1 John 5:7–8

Context

1 John 5:5–12 concerns the testimony that Jesus is the Son of God. Verse 6 describes Christ as "he that came by water and blood," and verses 7–8 state that there are three that bear witness—the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and that "these three agree in one." The Law required that a matter be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15), and the author draws on that principle to affirm that the testimony concerning Christ is certain. Many interpreters understand "the water and the blood" as Jesus' baptism and his death on the cross; others take them to refer to baptism and the Lord's Supper, or to the water and blood of John 19:34.

Interpretation

• The manuscript question: The words known as the Johannine Comma ("comma" here meaning a short clause)—"in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth"—are absent from the early Greek manuscripts and appear in the medieval Latin manuscript tradition. Scholars today regard them as an explanatory note, originally written in the margin, that later entered the text.
• Erasmus and the Textus Receptus: Erasmus omitted the words from the first and second editions of his Greek New Testament but included them in the third. The King James Version, which was based on the Textus Receptus of this textual line, contains the passage, whereas most modern translations either omit it or relegate it to a footnote.
• Roman Catholic Church: Church authorities once ruled that the authenticity of the passage was not to be denied, but later softened this position to permit scholarly investigation.

Debates and Issues

Those who hold that the King James Version is the only correct translation argue that the passage belongs to the original text and must be retained in order to safeguard orthodox Trinitarian faith. Most major denominations and evangelical scholars conclude from the manuscript evidence that it is not original. At the same time, they emphasize that the doctrine of the Trinity is established without it by the testimony of the New Testament as a whole, including Matthew 28:19, and that the early church's Nicene Creed did not rely on this verse. The case is frequently cited as a reason why the doctrine of biblical inerrancy must distinguish between the "original autographs" and present-day manuscripts and translations.

Related Passages

• 1 John 5:6
• John 19:34–35
• Matthew 28:19
• 2 Corinthians 13:14