Featured A few of my KJV mark ups.

9 "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(about) his Son.

You almost have it. Delete the nonsense added by Latin scribes and you get it.

 

You come up with some shaky reasoning.

 

I believe your presupposition, here, is unsubstantiated and unwarranted.

"For there are three that bear record in heaven",....
That is, that Jesus is the Son of God.

"The genuineness of this text has been called into question by some because it is wanting in the Syriac version, as it also is in the Arabic and Ethiopic versions;

"and because the old Latin interpreter has it not;

"and it is not to be found in many Greek manuscripts;

"nor cited by many of the ancient fathers, even by such who wrote against the Arians, when it might have been of great service to them: to all which it may be replied, that as to the Syriac version, which is the most ancient, and of the greatest consequence, it is but a version, and a defective one.

"The history of the adulterous woman in the eighth of John, the second epistle of Peter, the second and third epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, and the book of the Revelations, were formerly wanting in it, till restored from Bishop Usher's copy by De Dieu and Dr. Pocock, and who also, from an eastern copy, has supplied this version with this text.

"As to the old Latin interpreter, it is certain it is to be seen in many Latin manuscripts of an early date, and stands in the Vulgate Latin edition of the London Polyglot Bible: and the Latin translation, which bears the name of Jerom, has it, and who, in an epistle of his to Eustochium, prefixed to his translation of these canonical epistles, complains of the omission of it by unfaithful interpreters.

"And as to its being wanting in some Greek manuscripts, as the Alexandrian, and others, it need only be said, that it is to be found in many others;

"it is in an old British copy, and in the Complutensian edition, the compilers of which made use of various copies;

"and out of sixteen ancient copies of Robert Stephens's, nine of them had it: and as to its not being cited by some of the ancient fathers, this can be no sufficient proof of the spuriousness of it, since it might be in the original copy, though not in the copies used by them, through the carelessness or unfaithfulness of transcribers;

"or it might be in their copies, and yet not cited by them, they having Scriptures enough without it, to defend the doctrine of the Trinity, and the divinity of Christ: and yet, after all, certain it is, that it is cited by many of them;

"by Fulgentius z, in the beginning of the "sixth" century, against the Arians, without any scruple or hesitation;

"and Jerom, as before observed, has it in his translation made in the latter end of the "fourth" century;

"and it is cited by Athanasius about the year 350;

"and before him by Cyprian b, in the middle, of the "third" century, about the year 250; and is referred to by Tertullian c about, the year 200;

"and which was within a "hundred" years, or little more, of the writing of the epistle;

"which may be enough to satisfy anyone of the genuineness of this passage;

"and besides, there never was any dispute about it till Erasmus left it out in the first edition of his translation of the New Testament;

"and yet he himself, upon the credit of the old British copy before mentioned, put it into another edition of his translation.

"The heavenly witnesses of Christ's sonship are,

"the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost."

The "Father" is the first Person, so-called, ... in reference to his Son Jesus Christ, of whose sonship he bore witness at his baptism and transfiguration upon the mount.

"The "Word" is the second Person, who said and it was done;

"who spoke all things out of nothing in the first creation;

"who was in the beginning with God the Father, and was God, and by whom all things were created; he declared himself to be the Son of God, and proved himself to be so by his works and miracles;

"...and his witness of himself was good and valid
see John 8:13; "The Pharisees therefore said unto him,
Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true."

:and because it is his sonship that is, here testified of, therefore the phrase, "the Word", and not "the Son", is here used.

"The Holy Ghost" is the third Person, who proceeds from the Father, and is also called the Spirit of the Son, who testified of, Christ's sonship also at his baptism, by descending on him as a dove, which was the signal given to John the Baptist, by which he knew him, and bare record of him, that he was the Son of God.

"Now the number of these witnesses was three, there being so many persons in the Godhead;

"and such a number being sufficient, according to law, for the establishment of any point:"

Nah.


"...to which may be added, that they were witnesses in heaven, not to the heavenly inhabitants, but to men on earth; they were so called because they were in heaven, and from thence gave out their testimony; and which shows the firmness and excellency of it, it is not from earth, but from heaven, and not human, but divine; to which may be applied the words of Job,
in Job 16:19; "Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high."

"...and these three are one;

which is to be understood, not only of their unity and agreement in their testimony, their testifying of the same thing, the sonship of Christ;

"but of their unity in essence or nature, they being the one God.

"So that, this passage holds forth and asserts the unity of God, a trinity of persons in the Godhead, the proper deity of each person, and their distinct personality, the unity of essence in that they are one;

"a trinity of persons in that they are three, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and are neither more nor fewer;

"the deity of each person, for otherwise their testimony would not be the testimony of God, as in 1 John 5:9; and their distinct personality;

"for were they not three distinct persons, they could not be three testifiers or three that bare record."

"...a house of judgment, or a Sanhedrin, among the Jews, never consisted of less than three. They also used to write the word "Jehovah" with three "Jods", in the form of a triangle,

י
י י

"as representing the three divine Persons..."

z Respons. contr. Arian. obj. 10. de Trinitate, c. 4.
a Contr. Arium, p. 109.
b De Unitate Eccles. p. 255. in Ep. 73. ad Jubajan, p. 184.
c Contr. Praxeam, c. 25.

from: 1 John 5:7 - John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

 

You may be misinformed about Stephen's copies since nine of his Greek NT manuscripts did not have 1 John 5:7. There was an error at 1 John 5:7 relating to the mark for the marginal note in Stephen's 1550 TR edition. The nine manuscripts concerned a reading for a different place.

Jan Krans noted: "From Beza's annotation it appears that at 1 John 5:7, Beza followed Stephanus' typographical error and therefore assumed the presence of the Comma in some of Stephanus' manuscripts" when it was not there (Beyond What Is Written: Erasmus and Beza as Conjectural Critics of the New Testament, p. 242).

 

Why the importance of Three Witnesses to Testify?

...

From Heaven to Earth;

(

God in Heaven was a witness to Job testifying from Heaven that Job's Redeemer Lives.)

Why?

..of Their Testimony being from Heaven...

Divine LEGAL Testimony...
...

and the Eternal Life that is in Him...

↑
The Eternal Sovereign Triune Creator Godhead is testifying before the Universe and 'God and everybody' what is in I John 5:9-13;
↑
this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.
↑
"He that believeth on the Son of God
↑
God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
↑
"He that hath the Son hath life
↑
you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life
↑
and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."

...

Those souls God places under the Influence of His Eternal Word
(I John 5:7,8)

7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and these three are one.

8 "And there are three that bear witness in earth,
the spirit, and the water, and the blood:
and these three agree in one."
...

They bear a record of I John 5:9-13.

Christ's sonship and the Eternal Life that is in Him...

 

John
19:32 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.
19:33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:
19:34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
19:35 And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
19:36 For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.
19:37 And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they

1 John
5:6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
5:7 For there are three that bear record
5:8 , the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
5:9 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.
5:10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
5:11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
5:12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

 

John 19:37 on post number 47# should read

19:37 And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.