Blood and water testimony
by Rachael Stelzer
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Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:12).
At the end of John’s first letter to the churches, he sets up a courtroom drama. On trial? Jesus’ humanity. Some had been saying that Jesus was fully God but not fully human and that his death was not a ‘real’ death. The jury? The faithful, who had heard the prosecution and now watched the elderly apostle lay out his case for Jesus, the Son of God.
Witnesses include the water and the blood and also the Spirit. In John 19, at Jesus’ crucifixion, he gave up his spirit with a loud cry. The soldiers plunged a spear into his side, and blood and water poured out. In the following verse, the narrator (John) adds, ‘He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth’. Some scholars consider this as the ‘blood and water’ testimony to which John refers in his letter.
But if that isn’t good enough for the jury, John adds, ‘we accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater …’, and what is God’s testimony? ‘God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son’ (verse 11).
And this eternal life is not some distant, future, pie-in-the-sky wish. Eternal life begins right now for the believer.
Crossing back to John 17:3, Jesus prayed to God: ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’.
Eternal life! It’s now! And it’s available to you and to me. What do we require to attain it? The Son. Whoever has the Son has life.
Dear Jesus, the water, the blood, the Spirit and the Father. All of them testify to you. Fully God and fully human. Eternal life is ours because you are alive. We praise and thank you for your love and sacrifice. Amen.
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