“This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.”
My Notes
What Does 1 John 5:6 Mean?
John makes a claim about Jesus that strikes at the heart of the false teaching threatening his community. Jesus came by water and blood. Not one without the other. Both. And the Spirit confirms it.
"This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ" — the water likely refers to Jesus' baptism. The blood refers to His crucifixion. Together they bookend His public ministry: the baptism that inaugurated it and the cross that completed it. Jesus came through both. Both are essential to His identity.
"Not by water only, but by water and blood" — the emphasis on "not by water only" tells you what the false teachers were claiming. They apparently accepted the baptism — the moment when the divine Christ descended upon the human Jesus — but denied the crucifixion's significance. They believed the divine Christ departed before the cross. The human Jesus died. The divine Christ didn't suffer. John says: no. Water and blood. The Christ who was baptized is the same Christ who bled. The divine didn't escape before the suffering. It went through it.
This was the proto-Gnostic heresy that plagued the early church: the separation of the divine Christ from the human Jesus. The idea that God couldn't truly suffer, that divinity wouldn't submit to crucifixion, that the spiritual being detached from the physical body before the nails. John insists: the whole Christ — divine and human, inseparably united — came through both the water and the blood. The baptism and the cross belong to the same person.
"And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth" — the third witness. The Spirit confirms what the water and blood declare: that Jesus Christ came fully, suffered genuinely, and accomplished salvation completely. The Spirit's testimony is reliable because the Spirit is truth — not carries truth or speaks truth. Is truth. The testimony and the Testifier are one.
Three witnesses: the water, the blood, the Spirit. The baptism, the cross, the divine confirmation. Together they say: Jesus is fully who He claimed to be — from the Jordan to Golgotha and beyond.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Where do you see the desire for a 'water-only' Jesus — a Christ of inspiration without the blood of substitutionary sacrifice?
- 2.Why was the separation of the divine Christ from the human Jesus so dangerous — and why does it still matter that Jesus suffered as both God and man?
- 3.How does the Spirit as 'truth' — not just truthful, but truth itself — strengthen the testimony about who Jesus is?
- 4.What does it cost you to accept the 'blood' part of Jesus' identity — the suffering, the sacrifice, the uncomfortable reality of the cross?
Devotional
The false teachers wanted a comfortable Christ — one who came through the water (the beautiful baptism, the dove, the Father's voice) but not through the blood (the nails, the thorns, the slow suffocation on Roman wood). They wanted a spiritual savior who didn't actually suffer. A divine being who escaped before the cross got ugly.
John says: not by water only. The Christ who walked into the Jordan is the Christ who bled on Calvary. You don't get the baptism without the crucifixion. You don't get the dove without the nails. You don't get the Father's voice saying "this is my beloved Son" without the Son crying "my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The water and the blood are a package. Take one without the other and you have a different Jesus — a comfortable, bloodless, ultimately useless one.
The desire for a Christ without the cross is alive and well. The modern version doesn't use Gnostic terminology. It just prefers the inspirational Jesus — the teacher, the healer, the friend of sinners — without the substitutionary, blood-shedding, wrath-bearing, sin-crushing sacrifice. The water-only Jesus is attractive. He teaches nice things and makes you feel warm. The water-and-blood Jesus saves your soul. But He does it through suffering that makes comfortable religion uncomfortable.
The Spirit bears witness to the whole Christ. Not half. The Spirit confirms the water and the blood — the baptism and the cross — as equally essential to who Jesus is. If your version of Jesus has water but no blood — beauty but no sacrifice, inspiration but no atonement — the Spirit's testimony contradicts your version. The Spirit is truth. And the truth has blood on it.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ,.... By "water" is not meant the ablutions or washings of the…
This is he - This Son of God referred to in the previous verse. The object of the apostle in this verse, in connection…
This is he that came by water and blood - Jesus was attested to be the Son of God and promised Messiah by water, i.e.…
The faith of the Christian believer (or the believer in Christ) being thus mighty and victorious, it had need to be well…
This is he that came Closely connected with what precedes: -This Son of Godis He that came". The identity of the…
Cross References
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