Sermon Tone Analysis
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Courtroom story
Courtroom story?
My testimony
(NIV)
5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands.
And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world?
Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ.
He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.
And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony.
Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
God’s Testimony
Context | cannot love God if we don’t love others | all children of God
Let’s begin by bridging a couple of John’s themes together here.
We saw last week that he ended chapter four with a pretty strongly worded command to love one another.
He says that whoever claims to love God but does not love others is a liar.
Now look at the connection he makes in these first few verses of chapter five.
Anyone who believes in Jesus is born of God.
In other words, we are all sons and daughters of God.
So, John is saying, if we claim to love Jesus as the Son of God, yet at the same time do not show that same love to all others who are also adopted children into God’s family, then our love for Jesus cannot be real.
If we truly love God, then we must also truly love his family.
Let’s remember also that John is writing to a church that is barely hanging on.
They have divisions within that are tearing them apart.
Into this, John says, hang on!
If you all claim to have love for Jesus, but fail to show that some love to one another, then you don’t really have a love for Jesus to begin with.
But his point here is not to push any of us away.
Scripture is not telling us that if and when we fail to love others that we should just walk away.
It is a call to return.
John wants his church to know that in Jesus there is always grace from God to be restored.
And now he unpacks this for us by centering our focus once again on what this grace is all about.
Testimony
There is a key word—a key idea—in today’s passage that stands out.
It is the idea of testimony.
The truth of God’s grace for us is not some hidden mystery for us to discover.
Others have testified to this truth.
And where does this testimony begin?
John begins with the testimony of God himself.
It is God’s testimony that first-and-foremost calls us back to focus on grace.
This might look like a confusing part of the Bible.
But look at it along with me and I think this will make sense.
John says something really weird here about the testimony of water and blood.
In verse six he says, not by water only, but water and blood.
What does this even mean?
Apparently, there were some others who—for whatever reason—only affirmed the testimony of the ‘water’ and dismissed the testimony of the ‘blood,’ whatever that all means.
And John says, nope, you have to take both of these testimonies together.
Are you thoroughly confused yet?
Water & blood
The symbols of water and blood show up throughout John’s gospel narrative.
I won’t take time here to go point out all those connections; let’s just jump to the endgame and look at what those symbols mean.
Water is a symbol for Jesus’ earthly ministry—his disciples, his teachings, his miracles, his healings.
Water brings us back to the very beginning of his ministry, his baptism in the Jordan river.
An event in which the Trinity was revealed with the Spirit coming as a dove and the voice of the Father coming from above as the Son came out of the water.
Blood points us to what Jesus accomplished at the cross.
It is the cross that stands as the pinnacle and high point of God’s redemptive plan of salvation for his creation.
The blood and the cross are the symbols that—more than anything else—show the extent of God’s grace and love for his world.
The testimony of God in the Bible that John affirms for the church and for us today is the necessity of Jesus’ blood.
The earthly ministry and teachings of Jesus does, in fact, point us to God’s love.
And there were some in the early church who believed that this by itself was enough.
But John reminds us today of the full testimony of God, that it is both the water and the blood.
It is only in the cross that the full extent of God’s love and grace has come to us.
Without the cross, without the blood of Jesus, we can never measure up to the standard of love that God requires of his people.
If all that we have are just the teachings of Jesus and the example of Jesus in how he lived, then we still fall short.
Because you and I on our own can never follow that example perfectly.
We cannot keep the commands of God on our own all the time.
More was needed.
More had to be done.
God had to come further.
In fact, God had to come all the way.
He came all the way to where we are, to broken people in need of rescuing.
That’s the cross.
That’s the blood.
That’s the testimony of God.
Trinity | no one righteous without cross
But wait.
We’re only half way through verse six.
There’s more.
AND the Spirit testifies as well.
Because the Spirit is truth.
But wait.
There’s more.
Verse nine: the testimony of the Father joins as well.
John beautifully paints us a picture of the Trinity in perfect love and in perfect unison giving testimony to love and grace for the world he created.
And where does this perfect testimony of the Triune God point?
It all lands squarely on the cross of Jesus.
There is no other way around it.
There is no other way to God on our own.
There is nothing that any person who has ever lives has ever been able to do on their own to lift themselves up to God.
No one has ever been good enough.
No one has ever embraced perfect morality.
No one has ever had flawless piety or godliness.
No one.
Which is why the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the church in Rome, no one is righteous; not even one.
Without the cross we are left without any real testimony at all.
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