"The Spirit and the Water and the Blood" (Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter)

May 17, 2009 | The Rev. Charles Henrickson

[Charles Henrickson]

“The Spirit and the Water and the Blood” (1 John 5:1-8)

Today we come to the fifth in our six-part series on First John. And our text includes a brief passage that at first may seem a little puzzling, but when we take a closer look at it, we’ll see how it really does make sense, and indeed makes absolutely clear the beating heart of our faith and salvation. The passage in question is 1 John 5:6-8, as follows: “This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”

“The Spirit and the Water and the Blood”: Now what in the world is John talking about here? And what does it have to do with us? Well, it has everything to do with us, because it is all about Jesus. And without Jesus--without the right Jesus, that is--we have no faith or salvation or life to speak of. This passage has everything to do with who Jesus really is, contrary to any errors that were circulating back then or errors that are circulating in our day. This passage has to do with who Jesus is for us. If you don’t got this Jesus, you don’t got nothin’! And the Spirit, the water, and the blood--these three testify to who this Jesus really is.

Now to understand this passage, it’s helpful to get an idea of the kind of errors that were being taught in regard to Jesus and that John is writing against. The earlier verses in today’s Epistle reading give us a clue. Notice in the first paragraph, the first and last verses there. In verse 1, John writes: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” “That Jesus is the Christ”--file that away. And then in verse 5: “Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” “That Jesus is the Son of God.”

So John here is saying that the true child of God, who overcomes the world, is the person who believes these two things about Jesus: a) that Jesus is the Christ, and b) that Jesus is the Son of God. This fits very well with what John wrote at the end of his gospel, doesn’t it? “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” You see, this is no arcane esoterica, this is no trivial unimportant matter, what you believe about Jesus. By no means. Who Jesus is, the person of Christ, is a matter of life or death for you--eternal life or death. And it’s not just what you believe “about” Jesus, in some detached impersonal way. It’s that you believe “in” Jesus, that you trust in him, and precisely as he really is, that is, that Jesus is the Christ and that he is the Son of God. That’s the only Jesus who can save you.

But not everybody at the time John is writing believed these things about Jesus. They might claim to know God and to have fellowship with God. They might teach some things about Jesus. They might talk about “Christ” and about God. But they could not say, as the Apostle John says, that the man Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

People who claim to be teaching the truth about God but who cannot confess the person of Christ like the apostles do--we call those people heretics. And one of the leading heretics at the time John is writing this letter was that fellow Cerinthus I’ve mentioned a couple of times over the last few weeks. And what John writes in our text about the Spirit and the water and the blood would especially go against the heresies that Cerinthus taught.

We find out about those false teachings in a book written by the early church father Irenaeus. Irenaeus lived a couple of generations after St. John. In fact, Irenaeus was taught the faith by a man named Polycarp, and Polycarp in turn had been a student of the aged Apostle John himself. So Irenaeus, you could say, was a kind of spiritual grandson of St. John, and the history had been passed on to him. That’s how Irenaeus could write about the situation John was dealing with in combating the heresies of Cerinthus. Here then is his description of what Cerinthus taught:

“Cerinthus . . . represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible [that is, incapable of suffering], inasmuch as he was a spiritual being.”

Now let me make sure you understand that. The teaching was that Jesus was just an ordinary guy--a really good guy, but not the Son of God--and that at his baptism, the divine Christ spirit came upon the man Jesus and enabled him to do all kinds of good stuff. But before Jesus entered into his passion, his suffering, the Christ left Jesus, since a divine spiritual being could not suffer. Got it? That was the false teaching of Cerinthus, and it was beguiling many people.

So now John comes along and blows Cerinthus right out of the water, so to speak. Those heretics who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ in his person, who do not believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God come from heaven, come in the flesh--those guys are liars and they will lead you straight to hell. The Spirit and the water and the blood all testify against them.

With that background, now we can make sense of what John is saying when he writes: “This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.” “This is he,” namely, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, whom John has just been talking about. The heretics couldn’t handle the idea of God coming in the flesh. They had to make a separation between the ordinary man Jesus and the spiritual “Christ,” as they imagined it. But John is saying that Jesus is the Christ; he is the divine Messiah come from heaven. It wasn’t just that at his baptism the Christ came upon him for a while and then left. To be sure, at his baptism Jesus was publicly attested as the Messiah, and the Spirit did come upon him in the form of a dove. But the man Jesus is the Christ, in his very person.

So Jesus is the Christ, in his person, as was declared at his baptism. That takes care of the reference to the “water.” But why does John add the “blood”? “He who came by water and blood . . . not by the water only but by the water and the blood.” You see, this is another thing the heretics couldn’t handle: the Christ shedding his blood and dying. God’s Son suffering on the cross and dying--this was abhorrent to them.

And it is still abhorrent to people today. Let me tell you why. Because people don’t want to think it took the death of God’s only Son to pay the price for their sins and to rescue them from God’s judgment. They don’t want to think that they are that bad off and cannot please God on their own. They think there must be some other way to get right with God, or that they’re already good enough, or that God’s an old softie who winks at sin, or that there’s no such a thing as God and sin and heaven and hell, and that if I just hold my hands over my ears and yell loud, then I can pretend I don’t hear God’s voice calling me to repentance. That’s what people think. They think their big problem isn’t sin, it’s something else. So they go searching for happiness in all the wrong places. Or they come up with some made-up concoction of a religion that appeals to their sense of self-worth, like Cerinthus did. But what they cannot accept is that this Jesus is, in fact, the very Son of God come in the flesh to be their Savior, and that it took his blood, shed on the cross, to take away their sin and win their salvation.

But the truth is, our big problem is sin, our own sin, which we cannot atone for or dig our way out of or rise above. Therefore the only remedy is the one that God provides for us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. And the Spirit, the water, and the blood all attest to this one great truth. At Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, the Father’s voice declared Jesus to be his beloved Son, and the Spirit testified to his messianic identity, even as Jesus got in the water with sinners and set out on his saving mission. The Baptizer early on pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The blood that Christ would shed as the sacrifice for sin was in view from the outset. Indeed, Jesus is most the Christ as he is hanging there on the cross, suffering and bleeding and dying to rescue us from sin and death. “This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.”

And the Spirit--the Holy Spirit is testifying to this Jesus, the real Jesus, through the Epistle that John has written for us and through the preaching of that good news here today. The Spirit is calling you today to trust in Jesus Christ, and in nothing else. The-water-and-the-blood Jesus, the one who went from his baptism in the Jordan to his death on the cross for sinners like you and me--that Jesus, and no one else, not some other Jesus who is just a good teacher or a moral example or a life coach. The-water-and-the-blood Jesus is the real Jesus, the only one who will save you. Trust in him; he is your Savior. Outside of him, apart from faith in him, there is no salvation. But in him, through faith in him, you are saved. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” You are God’s dearly loved child--taken as God’s own, washed clean in Christ, gifted with the Spirit, in the water of your baptism. You who believe in Jesus, the Son of God--you are the one who overcomes the world, with all its false teachings that would pull you apart from your Savior. You overcome by the blood of the Lamb, the same blood you receive here in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of sins. Because of the-water-and-the-blood Jesus, you have life now, and you have it forever. For this same Jesus Christ rose from the dead, in victory over sin and death, and now he shares his resurrection life with all those who trust in him. “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”

[Charles Henrickson]

1 John 5:1-8 (ESV)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is he who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

[Charles Henrickson]

Ping.