1 John 5:5–12

Original Meaning

The Testimony of the Water and the Blood (5:5–6b)

FIRST JOHN 5:6 IS perhaps the most perplexing verse in all of the Johannine letters, “This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.” Without explanation, John uses a somewhat indecipherable phrase (“water and blood”), which was surely known among his followers. Three views attempt to explain the passage. (1) Some believe “water and blood” refer to the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.2 The chief problem with this view is singular: John’s interest is not in church ritual but in historic incarnation. The Johannine schism centers on Christology as it was expressed in history, not on worship.3

(2) A second view points to John 19:34, that while Jesus was on the cross, a spear thrust into his side brought forth “blood and water.”4 In this sense John may be saying that the cross is the significant saving event in Jesus’ life. This may be important if the secessionists claimed that they were without sin and had no need of ritual cleansing (1 John 1:7). But one difficulty with this view is the closing phrase of verse 6, “not … by water only, but by water and blood.” John is making a counterpoint to some claim involving only (or primarily) water.5

(3) A third view, held by the majority of interpreters, sees water and blood as summing up the totality of Jesus’ incarnational ministry on earth.6 Jesus’ baptism (water) and crucifixion (blood) frame his ministry: He was declared Son of God in the Jordan (John 1:34), and he obtained even more power and authority through his glorification at Golgotha. Marshall, for instance, understands that John is refuting a Docetic (or pre-Gnostic) tendency that downplayed a complete incarnation. Some (like Cerinthus, see p. 30) were teaching that the heavenly Christ descended on the man Jesus at baptism but departed before he was crucified. Hence, John says, Jesus came not only by baptismal water, but also through the blood of the cross.

Brown (followed by Smalley) offers a variation of the third view.7 He doubts whether the denials of Cerinthus should be read back into the Johannine community. But he does think that the secessionists’ propaganda (similar to what Cerinthus would teach) emphasized a misreading of the Fourth Gospel in which Jesus’ baptism (with its dramatic emphasis on the Spirit) became the salvific feature of his life. Water and Spirit brought saving revelation. Enlightenment, not sacrifice, was the premier avenue to God. Perhaps even John 3:34 was called into service: “The one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit [to Jesus] without limit.” John’s refutation insists that the life-giving work of Christ is found at the cross. It is Jesus’ sacrificial death—not his incarnation alone—that gives life: not by water only, but by water and blood.

Either variation of the third view gives a complementary result: John is wrestling with a heresy that demoted the cross. John insists that the testimony of the “water and the blood” upholds a full incarnation. Life and truth can only be found when a complete incarnation embraces a genuine death on the cross.

Bridging Contexts

THESE VERSES REMIND us that the Johannine letters were documents forged in the midst of a desperate theological debate.13 We have read hints of Christological polemics throughout. Claims of opponents are paraphrased in some cases (1:6–10). We even read accusations (2:4–11; 3:9–10), descriptions of defectors from the church (2:19–21), and warnings about false teachers and prophets (2:26; 3:7; 4:1–3). We also have an idea concerning what they debated (2:22–23; 4:3). Perhaps 2 John 7 crystallizes the intensity and content of this debate: “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.”

When we read a phrase like “water and blood,” we can be sure that we are entrenched in this very debate. In the first few verses of chapter 5, John has affirmed God’s love for us and how it should affect our communities. But in reaching out for the best example of divine love (the life and death of Jesus), he finds himself caught up again in the Christological controversy. “Water and blood,” then, is a literary salvo, fixed to some degree in the context of John’s campaign for the truth. The traditions of the earliest church claimed that one of his opponents was the notorious Cerinthus (so Irenaeus).14 We can at least be sure that John was battling a controversy that diminished the need for a complete incarnation that stretched from Bethlehem to Golgotha.

My hermeneutical struggle here is to ask to what extent 5:5–12 are completely bound to this historical context. John’s original salvo, while potent on one battlefield, may be less so on another. Nevertheless, within that salvo is a concern, a universal concern, that is dynamically relevant today.

Let us return to John’s setting for a moment, where we see religious leaders with a keen interest in Jesus Christ. Teachers and prophets were making pronouncements about truth, some of whom claimed to be inspired by the Spirit. But they were reinterpreting Christ’s work so that the cross was secondary (or irrelevant), and they were promoting alternate sources of “life” that had no need of Christ’s substitutionary death.

What does John do with this? In the framework of this schism, he argues that it is not possible to claim the inspiration of the Spirit, to say one speaks for God, and at the same time deny the incarnational reality of Jesus. To do this is to undercut one’s claim to possess the Spirit in the first place. For John, one cannot claim intimacy with God and contradict God’s premier revelation of himself. One cannot teach Christian theology and at the same time dismantle incarnational Christology and soteriology.

This is therefore a critical bridge point for us. I need to observe theological trends that dilute the significance of the Incarnation and the salvific works of the cross. While John’s theological salvo—water and blood—may possibly be ineffective today, still, I need to unpack its theological center and apply it to my own setting.

Contemporary Significance

CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGICAL TRENDS are often ready to dispense with the sacrifice of Christ while trying to keep Christianity itself. Finding the cross to be an embarrassment, a mythological accretion perhaps, some have sought a Christology emptied of any sacrificial soteriology.

This was most apparent in a conference sponsored by the World Council of Churches and underwritten in large part by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).15 From November 4–7, 1994, 2,200 people from 49 states and 27 countries filled the Minneapolis Convention Center to “reimage” God. The conference called for a “Second Reformation” that would begin radical theological surgery on the church’s belief systems.

Essentially the conference developed a new anchor for truth. The foundation for Christian theology would no longer be in the historic events of salvation recorded in the Bible. The star of the show, instead, was Sophia (Wisdom)—a long-suppressed feature of the biblical tradition, which resides principally within the female psyche. To the reimagers, Sophia never takes a historic, particularistic form, but appears in many ways and in many spiritual traditions. South Dakota Indian tribal dances and Zulu rituals are equal contributors for theological reflection. The conference program was explicit: Sophia is the place in us where the entire universe resides. For a multicultural, therapeutic society like ours, this is religion made-to-order. Self-discovery is the platform for divine revelation.

It is most important to note that in this church setting, historic Christology was totally dismantled. The target of the conferees was the cross. Christian soteriology promoted violence, they claimed. A father killing his son is a formula for child abuse. One speaker (Delores Williams) did not disguise her convictions at all, “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff…. We just need to listen to the god within.”

This demands new rituals as well. Alongside dances to Sophia that reminded many of Canaanite fertility rites was born a new Eucharist, fashioned not from bread and wine but from honey and milk. Liturgies joined to this pagan Eucharist shocked even those with minimal theological sensitivities:

Our maker Sophia, we are women in your image…. With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life…. Sophia, creator God, let your milk and honey flow…. With nectar between our thighs we invite a lover, we birth a child; with our warm body fluids we remind the world of its pleasures and sensations…. We celebrate the sweat that pours from us during our labors. We celebrate our bodiliness, our physicality, the sensations of pleasure, our oneness with earth and water.

We must be clear about one thing: These were people committed to the church—people whose lives were nurtured in Christian settings—and they were willing to utterly dispense with traditional Christology.

Is this sort of heresy merely orbiting the periphery of the church? Are these theological “eccentrics” simply to be dismissed as irrelevant and thus ignored? On the contrary—and this is why what happened in 1994 is important to us—because of the conference, open discussions about the validity of the pursuit of Sophia and the archaizing of Christian orthodoxy has been taking place in mainline churches throughout the country. “Reimaging” was worthy of debate, worthy of a hearing, and has made its appearance in thoughtful churches everywhere. It has been defended as well not only by mainline church bureaucrats, but also by theologians in Christian colleges and seminaries who see it as one more form of acceptable diversity. The barbarians are not simply at the gate; they have entered the church narthex.

(1) John urges that “the blood”—the cross—must remain central to all we are and preach. I think here of the scorn that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 1–4, where he defends the “foolishness” of the cross. “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are being called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24 NRSV). Not only does Paul anchor the meaning of Jesus in the cross, but he locates the wisdom (sophia) of God here as well. Therefore, the cross may not be demoted in any Christian soteriology. The mystery of what God is doing on our behalf is hidden there in all its particularity and severity. Christ is not simply one example of God’s divine wisdom revealed to the world, a wisdom that can stand alongside other religious systems. Christ is the wisdom of God, and this wisdom is manifested in his salvific death.

(2) John points to the custodianship of the Spirit as preserver of the truth. But John does not make clear how this witness to the truth takes place practically. When does the Spirit testify concerning these matters of orthodox belief?

For many evangelicals this is an inner testimony, a spiritual discernment. No doubt this is true. But I cannot help but wonder if John has more in mind. In these verses John is reciting a traditional formula (“water and blood”) and encapsulating in them a symbol of orthodox conviction. This “creedal” recitation has become an anchor that should safeguard Christians from wrong belief. Throughout the letter John does the same thing, pointing believers to a recitation of what “was from the beginning.” Concrete foundations, therefore, not personal creativity and innovation, provide us with the substance and strength of our faith.

This means that one avenue of the Spirit’s work is the very human institutions that build and protect those foundations. This is undoubtedly one function of the church. The church, through its confessions and traditions, through its recitation of creeds and its defense of councils, lays a foundation from which secure things can be built. But as an evangelical, I fear we have lost our understanding of these anchors. I am surprised at how many of my students do not even know the Apostles’ Creed (much less the Creed of Nicea), nor do they respect the enormous importance of councils like Chalcedon. Foundation building through recitation has become a thing of the past.

For a number of years, theologians have been sounding the alarm. The underpinnings of all we believe are no longer recognized by many. The validity of belief now seems to be functional: Thomas Oden describes this crisis with a telling story:

A plastic plumbing-fixtures tycoon inherited from his Slavic uncle a baroque, antique, jeweled diadem of spectacular beauty and considerable historical importance. He had been entrusted to take care of it but knew nothing of its actual value and did not lift a finger to protect it. He considered it “just old junk.” He hung it on an antelope horn on his mantle. Once in a while he enjoyed spinning it in the air, showing it off at employee parties, bending it, getting laughs. On certain occasions when he was in debt, he had been known to dig a jewel out and pawn it.

Isn’t this much like the relation in which we moderns stand to classical Christianity? As moderns, we feel enormously superior to our Christian heritage. It is of little practical value to us, although we are still willing to keep it around. We should hardly feel good about throwing it away altogether, but it is little more to us than a mantel decoration or a souvenir of a trip long ago to Atlantic City.16

I remember a shocking experience during my last year of seminary. My preaching professor required us to read one sermon per day for ten weeks! In addition to the homiletical insight I gained, I noticed in the older sermons, from 1900–1950, a level of theological sophistication I rarely hear today. Pastors were weighing theological themes seriously.

Most recently David Wells has made a passionate argument for reclaiming theology in the evangelical church.17 Wells chronicles with dismay the loss of theological substance even among Christian leaders; interest in the certainty, the compelling value, and the relevance of theology are disappearing. The theological soul of the church is being lost. And, Wells remarks, the consequences for the church may be dreadful. In a study of seminarians in 1993, Wells discovered that 66.4 percent said that life would not have much meaning without theology and 74.9 percent said that their most important decisions are based on theology. Yet among these same seminarians, 61.2 percent agreed with this statement: “While evangelical theology is still professed, it is losing its power to define what being an evangelical means and how evangelicalism is practiced.” One student commented that theology is losing ground in the church because “evangelicals have lost their pursuit of the truth.”18

(3) John also urges that no claim to spirituality is legitimate if it dismantles what God has said in Jesus Christ. This is what makes the Reimaging Conference in Minneapolis so pernicious. Here teachers became false prophets, claiming a divine voice but departing from what that voice had said in Jesus Christ. Minneapolis provided a theology emptied of biblical Christology. As a result, it built a doctrine of life and salvation that made Jesus superfluous.

John claims that to deny Christ in this manner is also to deny the Father. “Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son” (5:10). Theological expression today, therefore, must be tested against the bar of incarnational Christology. The implications of this are enormous. It presses us to make hard judgments concerning theological diversity, it forces us to weigh the cost of affiliating the church with other religious movements, and it challenges us to wonder when we have emptied our creeds of Christ in environments that are inhospitable to him.