The title is The Witness of the
Trinity. Cannot be a stronger witness
to the person and the work of Jesus Christ than the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that's what we will see here.
And he that believes, as I read to you there at the last part
of the verse, he that believes hath the witness in himself. The reason you believe the Gospel
is because the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, who is
a witness, a witness to these things, a witness to the person
of Christ, a witness to the work of Christ, is in you. He's in
you. Now, the faith that is of God
and is victorious over the world and ends in salvation of us believers,
it has a good foundation. in the witness of the Trinity
to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now, first of all, the
way that the Lord Jesus Christ came. It says here that He came
by water and by blood. And this agrees with the Old
Testament. In the Old Testament, water was
used to remove filth, typically, typically before God. It was
a type. It was a type of showing that anyone who comes before
God must be clean. He must be clean. And the blood
showed the atonement. The expiation was made for the
sinner. And this was to show how sinners
were able to come before God Almighty. We cannot come before
God as we are. unclean. The leper would go about
crying unclean, unclean. The leper was to be separated,
even from the people. The law said, you got to be separated. You can't come. But if he was
cleansed, remember what that leper said to the Lord? Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. You can make me clean. So we see in the Old Testament
how we can come before God. and the water and the blood that
was typified in the Old Testament, we have in reality in the Lord
Jesus Christ. In Christ we are justified from
all things except what you could not be justified by the law of
Moses. In Christ we are sanctified,
we are set apart and made holy. In Jesus Christ we are as holy
as He is. Are we? That's how we come before
God. It must be perfect, the scripture
says, to be accepted. And in Jesus Christ, we are perfect. Perfect. Listen to these Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 2,
Until the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in
every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both
theirs and ours. Then Paul writes in 1 Corinthians
6, after mentioning the sins of the flesh, And then he says
in verse 11, as such were some of you. You were just like them. I was just like the most rotten
person out there. Every sin that's ever been committed
out there is in me and in you. God has just constrained us.
He's constrained us, kept us from doing a lot of things that
we would have done. My pastor Henry said one time, he said,
don't confuse Sovereign constraint for personal holiness. Don't
confuse that. The only reason I have not done
a lot of things is because God sovereignly constrained me and
you too. Long before we ever come to believe
the gospel, God had a constraint on us. And God exercises a constraint
over this whole world or we couldn't live in it. We could not live
in it. As such, he said, here were some
of you, but you are washed. You're washed. You're sanctified,
but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by
the Spirit of our God. It says in Romans 5, 9, much
more than being now justified by His blood. We are sanctified
in Christ, we are made whole in Christ, we are set apart in
Christ, and we are justified by the blood of Christ. We have
all that we need to stand before God, accepted in Jesus Christ. In saying that He came by water
and blood, I believe John is referring to the water and blood
that flowed from the Lord's side when that soldier took that spear
and plunged it into His side. You know what came out? I'll
show you here in a minute. We'll turn to it. Water and blood. We have cleansing and we have
justification. We have sanctification and justification
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have all that we need in Him.
In Jesus Christ, we are made clean. in every whip, every whip. The Holy Spirit of truth bears
witness in every believer that Jesus Christ is enough. He's enough. We do not go to
Jesus Christ for justification and then go to the law for sanctification.
We do not go to Jesus Christ for justification and turn to
the law and try to keep the law in order to be clean. We have
it in Christ. We can't keep the law. I can't
keep it now. Even after believing the gospel,
after being born of God, you and I still couldn't do it. You
still can't do it. We still look to Him. We still
look to Christ for our righteousness. I look to Jesus Christ for absolutely
everything I need. Then stand before God. I look
to Him. We look to Him for both. Now,
the witnesses we have of the person and work of Jesus Christ
and the redemption that we have in Him is from heaven. Can there be any greater witness
than what we have of the Lord Jesus Christ, than the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit? It was required in Scripture
In the Old Testament, it says this, in Deuteronomy 19, verse
15, one witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity. He said nobody's going to jail
on the witness of one man. That's what he's saying. Or for
any sin. In any sin that he sinned, at
the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses
shall the matter be established. And then Paul backs this up in
2 Corinthians 13.1. He says, this is the third time
I'm coming to you. In the mouth of two or three
witnesses shall every word be established. So it was established
in the Old Testament that if there's gonna be a witness to
anything, any matter, and it was gonna stick, it had to be
two or three witnesses, not just one. Well, we have the three
witnesses required that the Old Testament said we have to have,
which God gave. We have them in the Trinity. He says here that these three
agree in one. These three are one and these
three agree in one. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, they are one in essence. They are one in unity. When it says these three are
one, there's one God. There's one God. Now, and I know
you here have been taught well and you're clear on this, but
there's only one God, but there are three distinct persons in
the Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. And I'm not about to try to explain
that. If you hear anyone trying to actually explain that, you
know they're off base. They don't know what they're
talking about. You can't explain that. These three are one. We're going to see here in the
second service where the child born and the son given is also
called the Father. His name is also the Father.
That's later. That's the next one. But these
three, he says, are one. At our Lord's baptism, the Father
spoke from heaven. He said this. is my beloved Son. There's the first one. Then the Holy Spirit descended
on Christ in the form of a dove. There's the second one. And the
Son Himself, who was baptized, is the third one. We have all
three witnesses there. Now, verse 8, some believe that
the three witnesses on earth are baptism, the Lord's table,
and the gospel. Now, they are witnesses. They are witnesses and are good
witnesses. But I believe that the three
witnesses are the Spirit, the water, and the blood that flowed
from the Lord's side. Look over in John chapter 19.
The Gospel of John chapter 19. I want you to read this one. This is probably the hardest
or most difficult portion of Scripture in all of 1 John, is
just dealing with this portion of Scripture. Looking at it this
week, I thought, this is not the easiest thing I've had to
deal with in this portion of Scripture. But it says in John
19, in verse 34, But one of the soldiers with
a spear pierced his side, instead of breaking his legs, because
the Scripture said not a bone of his would be broken. And they
broke the legs of the two thieves, but when they came to him, and
that soldier was not turning over to Scripture, looking to
see what he was supposed to do. When he came to the Lord, and
they saw he was already dead, He took that spear and put it
in his side and said, but one of the soldiers with a spear
pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water. Blood and water. And the Holy
Spirit had this recorded. So every believer would know
that in Jesus Christ, you're sanctified and justified. Both. Both. Now verse 9, it says, if we accept
human testimony, when two or three witnesses are gathered
together about a matter, and they witness to it, and we accept
human testimony, how much more ought we to accept the witness
of God concerning Jesus Christ? Who He is and what He did. How much more are we to accept
the witness of God of whom the Scripture says He cannot lie? He cannot lie. And the Holy Spirit
is called the Spirit of truth. He's not just telling the truth,
but He is truth. Everything that He speaks is
truth. It's truth. And there are witnesses to these
things. Listen to this. It says in John
5, 35, it talks about John the Baptist. It says, he was a burning
and a shining light, and you were willing for a season to
rejoice in his light. But I have greater witness, I
have a greater witness than that of John, than what John testified
of me. For the works which the Father
hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness
of me." I mean, we have the witness of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, but there are more witnesses. He says, the works that I do
bear witness of who I am. They bear witness of me. That the Father has sent me,
they bear witness of me, that the Father sent me, and the Father
Himself, which has sent me, hath borne witness of me. You have
neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His shape. But the works that I do bear
witness of Me. The Father bears witness of Me.
The Holy Spirit bears witness of Me. The Son bears witness.
He knows who He is. He bears witness. And listen,
in verse 39 of that chapter, search the Scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, And they are they which
testify of me. They witness of me. The Scriptures
witness of me. How many witnesses do we need? The Father, the Son, the Holy
Spirit, His works, the Scriptures, the prophets, they all bear witness
of me. And this witness, we have all
the witness we need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you believe the Gospel,
this made me rejoice. And when I got a hold of this,
the last few days in the study, this rejoiced my heart. Everyone
who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He came in the
flesh, that He brought in an everlasting righteousness, that
you're justified through His blood, the very witness is in
you." He said, you have the witness in yourself. The very evidence
that you're born of God, that you're sealed with the Holy Spirit,
the evidence of that is that you believe God. You believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You look to no other. You believe
that in Jesus Christ, you have righteousness. You have sanctification. You have absolutely everything
you need in Jesus Christ. And you're not just believing
me standing here. You're believing because the
very witness of it is in you. It's in you. You can't help but
believe it. You really, you cannot help but
believe it because the witness is in you. But, he says in verse 10, he who does not believe God concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ, the person to whom Jesus Christ is not enough. You remember when Paul went to
Galatia? The second time when he wrote
the letter of Galatians, to the Galatians? He said, who hath
bewitched you? Who had bewitched you that you
would leave the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel for another gospel,
which is not another? It's not another. And they were
being taught by some false preachers that yes, you can believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, but you also have to keep the law too.
You also have to do that. That's not done away with in
Christ. You have to do that. That person
has never been born of God. Anyone comes preaching that is
a liar. Because we have in Christ all
we need. We love God's law, don't we? Paul said, I love thy law.
David said, I love thy law. But we don't look to it to try
to keep it for acceptance. We look to Jesus Christ. But
he who does not believe God concerning Christ, His person, His work,
you know what that person is doing? He's calling God a liar. He's
calling God Almighty, the one who cannot lie, He's saying to
him, you're a liar. That's not so. He's calling the
witness a liar. And it's evident the spirit of
truth is not in that person or he would fall before the Lord
Jesus Christ and receive Him as He's revealed in the Scriptures.
He would. It's evident the spirit of truth
is not in this person. I don't care how religious he
may be. He may be very devout in all that he does and very
religious and very faithful. But a person who does not look
to Christ alone for all that he needs is calling
God a liar in the spirit of truth. The spirit of truth is not in
that man. I was saying one time about concerning
a person, I said, that person is lost. This person has made
a profession, and the person I was talking to said, you can't
say that. I said, yes, I can. I said, because the gospel he
claims to believe is not the gospel. I said, it's a lie. It is an absolute lie. He said,
well, I don't think you can say that. Well, God doesn't save
men by lie. He does not save men by lie.
He does not save men. A man is not saved who believes
that part of Jesus Christ and part of it's on himself. If part
of salvation is on me and part of it's on Christ, the truth's
not in me. The witness is not in me. But
if I look to Christ alone for all that I need to stand in God's
presence, He's all my hope. He's all my righteousness. He's
all my justification. He's all my sanctification. He's
my all in all. If I truly believe that and look
into Him, the witness of truth is in me. And you know what? I believe
that. I believe that. He's all I need. All right.