Q. 1 John 5:6-10.—What is the witness in verse 10? Is it the Holy Ghost? If so, where is the truth of the indwelling of the Spirit introduced in that chapter? Is it in verse 6? And why is the Spirit first in verse 8 and last in verse 6? Also is the witness of men in verse 9 simply human testimony? or is it of men moved by the Holy Ghost? M.
A. Witness is an equivocal word in English, as it may mean either the person testifying, or the testimony borne. The Greek leaves no doubt that in verse 10 it is not the Holy Spirit, but the testimony itself. In verse 6 the Spirit is introduced as testifying, and there of course for the first time in the chapter, where He is viewed rather as present rendering testimony than as indwelling. This leads to a personification of the water and the blood so as to form a threefold class of witnesses, the Spirit who alone is strictly a person leading the way. (7) “For there are three that bear witness, (8) the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are to the one thing” (or, agree in one). On the other hand, verse 6 refers to the solemn fact, recorded only in the Gospel of John, where the water and the blood flowed from the pierced side of Jesus crucified: to which the Holy Spirit draws special attention as we see there. John 19:34, 35. In fact the Spirit followed; in testimony He naturally comes first. The witness of man in verse 9 means a testimony simply human; and the reasoning, as in our Lord's discourses often (Luke 13:15, 16; 14:4, 5; 15), is what is technically called a minori ad majus. As a rule, men's testimony is valid: how much more worthy of credit is God's!