EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/21/2025 9:55 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-2 “The Particulars of God’s
Testimony”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
1 John 5:6-9
Message of the verses: “6 This is he who came
by water and by blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only but by water and by
blood. 7 And the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is true. 8 There are
three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood: and all three are in
agreement. 9 If we take the witness of men to be true, the witness of God is
greater: because this is the witness which God has given about his Son.”
I
begin with an important quote from John MacArthur’s commentary on 1 John: “Some connect the phrase water and blood with
Jesus’ death, when ‘one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and
immediately blood and water came out’ (John 19:34). But there is no reason to assume that John
had that incident in mind. It is also
difficult to see how the piercing of Jesus’ side was a divine witness to His
deity; that act was not a divine statement of anything, but rather a very human
affirmation that Jesus was dead (but Zech. 12:10 did prophesy it).
“Others
see in these terms a reference to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But again, there is no exegetical or
contextual reason to associate baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the church’s
witness to Christ, not the Father’s (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26).
“It
is best to see the water here as a reference to Christ’s baptism and the blood
as a reference to His death. Those two
notable events bracketed the Lord’s earthly ministry, and both of them the Father
testified concerning His Son.
“The
phrase not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood is not
redundant, but addresses an important theological point. The Father did not, as the false teachers
whom John was combating insisted, affirm Jesus at His baptism, but not at His
death. Those heretics, purveyors of an
incipient form of Gnosticism, taught that the ‘Christ spirit’ descended on the
man Jesus at His baptism, making Him the anointed One of God. According to this heresy, Jesus, under the
control of the ‘Christ spirit,’ gave valuable ethical teachings during His
ministry. But the Christ spirit left Him
before the crucifixion and, the false teachers further claimed, He died as a
mere man, not the God-man whose sacrificial death atoned for the sins of all
who would ever be justified.
“Like
any teaching that denies the efficacy of Christ’s substituionary atonement,
that teaching was a satanic lie, since Jesus Christ the righteous…is the
propitiation for our sins’ (2:1-2; cf. 4:10; Rom. 3:25; Heb 2:17). If He did not possess His divine nature on
the cross, Jesus could not and did not conquer sin and death for believers. But the glorious truth is that ‘He…who knew
no sin [became] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of
God in Him’ (2 Cor. 5:21).
“At the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry, the
Father gave testimony to Him at the water when He was baptized. Matthew records that ‘Jesus arrived from
Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him’ (3:13). As the forerunner of the Messiah, John the
Baptist proclaimed a baptism of repentance’ (v. 11; Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; Acts
13:24; 19:4). He called on the people of
Israel to prepare their hearts for the coming of the Messiah by confessing and
repenting of their sins, and asking God to cleanse them. Their baptism was a public affirmation of
repentance from sin, an external act symbolizing an internal reality. Since only Gentile proselytes were baptized,
the Jews were acknowledging that they were no better than Gentiles and needed
to become in reality the people of God (cf. Rom. 2:28-29).
“But
John the Baptist knew that as the spotless ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world’ (John 1:29), Jesus had no sin to repent of and hence no need to
be baptized. Therefore ‘John tried to
prevent Him, saying, ‘I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?’’
(Matt. 3:14). John was shocked by the
reversal of what he knew to be true. He
was the sinner, Jesus the sinless one; he was the lesser, Jesus the greater
(cf. John 1:27; 3:30).
“Although
He was without sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 Peter 2:22; cf. John 8:46),
it was still necessary for Jesus to be baptized. By doing so, He publicly
identified with sinners. Therefore He
told John, ‘Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to
fulfill all righteousness’ (Matt. 3:15a).
Jesus always performed what God required of His people; He claimed no
exemption here, just as He claimed no exemption from paying the temple tax
(17:24-27). His perfect obedience (cf.
John 4:34; 8:29; 14:31; 15:10) made Him the sinless sacrifice whose death made
atonement for sin.”
Looks
like there is still more to discuss, but Lord willing will do this in tomorrow
evenings SD.
3/21/2025 10:24 PM
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