First John

The Three Witnesses

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: I John 5:5-9, The Three Witnesses

Genre: Sermon

Lesson: 15 of 16

Track: #15

Year:

Dictation Name: RR308H15

[Unknown Speaker] Let us worship God.

I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy, and in Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord my strength and my Redeemer. Let us pray.

Oh most gracious God and heavenly Father we come before You this morning in aw and thanksgiving for Your goodness’s to us. You care for us better than we could ever care for ourselves, you know our needs better than we know them ourselves. We pray that You would help us to throw ourselves into Your ever loving and ever caring and ever omniscient and sovereign hands. We pray that You would teach us to depend more upon You, help us to throw our cares upon You, and help us to throw ourselves into obedience to Your word as Your loving children. We thank You that because of the atonement of Your Son Jesus Christ, and Your grace that applies that atonement to our lives, that You have restored us to fellowship, that You have given our lives meaning and purpose and hope, and that You have bridged that gap that was cause by Adam’s first sin. We pray that You would help us to live our lives as though we are living in terms of our created purpose, as though we are living in fellowship with You, and help us not to seek to go about things in life as though they were somehow independent of our responsibility to you. Help us to see all of life, and all of our meaning, as tied up in our relationship with You, and our understanding of Your word and its relevance to our daily lives. We pray that You would bless the time we have together in Your word, we thank You for gathering us together because we name the name of Jesus Christ. We pray that your grace and mercy would be upon all those who gather together in truth to worship Your name. We think especially of those who suffer persecution and discrimination throughout the world because they name the name of Jesus Christ, and we pray that we would strengthen those who seek to give them comfort and assistance. We ask for Your blessing on our time together, we pray that You would strengthen us in Your word and strengthen us as we understand our roles as individuals and families dedicated to service to You and to our Savior Jesus Christ, in His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture for this morning’s sermon is I John, chapter 5, verses 5-9; and the subject of this morning’s sermon will be “The Three Witnesses” . First John chapter 5, verses 5-9.

“5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

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.

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.

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.”

[Rushdoony] Our text has to deal with witnesses. Witnessing is to the truth so that basically our text is about truth. Now when we think about witnesses we think about a court of law, in that court various persons get up, testify, and they solemnly swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We place a great deal of story by witnessing. Our trust in witnessing tends to be rather humanistic. I recall as a student when in high school I took geometry, some of the students became quite excited, they said if we could develop a way of proving everything, as geometry proves things, it would change the world. Well of course they were quite visionary, man’s truth cannot change the world.

Now, what our text tells us, there are three witnesses, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We do not prove things by beginning with man. It is common place in this world to try to prove things humanistically, but what John is here saying is “no, proof begins and ends with God.” So that if you want to know the truth about anything you cannot neglect God, you cannot begin with anything else.

“5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” If we begin with a God centered perspective, whatever the sphere of life and thought, we are over-comers and Jesus is spoken of as He who came by water and blood, that is by baptism; which declared Him to be very man of very man, and by the flood whereby He set forth the atonement as very God of very God.

“7 There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” We reverse the whole order of truth in a proof, we begin with man; and what John says is that we must begin with God. Proof is something very exciting to people. In my high school geometry class there were some students who became, as I indicated, very, very excited by geometry. They said, “now, if we could in the world of human thought, have axioms and then prove things by them, it would simplify man’s problem.” Well this is not to say that men have not tried that. They have tried rationalistic truth, they have tried empirical proof, and they have failed. Because the ultimate and basic reality is God, not man. It is not of this earth that is a source of proof, and so what John is telling us “if you want to know reality, if you want to know the truth, you begin with the trinity, you begin the fact that ultimate and basic witness is the witness of God” and this is what we have in scripture. This is why we do not prove scripture, scripture proves everything else. Is it in conformity with the will of God? Is it the truth as God gives witness to it? So that the whole order is reversed in modern thinking, instead of beginning with God we begin with man, and the results for us are deadly.

“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” If you make this a foundation of your life you then can overcome a sinful and fallen world. You have a power that is not of man, a power that is of God, and Jesus is He who came by water and blood. Then it goes on to speak of the Spirit that beareth witness. The Spirit is truth, does not say the Spirit is truthful, it says the Spirit is truth incarnate. We cannot look around us in the world and say “We’ll begin here, this or that is the truth, and we’ll reason up to God from there.” No, you begin with the triune God, in particular God the Spirit, and all truth flows from that fact. The triune God is the maker of heaven and earth, and all things therein. There is no proof possible, apart from Him. So John here is speaking against the whole of our natural order, the whole of natural man’s reasoning.

“There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, The word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.” This means that in a Christian realm all thinking must begin with the trinity; the trinity and the infallible word given by the trinity. This was the greatness and the radicalness of Cornelius van Til that unlike other philosophers of religion he did not begin with man, or man’s reason, be began with the triune God and as a result so many who call themselves Christians were absolutely enraged at His thinking, and still are. But he was totally in line with the word of God and with John.

“There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood:” the water refers to baptism, the blood to the atonement, the Spirit to the Holy Spirit, “and these three agree in one.” They witness on earth to the power of God and what He has done. “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.” So John is saying the whole order of human thinking is upside down, you have to begin with a triune God and His inscriptured word, then you can understand this world. But if you try to reason from this word up to God all you do is to say “it’s man’s word that is determinative.” And that leads to humanism, not to Christianity. This is the greatness of John’s epistle, he takes words and alters their meaning, he says we do not have their true meaning. He takes reason and puts it in its place, it can only think God’s thoughts after Him, it cannot be on the initiative.

“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” This is the fact that you begin with, the fact of faith. You don’t say we have proof that Jesus is the Son of God, you believe it because God said so, because our Lord said so, and because the Holy Spirit witnesses to that fact. Well you can see that this implies a major revolution, it means that the churches have to shift their emphasis, they’re not out to prove the word of God to people, they are there to declare it, they are there to declare that all proof begins with God, therefore a centrality of His word. Now this requires a radically different view of education, we begin therefore with a thoroughly Biblical emphasis in education because we have a duty to be God-centered in our thinking.

And John as a result goes on to declare in verse 10, we’ll go into that more the next time, “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.” So that to believe in Jesus Christ, and to begin there in our lives, to say to ourselves “the fundamental fact in all the universe is that there is a triune God, and that Jesus Christ the second person of the trinity, the word made flesh, dwelt among us.” We do not need to prove the Bible, we merely have a duty to proclaim it. We do not go around trying to prove to people that we are alive, that would be ridiculous, how much less so do we need to go around and prove to people that God is, John therefore says “this is where you begin, you cannot overcome the world unless you begin with this faith, until then you’re in the world, you are of the world, and you cannot overcome the world.” We have thus something extremely radical and important in this message, as in all of John’s letter, it is so important for us that we dare not neglect it. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word, we pray that Thy word may govern our lives all the days of our existence here. We pray that Thy word may give us joy, that Thy word may make us ever mindful, that we are victors over sin and death, how great Thou art oh Lord, and we praise Thee. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson?

[Audience Member]{?} It says “he who believes on the son has the witness within him, {?} but he that believes on the son has a witness within Him, because that witness is the Holy Spirit isn’t it?

[Rushdoony] Uh, Mark?

[Mark] He’s quoting verse ten where it says “he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in Himself” that refers to the Holy Spirit he’s saying.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] We shall see as we continue with chapter five what a tremendous point John has made.

Are there any other questions or comments?

If not let us conclude with prayer. Our Father we thank Thee for Thy word, Thy word is truth, Thy word is a light unto our way and we thank Thee that day after day more light breaks forth unto us from Thy word. Teach us Lord to trust in Thee, to walk with Thee, and always to rejoice in Thy government. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.