1 John 5:7, and The Holy Trinity - Part 1

A STUDY OF THE GREEK TEXT OF 1 JOHN 5:6-10 WHICH SHOWS THAT THE TESTIMONY OF “THE THREE HEAVENLY WITNESSES” MUST BE PART OF THE EPISTLE AND GENUINE

VERSE 6:

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

Here we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit, to the life and death of Jesus Christ. No one knows for certain, what the Apostle John means by, “He Who came by water and blood”. It is my understanding of this verse, that John is here speaking of the baptism and death of Jesus Christ. The Apostle John wrote his First Epistle against the false teachings of a man called, Cerinthus, “who taught that Christ, a divine being, descended upon Jesus at the Baptism and left him before the Passion [His Death]” (W F Howard, Christianity According to St John, page 55. Words in brackets are mine). This can be seen elsewhere in this Epistle, as in chapter 2 we read, “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (22-23). There is an interesting reading, which I believe to be the original, for chapter 4, verse 3, which reads, “and every spirit that divides [or, separates] Jesus Christ is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist”. The textual evidence for this is older and stronger than the accepted one. And, 5:1, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God”. Clearly the emphasis in these passages, is to show that JESUS IS THE CHRIST, One and the same Person, from His birth, right up to His death on the cross. Not that Jesus was born a mere “man”, upon Whom the “Christ” descended. John tells us that the Holy Spirit bears “Testimony” to this Biblical Truth about Jesus Christ. As far as the Greek for this verse is, there is no problem. The words, “it is the Spirit that bears witness”, are in the neuter gender, not because the Holy Spirit is “impersonal”, but for grammatical purposes, as the noun “pneuma” (Spirit) is a “neuter” word, and it is natural for this grammar. The “Personality” of the Holy Spirit is seen elsewhere in the Bible. Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit using the Greek personal pronoun, “ekeinos” (He), which is masculine in gender (see, John 14:26, “He [ekeinos] shall teach you all things”, 16:13, “but when He [ekeinos] the Spirit of truth is come”), where the gender of “pneuma”, would have required the neuter “ekeino”. It is because Jesus wished to show the Holy Spirit as a Person, that He uses the masculine. The fact that the Holy Spirit “teaches”, and can be “grieved” (Eph. 4:30), and “calls” to the ministry (Acts 13:2), and is “lied” to (Acts 5:3), etc, clearly shows that He is a Person, and not an “impersonal force”, as taught by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Interestingly, in Acts 5:4, the Apostle Peter calls the Holy Spirit, “the God” (toi theoi), Who certainly cannot be “impersonal”. I mention the Greek grammar of verse 6 for the purpose of our understanding the grammar of verse 7, especially in the versions that omit the reference to the Heavenly Witnesses.

VERSE 7:

“ For there are three that testify”

I am using the text that appears in the greater majority of modern versions of the New Testament, which has just the one sentence for verse 7. Bible versions like the New King James, have the words as originally written by the Apostle John: “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one”

The Greek text for the reading found in most versions, is, “hoti treis eisin hoi marturountes”. This is referring to “the Spirit, the water and the blood”, in verse 8. What no English, or any other language, other than the Greek, can tell you, is that the words in verse 7, are all in the masculine gender. All three nouns in the Greek, “spirit”, “water”, and “blood”, are neuter words. Now, the Apostle John would not only have been very able in the Greek language, but, he was writing under the guidance of God the Holy Spirit. There is no doubt that he would have employed the correct Greek grammar for what he wrote, and used the rules that govern this language. Instead of writing “hoti treis eisin hoi marturountes”, John would have written, “tria eisi ta marturounta”, which is neuter, and for which there is no grammatical problem, as it agrees perfectly with the neuter nouns they refer to. Two “solutions” to the problem with the Greek grammar have been put forward. The first is found in commentaries like the Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools, where we read, “The masculine points to the personality of the Spirit” (e-edition). In the first place, it is to be noted, that the words in verse 7 (modern text), speaks of “THREE”, and not “ONE” witness, which are given TOGETHER as their TESTIMONY are said to be ONE. In the second place, Why does John in verse 7 use the MASCULINE gender for the Holy Spirit, whereas in verse 6, which we have looked at, he rightly uses the NEUTER, and no one would doubt that the Holy Spirit is a PERSON in verse 6, even though, for grammatical purposes, the NEUTER was correctly used. The second “solution”, is that the THREE WITNESSES, “the Spirit, and the water and the blood”, is found in the commentary by John Bengal: “He uses treis in the Masculine, because these things (the Spirit, the water, and the blood) are symbols of the Trinity” (e-edition). This has been around from very early times, and when looked at closely, is a non-starter. “Spirit”, without any doubt, refers to THE HOLY SPIRIT. So, if Jesus Christ, as seen from verse 6, where He “came by water and blood”, is represented by these terms, then what of God the Father? There is NO Biblical support for either “water”, or “blood” ever used to “symbolise” God the Father. Another problem with this “solution”, is the fact, that in verse 6 the Apostle John has just spoken of these SAME “witnesses”, where no one has ever suggested that the “water” and “blood” are to be understood as “symbols” of the Father and the Son. So, why would John change their meaning in the next verse? These are desperate “solutions” being given by those who cannot accept the FACT, that the words as found in versions like the King James, is indeed the work of the Apostle John. It is another FACT, that, when the text reads, “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one”, that there is NO problem with the Greek grammar, as the MASCULINE nouns, “Father” and “Word”, along with the Holy Spirit, Who is a PERSON, GOVERN the gender of the words, and the THREE are indeed seen as PERSONS in the masculine. This is CORRECT Greek grammar, and to any HONEST student of the Holy Bible, the ONLY possible answer for the Greek grammar of verse 7.