1 John 5:6

6. After αἵματος [772][773], Thebaic, and Memphitic insert καὶ πνεύματος: [774], Peschito, and Vulgate omit. With [775][776][777] omit ὁ before Χριστός.

[772] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[773] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[774] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[775] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[776] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[777] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

6. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἐλθών. Closely connected with what precedes. ‘This Son of God is He that came’. The identity of the historic person Jesus with the eternal Son of God is once more insisted upon as the central and indispensable truth of the Christian faith. Faith in this truth is the only faith that can overcome the world and give eternal life. And it is a truth attested by witness of the highest and most extraordinary kind.

δι ̓ ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος. Literally, by means of or through water and blood. This is the most perplexing passage in the Epistle and one of the most perplexing in N.T. A very great variety of interpretations have been suggested. It would be simply confusing to discuss them all; but a few of the principal explanations, and the reasons for adopting the one preferred, may be stated with advantage. The water and the blood have been interpreted to mean:—

(1) The Baptism by means of water in the Jordan and the Death by means of blood upon the Cross.
(2) The water and blood which flowed from Christ’s pierced side.
(3) Purification and Redemption (λουτρόν and λύτρον).

(4) The Sacraments of Baptism and of the Eucharist.
These are fairly representative interpretations; the first two making the water and blood refer to facts in the earthly career of the Messiah; the last two making them symbolical of mysteries. It will be observed that these explanations are not all exclusive one of another: either of the last two may be combined with either of the first two; and in fact the fourth is not unfrequently combined with the second. The second, which is S. Augustine’s, has recently received the support of the Speaker’s Commentary and of Canon F. W. Farrar in The Early Days of Christianity: but in spite of its attractiveness it appears to be scarcely tenable. The difficult passage in John 19:34 and the difficult passage before us do not really explain one another. That “in these two passages alone, of all Scripture, are blood and water placed together,” would, if true, amount to nothing more than a presumption that one may be connected with the other. And such a presumption would be at once weakened by the change of order: instead of the ‘blood and water’ of the Gospel we have ‘water and blood’ here. But the statement is not true; e.g., five times in Exodus 7:17-25; ‘He took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man’ (Matthew 27:24); ‘He shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water’ (Leviticus 14:52); ‘He took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop,’ &c. (Hebrews 9:19). And is it credible that S. John would speak of effusions from the dead body of Jesus as the Son of God “coming through water and blood”? Moreover, what, on this interpretation, can be the point of the emphatic addition, ‘not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood’? At the piercing of the side it was the water, not the blood, that was so marvellous. So that, to make the reference clear, the whole ought to run somewhat in this manner: ‘This is He that shed forth blood and water, even Jesus Christ; not the blood only, but the blood and the water’.

The first of the four explanations is far more tenable, and is adopted by Bede, but not to the entire exclusion of the second. So also Dr Westcott, who thinks the additional reference to John 19:34 “beyond question”. The Baptism in the water of Jordan and the Death by the shedding of blood sum up the work of redemption. Christ’s Baptism, with the Divine proclamation of Him as the Son of God and the Divine outpouring of the Spirit upon Him, is not merely the opening but the explanation of the whole of His Ministry. The bloody death upon the Cross is not merely the close but the explanation of His Passion. ‘Coming’ when spoken of the Christ includes the notion of His mission (John 1:15; John 1:27; John 1:30; John 3:31; John 6:14; John 7:27; John 7:31; John 7:41, &c., &c.). Therefore, when we are told that the Son of God ‘came by means of water and blood’, we may reasonably understand this as meaning that He fulfilled His mission by the Baptism with which His public work began and the bloody Death with which He finished it (John 19:30). (1) This interpretation explains the order; ‘water and blood’, not ‘blood and water’. (2) It explains the first preposition; ‘through’ or ‘by means of’ (διά with the genitive: comp. the remarkable parallel Hebrews 9:12). (3) It also explains the second preposition; ‘in’ (ἐν, of the element in which, without the notion of means: comp. the remarkable parallel Hebrews 9:25). Christ’s Baptism and Death were in one sense the means by which, in another sense the spheres in which His work was accomplished. (4) Above all it explains the emphatic addition, ‘not in water only, but in the water and in the blood’. The Gnostic teachers, against whom the Apostle is writing, admitted that the Christ came ‘through’ and ‘in’ water: it was precisely at the Baptism, they said, that the Divine Word united Himself with the man Jesus. But they denied that the Divine Person had any share in what was effected ‘through’ and ‘in’ blood: for according to them the Word departed from Jesus at Gethsemane. S. John emphatically assures us that there was no such separation. It was the Son of God who was baptized; and it was the Son of God who was crucified: and it is faith in this vital truth that produces brotherly love, that overcomes the world, and is eternal life.

It may reasonably be admitted, however, that there is this large amount of connexion between the ‘water and blood’ here and the ‘blood and water’ in the Gospel. Both in a symbolical manner point to the two great sacraments. Thus Tertullian says, “He had come by means of water and blood, just as John had written; that He might be baptized by the water, glorified by the blood; to make us in like manner called by water, chosen by blood. These two baptisms He sent out from the wound in His pierced side, in order that they who believed in His blood might be bathed in the water; they who had been bathed in the water might likewise drink the blood’ (De Bapt. xvi.).

οὐκ ἐν τῷ ὕδ. μ., ἀλλ. ἐν τῷ ὕδ. κ. ἐν τῷ αἵμ. As R.V., not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. The ἐν marks the element or sphere in which the thing is done. The use of ἐν here and Hebrews 9:25 may, however, come direct from LXX. Comp. εἰσελεύσεται Ἀαρὼν εἰς τὸ ἅγιον ἐν μόσχῳ ἐκ βοῶν περὶ� (Leviticus 16:3), of the ceremonies on the great Day of Atonement. The Hebrew may mean ‘in’, ‘with’, or ‘by’. The article here in all three places means ‘the water’ and ‘the blood’ already mentioned.

As applied to us these words will mean, ‘Christ came not merely to purify by His baptism, but to give new life by His blood; “for the blood is the life”.’ In short, all that is said in the Gospel, especially in Chapter s 3 and 6, respecting water and blood may be included here. The Epistle is the companion treatise of the Gospel.

καὶ τὸ πν. ἐστιν τὸ μαρτ. Here again there are great diversities of interpretation. S. Augustine, who makes the water and blood refer to the effusions of Christ’s side, takes ‘the spirit’ to mean the spirit which He committed to His Father at His death (John 19:30; Luke 23:46). But in what sense could Christ’s human spirit be said to be ‘the Truth’? Far more probably it is the Holy Spirit that is meant (1 John 3:24; 1 John 4:13; John 1:32-33; John 7:39; Revelation 2:7; Revelation 2:11; Revelation 2:17; Revelation 2:29, &c.). Bede takes this view and understands the witness of the Spirit at Christ’s baptism to be meant. The form of the sentence is exactly parallel to τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν τὸ ζωοποιοῦν (John 6:63). We might render in each case, ‘The spirit is the life-giver’, ‘And the Spirit is the witness-bearer’. The Spirit bears witness in two ways: 1. in Scripture; 2. by His action on the wills of men. “The evidence for the Resurrection was not stronger on the Day of Pentecost than it was on the day before. But the Descent of the Spirit made it morally possible for three thousand converts to do that evidence something like justice” (Liddon).

τὸ μαρτυροῦν. We have seen already (note on 1 John 1:2) that witness to the truth in order to produce faith is one of S. John’s leading thoughts in Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation. Here it becomes the dominant thought: the word ‘witness’ (verb or substantive) occurs ten times in five verses. In the Gospel we have seven witnesses to Christ; Scripture (John 5:39-47), the Baptist (1 John 1:7), the Disciples (John 15:27; John 16:30), Christ’s works (John 5:36; John 10:25; John 10:38), Christ’s words (John 8:14; John 8:18; John 18:37), the Father (John 5:37; John 8:18), the Spirit (John 15:26). Of these seven three are specially mentioned in the Epistle, the Disciples in 1 John 1:2, the Father in 1 John 5:9-10, and the Spirit here; but to these are added two more, the water and the blood.

ὅτι τὸ πν. κ.τ.λ. It would be possible to translate ‘It is the Spirit that beareth witness that the Spirit is the truth’: but this self-attestation of the Spirit would have no relation to the context. (Comp. 1 John 2:12-14, where ὅτι is six times capable of either rendering.) It is the witnesses to Christ, to the identity of Jesus with the Son of God, that S. John is marshalling before us. It is because the Spirit is the Truth that His testimony is irrefragable: He can neither deceive nor be deceived. He is ‘the Spirit of Truth’ (John 14:16; John 15:26), and He glorifies the Christ, taking of His and declaring it unto the Church (John 16:14).

There is a remarkable Latin reading, quoniam Christus est veritas, ‘It is the Spirit that beareth witness that the Christ is the Truth,’ but it has no authority. Westcott suspects a confusion between XPC (Χριστός) and SPS (Spiritus).