sacrificial lamb? The music doesn't just begin up there, it has already begun as we sing and we already have today. And I'm watching the lyrics knowing they didn't know what I'd be preaching and glorying in the Son of God and Son of Man. We sing as a church words that would be odd to a world out there about this bloody religion, but to us, what great joy to sing. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain. Odd to them, glorious to us, so much so that the apostle Paul would say, God forbid that I glory in anything except the cross of Jesus Christ. Is he your lamb? You say, oh, but I've done a little studying of my own.

Good. Dig in to the most inspected text on the planet. Oh, but you say I found that crucifixion was common in the days of Jesus and that Rome was infatuated with this particularly cruel form of execution. In fact, Josephus, the first century historian writes that a thousand people were crucified in that region the same year Jesus was crucified. In fact, we know from historical accounts that by the time of Christ, the Romans had crucified more than 30,000 men, many of them on that hill you guys refer to as Calvary.

So what? Why would Jesus' death be any different? What's so miraculous about that signature historical event? And I'll give it to you that he was indeed crucified then.

Why would that matter? Well, let me have you go back to Matthew's gospel in chapter 27. Let's go to this second piece of evidence.

And I'm just going to survey it quickly. We're told in verse 45 that it wasn't just Jesus hanging on a cross. A lot of miraculous things were taking place.

Let's review some of them. We're told in verse 45 that as Christ hung on the cross, from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. From 12 noon to three in the afternoon, suddenly there is darkness enveloping the land.

Now you're there. You've come to observe the crucifixion and suddenly the lights go out. It's pitch dark. Well, that's kind of unusual at 12 noon.

I wonder what's up. He called for a torch to be brought as they certainly did. In fact, the record of scripture indicates that all of the heckling stopped at this point in time as this eerie blackness covered everything. Did the Jews think that this might in some way relate to the darkness that fell over Egypt for three days as one of the plagues forever linked to the first Passover lamb and the coming judgment of God?

Oh yes. These three hours are clearly parallel to that judgment only this time Jesus is vicariously experiencing on our behalf the judgment of God the Father as the atoning sacrifice for our sin as the final Passover lamb. That's just one thing that happens.

All of a sudden it's dark. Jesus cries out in verse 46 this cry of abandonment and prophetic fulfillment. Think of his loneliness in this abandonment. He's already been abandoned by his disciples, betrayed by them, denied by them. He's been rejected by the Jewish nation, his own people, by their leaders. He's condemned by the high court of his own people. He's taunted by his enemies. He's beaten by soldiers. He's mocked and heckled and slapped by Jewish leaders. Even the criminals taunt him as they die until one believes. He suffers absolutely alone and now he's forsaken by God whom he's claiming this personal relationship. Then he cries out in victory.

A little later on verse 50 other gospel writers give us the language he used when he simply cried out in victory. It is what? Finished. It's finished. The penalty of sin is paid for in full. The wrath of God and that plan of salvation designed before anything began is completed.

It'll be validated by the resurrection but it is now completed among a thousand things. You know what that means? It means that you might be abandoned. You might be rejected. You might be taunted.

You might be beaten. You might even be killed but you will never ever be forsaken by God the Father. Another thing that happens, verse 51, they just sort of roll one after another. It informs us the temple veil which separated the holy place from the holy of holies, the presence of God, was ripped in two from top to bottom.

I love this. Think of what it meant to the religious establishment that had brought together false witnesses and concocted the means to crucify him in this trumped up trial. That curtain was 60 feet high, six inches thick. Heavy fabric with beautifully embroidered cherubim guarding the presence of God just as they guarded the garden so that Adam and Eve couldn't go back in. Suddenly, it is ripped in two and the language depicts violence. By the way, if you look up at this ceiling, that's about 30 feet high. This curtain is 60 feet high.

No scaffolding, no ladders. At the moment Jesus cries, it's finished, I'm sure they figured out the timing a little later on, you have this violent rip. Not just a slow tear, but a rip. As if to say, the violence has been done, now you are welcome in.

You're welcome in. Imagine the priests doing nothing more than sewing that curtain back up so they can continue on with their empty tradition. But the book of Acts tells us that many priests believed, and I can only imagine why. There's another thing that happens after that, an earthquake.

An earthquake shakes everything up. If that isn't enough demonstrative evidence that Jesus was a little different than the 30,000 that had already been crucified, one more thing occurs while Christ's blood-soaked body hangs on that cross. Look at verse 52. And the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, that is Old Testament believers, coming out of their tombs after his resurrection. They entered the holy city and appeared to many.

How's that for some evidence? People that you know were buried maybe a few years ago, maybe only recently, maybe centuries ago, come and introduce themselves to you. They're now standing on your front porch. They don't look like zombies, by the way.

They're not eating people. They're given glorified bodies, serving as illustrations of the resurrecting power of Jesus Christ for all who believe in him. And the language implies that they appeared, just as Christ did, which means it's temporary, more than likely they ascended with Christ when Christ ascended back to the Father. Can you imagine being one of those Old Testament saints, given the privilege as a precursor to the coming resurrection? When every body will be resurrected, we wait, our spirits with the Lord after death, our bodies waiting.

God reconstituting that dust, reuniting with our spirits in its glorified state and enjoying them forever. Jesus, here at the crucifixion, that's what makes it so miraculous among many other things, is saying, let me give you a little evidence that I am indeed the resurrection and the life. You see, he had said that earlier.

I wonder if they were listening. He shows up. The funeral has already ended of Lazarus. And Jesus makes that declaration. Before he does anything, he says, I'm the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even after he dies.

Okay, you want some evidence? Lazarus, come on! Can you imagine the stamp of God's approval upon the authenticity of God the Son's ministry and the faith bolstering foundation of the Gospel that took place in Matthew chapter 27? I love the faith of Jedediah Goodwin.

Chuck Swindoll included this in his book The Darkness and the Dawn. He was a believer. His career had been that of an auctioneer. Spent his life as an auctioneer.

According to his desires, his testimony, he had carved into his tombstone after he died in 1876 these words, born 1828, going, going, God. That's great. We can say the same. Here's the evidence that supports this kind of verdict. Water, the miracles surrounding it, blood, the miracles surrounding it. Those are physical, external evidences of Christ's claim to be the Son of God. There's a third evidence which is invisible and internal. Go back for a moment or two longer to 1 John chapter 5 and look at verse 7.

He's not finished quite yet. He says, and it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is the truth. In other words, the very nature of the Holy Spirit is to tell the truth and he tells us the truth about Jesus and informs us that he is here to exalt him and convict our hearts into following him and repenting in belief. He says in verse 8, there are three that bear witness.

Now between verse 7 and verse 8 or earlier on you have this phrase in the King James English translation which was added in verse 7 by a man named Erasmus in the 16th century. He adds a phrase regarding the heavenly witness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a phrase that has created a tremendous amount of debate. It's unfortunate because including it in the English translation doesn't add anything to the doctrine of the Trinity. It doesn't change anything about the doctrine of the Trinity.

It's unnecessary. There are other texts that defend it. In fact, if you go back to that baptism scene, you find the Trinity involved, the Father speaking, the Spirit descending, and the Son declaring. This phrase was added by men who wanted to strengthen the doctrine of the Trinity and wanted a good proof text.

Because of their pressure, Erasmus reluctantly added the phrase into his third edition of the Greek New Testament. Manuscripts that we have the ability to research and study and we can see exactly when and where it happened. Notice John is spending this time with us observing the evidence. He isn't referring to the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's not his point.

Not in this text. He's referring to a Trinity of undeniable evidence in water baptism, that of Jesus, in his bloody crucifixion, and now the testimony of truth bound up in the third person of the Godhead, who came to exalt Christ, who is the Son of God. By the way, the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. You will come to no other conclusion than that Jesus is the Son of God. If you've come to a different conclusion, it isn't the Holy Spirit at work. It's a deceiving spirit. He goes back in verse 8 to just tie up the theme that he really hasn't changed.

The context has not been changed at all. For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood. The three are in agreement.

Literally, they say the same thing. In different ways, they lead you to the same truth about Jesus, who is the only way to heaven. John writes, the Spirit bears witness.

Look at verse 7 one more time. He is the truth. He is the truth. If he were called into a courtroom, he wouldn't have to place his hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

You hope he does, because he is the truth. It is his role to tell us the truth, to bear witness to Christ, to lift up Christ, to exalt Christ, just as Jesus obeys the will of the Father in his subordination to the one with whom he is equal in essence. So the Spirit exalts the Son, subordinating to him, though equal in essence.

This is the operation of the triune God. They agree, this water, blood, and Spirit, who then exalts the Son of God who came to obey the will of God, the Father. In fact, the tense of the verb informs us of the continuing activity of these witnesses that continue to reveal the truth.

If you just want to go back in history to that historical event, it bears witness to the truth of Jesus who is indeed the Son of God. And on the witness stand each one of these three, water, blood, and Spirit, will tell you the same story. Not like those proverbial boys who came to school late one day claiming that their car had gotten a flat tire. The principal immediately separated the four boys into four different rooms and then asked them one by one the same question, which tire was it?

And they got four different answers. These are the witnesses called before us today. They tell the same story, that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, the Son of God, the final Lamb of God, the Savior who really did live, who really was baptized, surrounded by many miraculous events, who really was crucified, surrounded by many miraculous events. He came to give us life so that by faith in him alone we can all one day say with that auctioneer, going, say it with me, going, gone. If you joined us late, you've tuned in to Wisdom for the Hearts. We believe that our ministry and your life is empowered by prayer. We want to pray for you, and we invite you to pray for us. In order to facilitate that, we've launched what we call the Global Prayer Team. The Global Prayer Team is a group of people who receive prayer requests from our ministry and pray for what God is doing through Wisdom International. And we also have a means for you to share your request with us. We have a team of people who pray for every request that comes in. Learn more about the Global Prayer Team and share your request with us at wisdomonline.org forward slash prayer. Then join us next time for more Wisdom for the Hearts.