Sunday Morning Bible Study

January 6, 2013

Introduction

Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel preached? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church loved?

This is a book about Real Issues

What’s real? What’s the truth?

We’ve been addressing issues like:

Who is God? What is He really like?

What is a Christian? What is a Christian really like?

In 1John 5:1-5, we saw an emphasis on putting our trust (“to believe”) in Jesus as the Christ, the “Savior”.

It’s what causes us to be “born again”

(1 Jn 5:1 NKJV) Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God…

It’s what gives us victory over the world

(1 Jn 5:5 NKJV) Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

But how do we really know that Jesus was the Christ?  John gives us three reasons, three “witnesses” concerning Jesus. (read the text)

(1 Jn 5:6–9 NKJV) —6 This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. 7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. 9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.

How do we know that Jesus was God?

Some people in Jesus’ day called Him a liar and a deceiver (Matt. 27:63)

(Mt 27:63 NKJV) —63 saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’

Some people in John’s day taught that Jesus was just an ordinary man on whom the “Christ spirit” came at His baptism, but left before He died (“Why has thou forsaken Me?”) and that He died as just any other human.

There are “witnesses” we need to consider as we make up our mind about Jesus.

5:6-9  Three witnesses

:6 This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

:6 This is He

this – houtos – this, these, etc.

Who is John talking about?  He’s talking about Jesus.  We know that from the previous verse:

(1 Jn 5:5 NKJV) Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

:6 He who came – erchomai – to come

Aorist active participle – speaking of something that happened at a point in time.

The Incarnation is an historical event.

The Eternal One, Jesus, who existed from before all eternity, came into our earthly, human history and took on human flesh at a single point in time.

:6 came by water and blood

:6 water – hudor – water

:6 blood – haima – blood

:6 He who came by water

I think this is speaking of the baptism of Jesus.

It was at His baptism that His ministry began, and where there was a major “witness” to whom Jesus was.

(Mt 3:16–17 NKJV) 16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

When Jesus was baptized, two special things happened.

There was a visible witness of the Holy Spirit descending on Him as a dove.

There was an audible witness as the Father spoke and declared that Jesus was God’s beloved Son.

Lesson

Baptism

For us, there’s a sense in which one of the earliest things we ought to do as believers is follow Jesus in baptism.

When we are baptized, it’s out of obedience to the Lord, who commanded us to be baptized (Mat. 28:19-20).

Baptism is a public display of repentance.

Just as John the Baptist was preaching, we too need to turn from our sins, and baptism is a way of saying to people, “Hey, I’m going to turn from my sins and follow Jesus.”

Baptism is a way of identifying with Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It’s a way of showing publicly that when Jesus died, somehow you died too.  You go under the water in death.  And when Jesus rose from the dead, you were given the ability to have resurrection power in your life as well.  You come back out of the water.

:6 (came by water) and blood

I think this is speaking of Jesus dying on the cross.

It was at His death on the cross, after crying out He felt forsaken, that He declared “it is finished”.  It was the cross that finished the work that Jesus came to do on the earth.

(Jn 19:30 NKJV) So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

What was “finished”?  His work of redemption.  He came to take away our sins.  John the Baptist recognized this when Jesus came to be baptized:

(Jn 1:29 NKJV) The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

It was with His blood that He paid for our sins:

(Heb 9:11–12 NKJV) —11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

At the cross, there were things that occurred that showed that something supernatural was happening.

There was darkness, an earthquake, and the tearing of the Temple veil. (Mat. 27:45, 50-53)

(Mt 27:45 NKJV) —45 Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.

(Mt 27:50–53 NKJV) —50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

There were ancient heretics who claimed that Jesus was just an ordinary guy who had the “Christ spirit” on Him, but when He died, the “Christ spirit” left Him before He died.

Jesus didn’t “lose” the “Christ spirit” at His death in some tragic accident, His death was on purpose, accomplishing something.

Lesson

Real Clean

The blood of Jesus has an impact on us today.

(Heb 9:13–14 NKJV) —13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Jesus came to earth in order to pay for our sins.

He paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.

His death, His spilling His blood, not only pays for our ticket into heaven, but it can cleanse our conscience from our sins.

Illustration

A Chinese man named Li Fu had tried every treatment imaginable to ease his throbbing headaches. Nothing helped. An X-ray finally revealed the culprit. A rusty four-inch knife blade had been lodged in his skull for four years. In an attack by a robber, Fu had suffered lacerations on the right side of his jaw. He didn't know the blade had broken off inside his head. No wonder he suffered from such stabbing pain.

We can't live with foreign objects buried in our bodies. Or our souls. What would an X-ray of your interior reveal? Regrets over an [earlier] relationship? Remorse over a poor choice? Shame about the marriage that didn't work, the habit you couldn't quit, the temptation you didn't resist, or the courage you couldn't find? Guilt lies hidden beneath the surface, festering, irritating. Sometimes so deeply embedded you don't know the cause.

Max Lucado, Grace (Thomas Nelson, 2012), p. 94

We have a solution to guilt.

(1 Jn 1:9 NKJV) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Play “Trash” video.

Even when we’ve been a Christian for a while, we can fall into the trap of getting caught in sin, and missing out on the true cleansing that Jesus offers us.

Are you struggling with guilt this morning?  Jesus offers you forgiveness.  Complete forgiveness.

:6 the Spirit who bears witness … is truth

:6 who bears witness – martureo – to be a witness, to bear witness, i.e. to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something

:6 the Spirit is truth

:6 truth – aletheia – what is true in any matter under consideration

The Holy Spirit is the third witness. (water, blood, Spirit)

In the gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of truth”.

(Jn 14:16–17 NKJV) —16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

He is a “helper” – He has come to give us comfort and to strengthen us.

He is “in us”

(Jn 15:26 NKJV) “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

He “testifies” of Jesus. He is a witness.

Through miracles.

(Heb 2:4 NKJV) God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit…

Through an inner witness in us.

(Ro 8:15–16 NKJV) —15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

(Jn 16:12–13 NKJV) —12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

He guides us into all truth.

He tells us of things to come.

:7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.

:8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.

Did some of you get confused when I was reading? (look at the screen)  In some of your Bibles, the text reads something like this:

:7 For there are three that bear witness:

:8  the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.

Textual Issues

Good ol’ J.Vernon McGee (the “Bible Bus” radio teacher) writes,

“I heard Dr. Robertson lecture when I was a student in seminary, and he probably knew more Greek than anybody who has lived in our generation. I remember that when he got up the first day to lecture on the Epistle to the Romans, he had a great big sheaf of notes. He didn’t even look up at the class because he was busy just straightening out those notes. Then he looked up and said, “I don’t see how the apostle Paul ever wrote the Epistle to the Romans without my notes!” Of course, everybody roared at that. Well, Dr. Robertson was a great Greek scholar, and he makes the statement that verse 7 is not in the better manuscripts but was probably written in the margin by some scribe.”^[1]

Ancient manuscripts and modern translations

We’re going to get “real”.  Full disclosure about the Bible.

Believe it or not, the Bible was not originally written in English.  It was not even originally written in King James English.

The original human authors wrote in their ancient languages.  Part of the Old Testament were originally written in Hebrew, other parts in Aramaic, and the entire New Testament was written in a form of Greek known as “koine” or, “common Greek” or, “street-Greek”.

Originally all versions of these ancient manuscripts were copied by hand by scribes, long before the invention of the printing press (which didn’t happen until 1440).

We do not have any of the “original” handwritten manuscripts from Moses, Isaiah, Paul, or John – only copies of copies of copies.

The ancient Jewish scribes were pretty picky about how their Old Testament manuscripts were copied – and the copies that we have today are very, very, very accurate.

The early church was not so careful about making their copies of the various books of the New Testament.

Perhaps it was because they were so excited about receiving a new letter from Paul, that they were a little bit in a hurry when they made copies and passed them on.

As a result, over the centuries various “families” of Greek New Testament manuscripts began to form, depending on which copy of a copy the current copy was made from.

Around the 15^th century, scholars began to collect these copies, and put them all together to create what they thought were the best reconstruction of the original writings.

One of these scholars, Erasmus, published his first edition of the New Testament in 1514.  As his research continued, he kept revising his Greek text as he found different manuscripts.  His second edition was printed in 1519, and was the basis of Martin Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German.

Sometime after his second edition, the Catholic Church began to put pressure on Erasmus to add these verses because the verses were in their Latin translations, but not his Greek text.

Erasmus replied that he hadn’t put the text in because he couldn’t find it in any Greek manuscripts.  He said that if they could produce a Greek manuscript with the text, he would add it.

The church produced a Greek manuscript (“codex 61” apparently written around 1520), and Erasmus was obliged to add this section.

Erasmus published his third edition in 1522, and included this portion of the text.

Note:  The technical term for our omitted passage is the “Comma Johanneum”.

The third edition was the basis for Tyndale’s first translation of the New Testament into English.

It was also the basis for another Greek New Testament published by Robert Stephanus in 1550, and this was the basis for the translation of the original King James version (published in 1611).  That’s why it’s in the King James (and NKJV)

Where did these words actually come from?

It seems that these verses came from a 4^th century sermon written in Latin.  An ancient preacher started by looking at the original text:

For there are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water, and the blood

The preacher drew the conclusion that there was a mystical reference to the Trinity here, and that the “three” were actually hinting at the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”.

The preacher had noted that the words for “Spirit”, “water”, and “blood” were all “neuter” in gender.  But the word for “three” was masculine.

This conclusion of the text hinting at the Trinity eventually made it into the margin notes of some later Latin manuscripts, explaining that some saw this as a reference to the Trinity, and by the end of the 5^th century, a fellow named Vigilius put the whole thing straight into his Latin version of the text.

And yet it was never in a Greek manuscript until someone decided to help Erasmus out and put it into a Greek manuscript around 1520.

Lesson

The Reliable Bible

You may be thinking, “This all makes me question how reliable the Bible is”

You don’t need to worry.

Look at a comparison of other well known, ancient writings from the same time period in history:

Author	When written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	No. of copies
Caesar	100-44 BC	900 AD	1,000 yrs.	10
Livy	59 BC – AD 17	900 AD	1,000 yrs	20
Plato	427-347 BC	900 AD	1,200 yrs.	7
New Testament	51-95 AD	130 AD	35 yrs.	5,000

Because the early Christian copyists didn’t take the same kind of painstaking trouble making their copies as the Jewish scribes did, there are thousands of discrepancies, mostly things like spelling.

There are some 200,000 known discrepancies in the Greek manuscripts. Yet it’s important to know that the way these discrepancies are counted – if a single word is misspelled, but is misspelled in 3,000 of the copies, it is counted as 3,000 discrepancies.

Of these discrepancies, they are in actuality in only 10,000 places in the New Testament, and most of these are things like misspellings.

Of these, Philip Schaff in Comparison to the Greek Testament and the English Version concluded that only 400 of them caused any kind of doubt as to the meaning of the text, and of these, only 50 were of any great significance. NOT ONE of these discrepancies alters “an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching”.

So, can we be certain that what we have in our Bibles is what was originally written?

You can’t say “yes” with 100% certainty.  But it’s a little like Ivory Soap which is 99 ¼ % pure which ain’t bad for an ancient document.

In addition, the ancient church fathers quoted the New Testament so often, that just from their writings alone you could reconstruct the entire New Testament except for 11 verses.

Is that reliable enough for you?

Lesson

The Trinity

Does this mean that the Trinity isn’t true since verse 7 isn’t all there?

Some folks feel that they need to fight for these verses because they speak about the Trinity.

We don’t need verse 7 to show the Trinity.  There are plenty of other verses where the Trinity shows up, like,

(Mt 28:19 NKJV) Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Or like our verse from two weeks ago where Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 61,

(Lk 4:18 NKJV) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me…

In fact the Trinity is seen in the other verses of our passage:

The Son is the “one who came” (vs. 6), the “Spirit” bears witness (vs. 6), and we have the “witness of God” in vs. 9, all three persons of the Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t based on this one verse.

Does this mean that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit don’t “testify” about Jesus?

Not at all. We’ve already seen that they all testify of Jesus in other places.

The Father testified of Jesus at His baptism.

Jesus told the woman at the well that He was the Messiah. (Jn. 4:26)

(Jn 4:26 NKJV) Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

(Jn 4:25–26 NKJV) —25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

We’ve already seen that the Spirit came to testify of Jesus (vs. 6)

:7-8 three that bear witness … the Spirit, the water, and the blood

:7 bear witness – martureo – to be a witness, to bear witness, i.e. to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something, or that he knows it because taught by divine revelation or inspiration

Present active participle

:8 these three agree as one

agree – eimi – to be, to exist, to happen, to be present

These three “are” one.

The Spirit, the water, and the blood all agree about one thing, that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior.

The Bible sets the standard that truth is established by two or more “witnesses”

(Dt 19:15 NKJV) …by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.

Our own judicial system follows this same standard.

John has given us three witnesses, and he’s about to give us a fourth.

:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.

:9 the witness … witness … witness – marturia – a testifying

:9 we receive – lambano – to take; to receive (what is given)

Present active indicative

:9 If we receive

This is a “first class conditional statement”, which means that it is assumed as true. 

You could translate this, “If we receive the witness of men, and we do…”

There is no sense of “doubt” as to whether “we” have “received the witness of men”.

This is why we ought to pay attention to the witness of God.

:9 He has testified – martureo – to be a witness, to bear witness, i.e. to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something, or that he knows it because taught by divine revelation or inspiration

Perfect active indicative

This is a “perfect” tense, meaning that an action has happened in the past, and the results continue on into the present.

God the Father has given us a testimony about His Son, and the testimony is still true.

:9 the witness of God is greater

There are several times in the gospel accounts that we have a record that the Father spoke from heaven concerning Jesus.

The first was at Jesus’ baptism (Mat. 3:16-17) when God spoke.

(Mt 3:16–17 NKJV) —16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

The second was on the Mount of Transfiguration (where John himself was present):

(Mt 17:5 NKJV) While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”

Lesson

Who are you going to believe?

You can pay attention to what people say.  Or you can pay attention to what God says.

Will you receive the witness of God?

(Jn 1:12 NKJV) But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

Will you open your heart to Jesus Christ today?  Will you choose to follow Jesus?