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Presentation 10

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Introduction“How can I know? How can I be sure?” Questions such as these identify notes uncertainty in daily life. Richard Feynman the American theoretical physicist writes, “Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.” Uncertainty also plagues the world of politics; treaties are signed but no sooner is the ink dry than we wonder when they will be broken. Uncertainty, haunts the realm of human relationships, “He tells me he loves me, but how can I be sure?” When John wrote his epistle he intended to show that in an uncertain world there is one certainty of which we can be absolutely sure - God and the salvation he provides! John views Christian assurance not as an optional accessory to Christian living but a necessary, fundamental, enriching part of it.

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IntroductionSome of John’s readers had heard contradictory voices in the religious market place that asked, “How can you be sure that the gospel is not a fiction and that your trust in Christ is not misplaced?” John invites them to join him in the jury room to evaluate the unique testimony that has been given on this matter. The word ‘testify’/‘testimony’ appears 8 times in our passage. John will show that a reasonable belief in Jesus rests upon the validity of the testimony made about him. And so he asks and answers four basic questions: 1. Who provides the testimony we are invited to believe? 2. What particular shape does this testimony take? 3. How credible is this testimony? Why should believe it? 4. What is significant about the substance of the testimony?

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Who Provides The Testimony?The answer John provides is that the testimony that has been given concerning Jesus Christ has been given by none other than God himself. It is the testimony of God the Father concerning God the Son. Cf v9 “We accept man’s testimony but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God which he has given us about his Son.” Who is in witness box? God the Father has taken the stand in order to tell us the truth, and nothing but the truth concerning the Son. When we are invited to believe on the Lord Jesus, its not mere human testimony we’re being confronted with but the very Word of God himself. The significance of which we will return to shortly. Before doing so we ask our second question.

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What Shape Does It Take?A person’s testimony is invariably constructed to reveal, what to them is of supreme importance concerning the thing testified. The focus of God’s testimony is the active and passive obedience of his Son. Jesus lived in perfect obedience to the law and died a death that absorbed the sanctions of the law, which the people, whom he represented, had broken.

In other words, God bears testimony to the fact that Jesus is the only sufficient Saviour of sinners. As such Jesus is the fulfilment of all O.T. expectations and the terminus into which all of the O.T. ceremonial, promises and prophecies concerning salvation ran!

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What Shape Does It Take?The phrase ‘by water and blood’ is not found elsewhere in scripture but is highly significant to John and also to his readers for he repeats it again in v6 “He did not come by water only but by water and blood”. And so in answer to the question, “In what way does God bear testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ so that we are called to put our absolute faith in him?” John replies, he came ‘by water and by blood’.

There has been considerable discussion as to the meaning of this phrase. The view I favour is that the ‘water’ refers to Jesus’ baptism at the beginning of his public ministry and the ‘blood’ to his ‘death’ at the end of it. On each significant occasion God tore open the heavens to bear testimony to his Son as the Saviour he had sent.

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What Shape Does It Take?At his baptism the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove and the voice of God was heard to say, “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. God bore testimony to his pleasure in Jesus’ perfect obedience that would lead to the cross. God was pleased to present his Son as the one through whom the penalty of sin would be borne. God was saying, “in him I have eternally decreed that a Saviour for sinners will be found.”

This is not the musings of men but the testimony of God in history. Jesus’ baptism confirms both his infinite worth as the Son of God and God’s pleasure in his sinless state. It identifies Jesus as the only legal candidate qualified to take our place and bear the punishment for sin. “There was no other good enough…”

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What Shape Does It Take?God’s testimony was also given at Jesus’ death and supremely when the temple curtain was torn in two, significantly from top to bottom. Gone was the barrier that separated a God of infinite holiness from a sinful humanity. In this way the Father testified that his Son’s death had secured a reconciliation.

The book of Hebrews tells us that the torn curtain was a testimony that God had opened ‘a new and living way into his presence’. The “No Entry” sign was replaced with another that read, “Access” to the Father by means of Christ’s shed blood. And so by ‘the water and the blood’ we have a twofold testimony of God.

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What Shape Does It Take?John identifies a third witness in v6 “and it is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.” This may refer to the descent of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism identifying him as the Son of God and the Saviour of men.

Or, it may also refer to Spirit bearing witness in the heart of the believer that he is a child of God. Indeed, his testifying work begins the moment we are first drawn to Jesus Christ. He works in our hearts bearing testimony to the fact that Jesus is the Saviour we need. He then evokes faith in the person of Christ. And once faith is exercised he brings assurance that we truly belong to God’s family. Unlike the other forms of testimony this work of the Spirit is internal but no less significant.

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What Shape Does It Take?The Spirit’s testimony may also refer to the witness given by the Spirit to our hearts when we hear the testimony of God being unpacked by others so that we are brought to a saving knowledge of the gospel. Jesus refers to this united testimony in Jn.15v26,27, "The Spirit shall testify of Me, and you also shall bear witness...”

We see this twofold operation at work on the day of Pentecost. The apostles related facts that were familiar to many of their hearers. However, it was the powerful testimony of the Holy Spirit to these facts that had such a transforming impact upon them. We read, “They were cut to the heart…”

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What Shape Does It Take?Now however, we understand the Spirit’s testimony, there are nevertheless three agreeing witnesses, “the Spirit, the water and the blood” v7. And this threefold testimony is primarily communicated through preaching.

When we read 1 Thes. 2v13, Paul tells the Thessalonians they’d heard his words not as the word of men but "as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe". God has given us his testimony, it is communicated through preaching BUT are we prepared to receive it, believe it, and allow it to do its work within us? This leads to our third question.

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How Credible Is The Testimony? Historical events and their interpretation cannot be examined in a science lab. Empirical testing is not an option. Therefore, of supreme importance is the credibility of the testimony offered. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible as are the feelings of the witnesses. It is the character of the witness that gives weight to his evidence. See what John says in v9, “we accept man’s testimony but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God.”

We often accept human testimony without quibble. We receive the testimony of the doctor concerning our health, the testimony of the bank manager concerning our finances! And while generally we are inclined to accept human testimony, experience tells us it is often fallible and unreliable.

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How Credible Is The Testimony? Human nature finds it easier to lie than to tell the truth and that results in an erosion of confidence. When we deal with God we are dealing with One who cannot lie. However, because promise keeping is so alien to human experience, many find it hard to grasp the utter reliability of God and his word. In Gen. 15 God impresses his reliability upon Abraham by establishing a covenant in which sacrificial animals were killed and laid out on either side of a pathway. God excluded Abraham from the promise making by causing a deep sleep to fall upon him. God then symbolically passed up and down this covenant path, indicating, ‘If I am false to my word of promise to bless you, may I end up like these severed animals. I will be pressing the self-destruct! Button on the godhead.’

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How Credible Is The Testimony? cf. Heb. 6.16ff

“Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath” [he is referring to the Gen. 15 incident] it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.”

And so here in our passage John says, ‘God’s testimony is to be believed because he is God!’

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How Credible Is The Testimony? Clearly, the big issue for John is what we do with God’s multi-faceted testimony and so he says in v10, “Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar”. And you will know that ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden that God’s trustworthiness has been questioned... Now when we reject God’s testimony concerning his only Son, we are looking God straight in the eyes and saying, “Here is my evaluation of your testimony, you are nothing more than a liar.” Unbelief is not a citizen of Switzerland; it is not a neutral territory. Nor is it an unfortunate characteristic like colour blindness that one is born with. Unbelief is the most heinous of all sins! Why? Because it throws God’s testimony concerning his Son back in his face and says, “You are a liar!”.

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How Credible Is The Testimony? Jesus marvelled at the unbelief of the Jews. Testimony concerning his identity was piled up before them; the testimony of the O.T. scriptures, of Jesus’ miracles, and of John the Baptist, whose prophetic finger pointed to Jesus and said, ‘Behold The Lamb of God’, God’s promised Saviour. Confronted with this rich array of testamentary evidence the religious leaders said, ‘We refuse to believe!’

Unbelief will only accept testimony that supports its own warped prejudices. Unbelief in relation to Scripture is something that should have us quaking in our shoes simply because it is calling God a liar! This leads us to our final question.

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What Is Its Substance?Look at v11-12. “And this is the testimony, God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” The gift of God in the gospel is eternal life. What God gives as we exercise faith in Jesus is ‘eternal’ in nature.

The words ‘The End’ have no place in the Christian’s biography! We hear in the news, “So and so deprived another of their precious life”. In contrast, the life that God gives cannot be taken from us. It is eternally secure. Why? Because it rests not in our performance but in the performance of another. It was for this reason that R. M. McCheyne advised, “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.”

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What Is Its Substance?Eternal security is not the universal experience of all hence the balancing truth “He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” A true Christian is not merely professor of creedal formula, but the possessor of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is an indissoluble relationship between believing in Jesus, possessing Jesus and possessing eternal life.

Cf Jn.1v11… Note the interconnectedness between those ‘who believed in his name’ and ‘those who received him’. And so the Christian life is nothing less than ‘the life of God in the soul of a man’. You simply can’t have eternal life without having Christ and you can’t have Christ without having eternal life. God wants us to be very sure we have Christ.

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ConclusionFor this reason God has taken the witness stand and given testimony. It is what we do with that testimony that is important, causing D. L. Moody to say, “I believe hundreds of Christian people are being deceived by Satan now on this point, that they have not got the assurance of salvation just because they are not willing to take God at His word”. Instead, many look within, and are influenced by feelings, or by their imaginations.

Addressing this mistake S. Rutherford writes, “Our hope is not hung on such an untwisted thread as 'I imagine so, or it is likely’; the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor is the oath, the promise of him who is eternal truth. Our salvation is fastened with God's own hand, and Christ's own strength to the strong stake of God's unchangeable nature”.

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ConclusionDo not attempt to hang your hope on an untwisted thread! Instead grasp hold of the rope of God’s testimony in that alone you can place supreme confidence.

Can we be sure, absolutely sure of salvation? Yes because we can be absolutely sure of God and his word!