Three That Testify: Spirit, Water, and Blood
"The Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John" by Hendrick ter Brugghen Click here to listen to this sermon. “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree” (1 John 5:7-8). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Is pure doctrine so important that it is worth arguing about? Worth ruffling a few feathers? Worth enduring suffering for? St. John certainly thought so. His first epistle, from which comes our text, is wholly and vigorously polemical, aimed at false teachers and the heresies they were putting forth. Before the end of the 1 st century AD, false teachers had already arisen within the Church. “They went out from us,” John writes, “but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). These false teachers had apparently established themselves as a separat...