We left off last time dealing
with a concept called Nikeosar, to overcome. And one of the propositions
that John clearly establishes in 1 John 5, verse 5 is the statement,
Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth
that Jesus is the Son of God? And we talked about tremendous
statement of overcoming the world that is a huge concept to overcome
overcoming and then that of the world and we talked about the
world being the ages or the ions or not the cosmos in the physical
sense but the ages that is a this world system, the way it's set
up, the way it's governed by the devil, the way it's ruled
by fallen men, the way the world would seek to destroy God's wisdom
and annihilate from our world any vestige of biblical truth.
That is the antithesis and the hostility that the believer faces
in this world from every circle. And we have talked many times
about the the dual manifestation of the enemy, the adversary,
the devil. He works through politics and he works through religion.
This here is the paradigm in the book of Revelations. Under
the nomenclature are the term Babylon, Babylon, Babylon. We have two kingdoms that we're
dealing with in the scriptures under the appellation of the
Babylonian kingdom versus Jerusalem. These are the two models. Believers
are in Jerusalem, Non-believers are in Babylon the Twain are
at war all the time one needs to understand that and John clearly
tells us over in verse 5 that the people are persons who overcome
this world system are such that believe that Jesus is the Son
of God they believe that that Jesus is the Son of God. Now John advisedly uses the term
Son of God, which is what we are about to get into in a moment,
where he has not used this term Son of God too much throughout
the epistle. He has used the term Christ or
the Son, but the Son of God now becomes for him the final Battle
that he will wage against the heretics who have come to the
church to as it were Denied the deity of Christ and to deny the
humanity of Christ So you and I are actually going to be brought
back to some basic Bible doctrine as we deal with the concept of
the coming of the Son of God With reference to how John wants
to treat it in verses 5 through 8 the coming of the Son of God
But I want to say one more thing about overcoming And that is
when the Bible says that the believer overcomes the world,
what the Bible is not saying is that the believer does not
suffer. What the Bible is not saying
when it says that believers overcome the world is that the believer
does not go through trouble, that the believer does not get
brought into captivity or bondage by this world system, that the
believer doesn't find himself snared and trapped and in all
kinds of dire straits. When the Bible says the believer
overcomes this world is not referring to you having Superman powers
or abilities to frustrate and stop or disannul the attack of
the enemy. You know that's not true in your
own experience and you know it's not true in church history. And
what I mean by that is to be an overcomer is not an individual
who is invincible in themselves. To be an overcomer does not mean
that you are a super person. I'm repeating that so when it's
on the air, folks can get it. That the idea of being an overcomer
is not some special Christian who has such an insight on God
that God is protecting him on every corner so that he or she
or they don't experience setbacks and troubles and challenges and
even falls. of which in those occasions they
call on God and God comes through as the God of their salvation
over and over again. This is not to justify any evil,
not to justify any sin, it's to simply clarify that when we
are called overcomers in Christ, we are not the point of overcoming,
or the cause of overcoming, or the grounds of overcoming. When
a person contemplates overcoming the Nikeos, Nikeos are the triumph
or the victory of the believer, a person must contemplate the
believer's savior, not himself. If you look at the believer,
you may not see much of overcoming in his or her life at all, because
the sphere and the rim of their overcoming is in the context
of faith. The sphere or the rim of the
believer's overcoming is in the context of faith. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Therefore, if you and
I are going to detect what constitutes the believers overcoming, you
and I will have to have access into that dimension or realm
called faith in order to see how it is that they overcome.
If you and I look at the believer in terms of outward circumstances
and outward events, Very seldom will you see the believer doing
much better of a job than the non-believer when it comes to
dealing with the issues of life, the struggles of life, the cares
of life. Am I making some sense? I want
to treat this before we move on to the doctrine of God's testimony. You will look at a believer,
not only in the scriptures, but in your own life and in the world,
and you'll find that the believer is not normally wiser than the
unbeliever. that the believer does not make
better choices in life than the unbeliever. That the believer
does not have an advantage over the unbeliever when it comes
to providential doors opening and opportunities given to them.
You will find that the believer does not necessarily persevere
in many areas of life better than the non-believer. What I'm
saying is, if you try to make a radical distinction Between
a believer and a non-believer, based upon empirical or observational
evidence, you will see little difference between the believer
and the non-believer. It is a whole nother realm and
dimension to which you have to look to see the distinguishing
factors between a true believer and the unbelieving person. Am
I making some sense there? Otherwise, you're going to be
judging superficially. Now I want to show you a verse. Go with
me in your Bible to Revelation chapter 13. I want to show you
what the text says with regards to the difficulty that the believer
has in this world. And for those of you who are
part of Grace Bible Church's teaching ministry every Sunday,
you're about to go on a 12-week journey through the wilderness
once again and learn what it means to depend upon God, to
be trained by God, to be taught by God, how to walk in the Spirit.
As we went through this series several years ago, we are going
to go through this series again for at least 12 weeks, what it
means to be dependent upon God, to be taught by God, to be trained
by God, when he brings his people into the wilderness. And just
as God brought Old Testament Israel out of Egypt into the
wilderness before he brought them into the promised land,
so God brought us out of spiritual Egypt and we are in a wilderness
sojourn before we enter into the promised land. And there
are things that we must be taught in that wilderness sojourn so
that we can actually be good representatives of God in the
hypothetical land of Canaan or the promised land. And so there
are parallels in Revelation chapter 12 We are told that the woman
in verse 14 was given two wings of a great eagle that she might
fly into the wilderness, into her place where she is nourished
for a time, a times and a half a time from the face of the serpent.
So that imagery in Revelation chapter 12 describes the status
of the church in this world being persecuted by the devil, but
protected by God for a season. This is the premise or foundation
of chapter 13. And over in chapter 13, here's
what we learn about the enemy, the beast, the false prophet,
the dragon. We read over in verse seven,
these words. I'm gonna start at verse five.
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things. blasphemies and power was given
unto him to continue 42 months 42 months is the same as a time
times and a half a time that's three and a half years and he
goes on to say and he opened his mouth in blasphemy against
God to blaspheme his name and and his tabernacle and them that
dwelled in. So do you see the target of the
enemy's blasphemy? It is the character of God and
it is the church of God and it is those who are in the church.
Do you see the target of the enemy? He blasphemes the name
of God. That's what we mean by character
of God. To know a person's name is to know who they are. To know
God is to know his character, his attributes. his predicates
with regards to the uniqueness of who he is. Those are all under
the title of God's name. Until a person knows God, they
don't know his name or his attributes or his characteristics or his
works. They are ignorant of it. So the
devil blasphemes God's name. The devil also blasphemes his
church. That's what the tabernacle is.
And therefore he blasphemes everyone that's in it. We see a beautiful
triad there too. For the tabernacle is connected
to the name of God and the people are connected to the tabernacle
that's connected to the name. So there is a strong connection
between God and his people in terms of the tabernacle of which
the devil knows his objective is to try to demolish all three
through blasphemy. You're going to see the connection
when we go back to 1 John. Notice what it says over in verse
7. And it was given unto him who was the him, the devil, the
blasphemer. to make war with the saints.
You guys got the context? And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints and to what? Overcome them. See it? There's two things. We call this a divine passive
in verse 7. And it was given unto him by
God. No man can receive anything except
to be given to him from heaven. So God gave the adversary the
right to persecute his people. And it was given unto him to
make war with the saints. Now, you and I are going to learn
this as we go through the wilderness sojourn. And this is the thing
that you and I must understand as Christians. You and I are
not passing through the world in a passive, non-resistant,
non-hostile atmosphere. It should not shake you up that
you are in a warfare. The warfare is the context in
which the Christian is making his journey through this world.
The book of Revelation is more plain and more honest than many
of the books of scripture because it gives you the warfare in an
unveiled fashion. It shows you the ugliness of
the dragon and the maniacal nature of the beast and the false prophet.
And it gives you all of the radical hyperbolic imagery of the celestial
battle that the church engages in. And then it also gives you
this insight that God has allowed on many occasions his lambs to
be slaughtered by the beast. And this is an underlying premise
of the mission of the gospel. Remember what he says? I send
you forth as lambs among wolves. So when the Christian thinks
that coming to Christ is about having peace and joy and tranquility
and solemnity all his days, you have a false notion about what
it means to be a Christian. A Christian is fundamentally
one who has been called upon, enlisted in God's army, and is
engaged in God's warfare for his glory. When you and I are
called by God's grace, you and I are part of an army, a spiritual
celestial army fighting a spiritual celestial battle against a spiritual
celestial force. From time to time, The Lord allows
his people to be overcome. You see the language overcome.
That's our same word. It's interesting then, huh? If
in Revelation 13, seven, it says, and God gave him the ability
to overcome them. And yet first John chapter five,
verse five says, and what is it that overcomes this world?
Is it not this, those that believe on the name of the son of God,
how can the devil overcome us? And yet we overcome at the same
time. Well, The principle is clear.
You got to make sure that you establish what we call categories.
Just like when the Bible says no man can see God and live and
yet the scripture says Moses talked to God face to face. We
call this the analogy of scriptures, a rule of hermeneutic. You cannot
interpret a scripture one way in one area of the Bible and
then interpret another scripture another way in another area of
the Bible and they contradict each other. You got to find a
way to harmonize them. And a lot of times where the
harmonization comes in at is establishing the distinction
of categories. There's a category of overcoming
for the believer, a dimension of overcoming for the believer,
a realm of overcoming for the believer, which is different
from the realm of the devil's ability to overcome us. And the
difference is the difference between the realm of the spirit
and the realm of the flesh. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew
chapter 10. Don't be afraid of him that can
kill the body but be afraid of him that can kill both body and
soul in hell. There's your distinction. When
you read in Revelation chapter 13 verse 7 and he overcame them
is simply meant that he was given the privilege to make them martyrs. You guys got that. And now we
are understanding the fuller implication of overcoming, as
we closed out last week in Revelation 2 and 3, when we were dealing
with the seven churches. And remember the promise that
Christ made? He that overcometh will I give the eat of the tree
of life. He that overcometh will be in
the temple of my God. He that overcometh will eat of
the hidden manna. He that overcometh, he that overcometh,
we're given great and precious promises for them that what?
Overcome. What then is the ultimate overcoming
of the assault and the warfare that comes against the people
of God? It is the capacity and grace that God gives to every
believer to trust Christ even unto death. And the text in Revelation
chapter 12 will clear that up. Look at what it says over in
Revelation chapter 12 verse 11. Are you there? And they overcame
him. Do you see it? Our same turn.
and they overcame him. How? By the blood of the Lamb. Stop. That is the doctrine of
the atoning work of the God-man Jesus Christ. We're not getting
caught up in physical plasma as people will do in mystical
interpretations of churches. The physical blood of our savior
is not what causes us to overcome. It is the doctrine inherent in
the meaning of the blood that is attributed to the God man,
Jesus Christ, and the work that he accomplished on Calvary street,
which means a believer is going to understand by the grace of
God, what it means for Christ to have died. That knowledge
is going to anchor his soul in such a trust in God that even
though he were put to death, he would not lose his faith.
Am I making some sense? So here's what it says. And they
overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their
testimony. And here it is. And they loved
not their lives unto death. We love him. Because he what? And he loved us unto death. It is therefore our privilege
to love him unto death when called for. Are you guys hearing me?
Now that context is what I want us to work with now going back
to first John chapter five and dealing with what God is about
to do in John's closing epilogue of bearing record to the gospel
by which believers all around the world have suffered for Christ's
glory. It's so important for you and
I to know that faith given to us in Christ is just going to
be tested. It's going to be tried. It's
going to be tried on very temporal levels in the area of your work.
It's going to be tried domestically in your families. It's going
to be tried within the constitution of your own physical frame and
makeup, your faith is going to be tried. And you cannot be surprised
at the trying of your faith. Peter said, that's the way it
goes. Brethren, do not be surprised at the trying of your faith,
because your faith is designed to be tried in terms of its authenticity,
because when it's given by God, it will come out of the fire
as pure gold. So anyone who says they are a
believer are going to be people who are going to be tried because
God wants to affirm the authenticity of your faith before you stand
before him on the last day, having lied about believing on the Lord
Jesus. Are you with me? That's the legacy of the church
from the beginning of time. So now what you and I are about
to do for the next two weeks is deal with the content of that
faith that we say we hold on to. And it's under the rubric,
the coming of the son of God, the coming of the son of God,
your outline will be able to work through this fairly succinctly. And we are told over in verse
seven, I'm sorry, verse six, after verse five of first John
five, where it says, who is it that overcomes the world, but
he that believes that Jesus is the son of God, verse six, this
is he who was he the son of God. This is He that came by water
and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water
and blood, and it is the Spirit that bears witness, because the
Spirit is true. For there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.
And these three are one. And there are three that bear
record in the earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And
these three agree in one." Now, I want you to mark now verse
9 and 10. If we receive the what? What's
the word? Witness. So what God is about
to do in the mouth of John, ladies and gentlemen, is give us the
testimony. He's getting ready to give us
the witness. He's getting ready to talk to us about what he has
given the believer by which the believer in this world Overcomes
the world. I mean if you and I just read
in Revelation chapter 12 how that and they overcame him by
the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony Well,
how did they do that? They did that by an overwhelming
and and powerful and compelling witness and testimony that God
rendered in their life by which they could not otherwise but
say, I believe that even unto death. So what you and I are
about to do is work through the legal concept of witness bearing. God has chosen to bear witness
to himself. Every believer is a witness. The matter of the gospel universally
from the beginning of time to the end of time is a legal reckoning
between God and man concerning what God has done to redeem sinners
through Jesus Christ. What that means is there's a
day coming when you and I will be in the courtroom of God Almighty.
to stand on the side of God, if we are his true witnesses,
to bear record with what God said that God did in the person
of his son, Jesus Christ. Am I making some sense? And what
God is saying is every believer who has the grace to overcome
the world, who has the grace to suffer for Christ and has
the grace to die for Christ, has that grace because God has
borne record so powerfully of his grace and his mercy in Jesus
Christ that he has made them authentic witnesses. Now watch
this as we get ready to work through it. If you are going
about your merry way, and an event occurs before your eyes
of which you by providence are made to view it in total completely
where there is no ambiguity or vagueness or obscurity or any
kind of lack of clarity where you have now seen and witnessed
for yourself with your own eyes with all of your senses an event
transpire and the judicial system calls you to bear record or testimony
to what you saw, you are obligated in a court of law to testify
to what you saw. Am I making some sense? And when
you go in to stand before the judge to recount all that you
saw and experienced because you were providentially and circumstantially
held in suspense at that moment, at that time to observe that
event. You cannot but tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. You are a witness. This is what the believer is
for God. Are you guys following me so
far? The believer is a witness for God. But in order for a believer
to be a witness for God, God has to be a witness to the believer. But in order for God to be a
witness to the believer, God has to be a witness for himself. This is what the text is talking
about. So let us learn something about the witness of God. Remember
what it says over in verse nine? If we receive the witness of
men, see it? The witness of God is what? The
witness of God is what? Now watch this for this is the
witness of God Which he hath what? testified of his son That's
God's witness God is witness to the whole world in his son
What he demands what he requires what he has provided and the
whole human race has to reckon with that witness both by the
testimony that God has rendered and and by the lives of those
who have been graciously put and providentially placed in
front of the events that have transpired by which we cannot
but in the courtroom testify to what we have seen and what
we have heard. Every believer in the spirit
and according to the word of God and according to God's providence
has been made to see God's witness. Now we have to bear record to
that witness because we have been made qualified to be a witness
to the truth of the gospel. I'm taking my time dealing with
this to once again, share with us the importance of us calling
ourselves Christians. because either we have comprehended
by virtue of a revelation of the glory of God in Christ and
by virtue of clear, sound biblical teaching, what God has done in
his son in revealing his will and purpose to this world so
that we are very clear on what the gospel is so that we are
not only willing to tell men about the gospel, but stand before
God, men and angels on the last day. and say, God revealed to
me his gospel and made me a witness of which I'm ready to testify
at this moment. See how powerful and how important
this is? This is not a game. This is a very serious matter.
So you and I are going to be dealing with the witness of God,
the witness God and the witness is really for us I want you to
get this the witness at this point is for us and in fact We
can know this because all John is about to do right now is give
us all the reasons for why we overcome the world how is it
that a child a young adult a young couple a family a church Can
be harassed and persecuted by the world and by the enemy and
put in prison and starved and beaten and harassed and mocked
and ridiculed and then killed and keep the testimony. It's
because God has borne record in their soul with such a clarity
and such a pervasive witness and testimony to the truth of
Christ that they cannot but tell the truth. So help me, God. Am I making some sense? See,
this is really what goes on every day. A Christian has to stand
for Christ and be persecuted. A Christian has to be thrown
in prison in some of these third world countries where the whole
judicial system is openly hostile to the gospel and they are starved
to death. A Christian is exiled from his
home because he changes one religion and embraces the gospel. where
Christians are burned in their churches, where Christians are
starved to death and then driven out and exiled from whole communities
to have to live on the streets as vagabonds. They are suffering
for the testimony. Remember again, Revelation chapter
12, 11, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. This
is what we're about to get into and their own testimony. And
they kept the testimony of the blood of the lamb even to the
point of death. So we're actually talking about
the nature of faith that is able to sustain the testimony, even
if it means dying for Christ. All right, so let's go to work.
Verse six says, this is he who came by water and blood. Do you
see that? In your outline, he came and the question is who?
Who is it that came? Jesus Christ, that's right. Jesus
Christ is the one that came in John 1 12 and 13 John chapter
3 verse 19 it very clearly speaks to the fact that Christ came
and and and everyone who Received this testimony God gave them
in the authority to become the sons and daughters of God by
faith Christ said constantly through the gospel. I have come
I have come to give life I have come that they might have life
I have come to He uses a number of appellations that really actually
underscored in your outline I talk about things like the light the
truth the way you guys see that the bread the water so I want
you to understand the nature in which the idea of Christ coming
is actually a Comprehended it is not merely that he came. It's
how he came. I Am come the light of the world
and that what he said. I Christ says, I am the light
of the world. I am come as the truth. Isn't
that what Christ said? I am the way, the truth and the
life. I am come as the bread of life. Is that what he said?
I am come as the water of life. I am come as the true vine. I
am come as the door, the resurrection and the life. I am come as the
good shepherd. I am come as the lamb of God.
I am come as the word made flesh. I am come as the great prophet
and teacher and king. I am come as the son of man.
Am come as the Son of God. I am come as Messiah the anointed
one the Christ I am come as God in the flesh. I am come to fulfill
all the scriptures Got it. So when we talk about the coming
of the Son of God We are not just talking about the act of
his coming but the scope of his coming he came to reveal to us
the will of God and he came to fulfill the will of God and He
came to reveal all of the attributes of God as they are subsumed in
Himself, and He came to fulfill all the Scriptures. Christ came
as the revelation of the invisible God. He came to do the will of
His Father. So when we talk about the coming
of Christ, we're talking about the coming of Christ from the
Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And all of the revelatory
elements that constitute the nature of God Revealed to us
in the person of Christ by his attributes and by his offices.
He came as the lamb of God He came as the suffering servant. He came as the king of glory. He came with all of these appellatives
Representing God This is how fully Christ came and it's important
for you and I didn't know that that he didn't just come It's
how he came He came in the volume of the book. It's written of
him to do thy will Oh God He came in the totality of God's
will in every aspect of it. And in fact Had Christ not come
in every aspect of God's will we would not know God For God
can only be known in the person of Christ with reference to every
office that Christ fulfilled Christ came as the Word of God
Christ came as the revelation of God in the Old Testament in
all of the offices, all of the sacrifices. He came as the altar.
He came as the burnt incense. He came as the table of showbreak.
He came as the veil. He came as the tabernacle. He
came in all of these artifacts to show us the will of the Father
and to fulfill them. This is how pervasive Christ's
coming was. Am I making some sense in your
mind? So when you and I think about the coming of Christ, you
and I have to back up and think about, as we are learning in
biblical theology, how thoroughly Christ came to reveal the will
of his father. It wasn't merely that he just
came in the flesh. By the time Jesus came in the
flesh, most of the prophetic emblems that I'm speaking of
in the offices of which we saw in the Old Testament were already
occupied by that one who had came. By the time he comes in
the flesh, he has fulfilled those offices by the Spirit in the
lives of those typical and those emblematic things that the Old
Testament brought into being. This is biblical theology, Lord.
I come in the volume of the book. It's written of me to do thy
will, O God, so you and I get to see the coming of Christ.
From Genesis 1-1 all the way through when he comes in the
flesh. He is summing up all of those
Old Testament Anticipated types and shadows. This is how he came
and then he brought them together in his own person incarnate and
Now we are about to look at what it means for him to have come
in the flesh Here's what John says in verse 6. This is he who
came by what? Water and what? All right. So
now what he's about to give us is what I call the earthly witness. The earthly witness. Is that
in your outline? The earthly testimony or the earthly witness,
water and blood, water and blood. John's going to explain that
to us. I'm calling that the earthly witness, the earthly witness. He says over in verse six, he
came by water and blood. Watch this. Not by water only,
but by water and blood. And that redundancy of speech
seems unnecessary, but you and I know better. I don't know why
the translators use the preposition by because the preposition and
by is different than the preposition in. It should have been the preposition
in. He came in water and he came in blood. He manifested, he appeared,
he was brought into being by both water and blood. We are
talking about the son of God. He appeared, he came into being
by water and blood. The question that you have in
your outline, what does the water signify? Who knows the answer?
his baptism, his baptism. He came into being in the first
and the most magnanimous sense at his baptism, when the heavens
opened up in Matthew three, and the father spoke from heaven
saying, this is my beloved son. The idea of coming in this context
is the idea of manifesting yourself. The idea of coming in this context
is the idea of manifesting yourself. For you know he came into the
world some 30 odd years earlier in the womb of a virgin. As the
Holy Spirit overshadowed her and conceived in her womb that
holy child Jesus, he lived a very human life like the rest of us
did until it was time for him to start his ministry, correct?
He was obscure. He was not known. We have no
record events of his life except at that small period of time
where at 12 years old he had his bar mitzvah and he went to
the temple. Remember that little occasion? That was a witness
of the transition from his childhood to becoming a man because a Jewish
boy transitioned from being a boy to a man in their bar mitzvah.
from 12 to 13 years old, he becomes a man. We learned this last night,
ladies. There's no period of teenage ship for kids from 13
to 21. You grown at 13, 14. You take
on real issues when you become a teenager. You call a man of
the law. Bar Mitzvah means man of the
law. Now the law of God is on him and he's obligated to live
out of the law of God. We were given that little emblem.
Then the rest of his life goes back into obscurity until the
time that he's baptized. So Matthew's chapter 3 verse
13 is where we have what is called the Annunciation. The Father
reveals him as the Son. This is my beloved Son. The Spirit
of God descends upon him, doesn't it? And remains upon him. In that text of Matthew's chapter
3 verse 13, 16 and 17, we actually have the triune persons manifested
in emblematic form, don't we? The Father from heaven, the Spirit
descending as a dove, abiding upon the Son. What we have in
Matthew's chapter 3, ladies and gentlemen, is the witness. The witness. The witness. And that witness is now going
to sustain itself by the ministry of the Spirit in the life of
Jesus for the next three and a half years. See, God himself
said, my Son is here. Got it? The Spirit says, and
I'm upon him to assist him in fulfilling all of his messianic
duties for the next three and a half years. The son now is
going to testify by his calling as Messiah, all that the scripture
said that God would accomplish in his life, in his incarnation. He came by water. The next one
says he came by what? Blood. Blood. What are we talking
about when we say he comes by blood? The cross. Baptism and then Calvary Baptism
and then Calvary this is the other Magnanimous time in which
Jesus Christ comes and we can tie these two together. Look
at Luke chapter 12 verse 50 Luke 1250 describes Jesus is His culmination
at Calvary as a kind of baptism And you and I understand, and
those of our brothers and sisters who will be being baptized in
the next several weeks will be taught once again, that when
we understand the doctrine of baptism arrived, what we understand
is the man or the woman that submits to the waters of baptism
are actually submitting to the death, burial, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. Is that not so? So in the emblem
of the water, we are anticipating the blood. the emblem of the
water we are anticipating the blood to go down into the water
like Jesus did under his cousin John of which John said you don't
need to do this but Jesus says I do need to do this because
I'm not doing it for myself I'm doing it for my elect to go down
into the water as is to anticipate the what Now, if that's a logical
proposition, here's what you and I need to know. When you
and I go down into the water, we are bearing record with the
gospel. We are saying we agree with God's testimony and we are
identifying with God's son. That means when we come up out
of the water, you and I also must anticipate the what? Blood. That means you and I are bearing
a cross that could also lead to death to be the kind of witness
that God has called us to to bear record of his son. Are you
guys hearing what I'm saying? Jesus plainly said, the way I
go, you must go also. If any man's gonna follow me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. So I'm
trying to help us understand, but I have a baptism to be baptized
with and how am I straight until it'd be accomplished where he
was already baptized in water. What is this text talking about?
Calvary, it's Calvary. So from water to blood, from
the literal water of baptism that points to his death, to
his actual death, which is represented by baptism. Now go with me in
your Bible to, um, to, um, let me see here. Let me take you
to Luke chapter 24. And then I want you to go to
Luke, uh, John chapter 19, Luke 24 and Luke 24. We are dealing
with now this aspect of the blood because we are dealing with two
elements that are going to constitute what we call the earthly witness. in Luke chapter 24 verse 39 40
and 41 are you there Luke 24 listen to this in verse 38 and
he said unto them why are you troubled and why do a rod do
thoughts arise in your hearts behold my hands and my feet that
it is I even myself Handle me and see me, for a spirit hath
not what? Flesh and bone, as you see me have. I'm jumping
the gun a little bit, that's okay. And when he had thus spoken,
he showed them his what? Hands and his feet. And while
they yet believed not for joy and wonder, he said unto them,
have ye any meat? What is he doing in this text?
He's actually affirming the fact that he rose again from the dead,
right? He's affirming the fact that he rose again from the dead.
Go back to John chapter 19, verse 34. I jump that I want to stay
on the witness for a moment in John chapter 13 John chapter
19 verse 34 listen to this language This is the crucifixion of our
Savior and here's where the testimony is born me start at verse 32
I'm sorry verse 31 then the Jews therefore because it was a preparation
that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath
for that the Sabbath day was in high day, they sought Pilate
that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken
away. Then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first
and the other, which was crucified with him to fulfill the scriptures
as you guys know. But when they came to Jesus,
they saw that he was dead already and they break not his legs.
Now watch this ladies and gentlemen, because we are about to see the
witness. but one of the soldiers with
a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out what?
Blood and water. Now where did the blood and the
water go? Into the earth. It went into the earth. When
his side was pierced, it drained out. It drained out because of
the hemorrhaging and the commotion that his body went through, the
tumultuous pain on the cross, All of his blood bore, it hemorrhaged
up near his heart so that when they pierced his side, his heart
burst and the blood that was in his heart came out with the
water and poured down on the ground. Now, there's a number
of implications by this that needs to be drawn out. And the
first is, is that for Jesus to have hung on the cross and died
means that they didn't kill him. They hung him on the cross, but
he laid down his own life. You guys understand that? So
when they came to break the legs of the other malefactors, they
didn't have to break Christ's legs because he was already gone
in that sense. They crucified him, but he gave
up the ghost. Like he said in John 10, I laid
down my life and I take it up again, right? But when they pierced
his side and the water and the blood came out, this is the doctrine
that you and I now are going to be contemplating. It affirms,
it affirms his humanity. It affirms that the man that's
on the cross was actually a man. He wasn't a mere apparition.
He wasn't a phantom. He was the God-man who actually
died in the flesh, suffered in the flesh, suffered in his humanity
as a witness to all that he was the one mediator between God
and man, the man Christ Jesus. The blood and the water is a
testimony in the earth that God sent his only begotten son into
the world to actually be our mediator. For had there been
no blood and no water coming out, you and I could have thought
anything about him. This is why back in Luke chapter 24, Jesus
says, see, touch me, feel me, a gold star phantom does not
have flesh and bone. He's affirming to his disciples
because this is going to be a theological struggle that carried all the
way through the first and second century. He's affirming to his
disciples that he really physically died. He really physically rose
again. But ladies and gentlemen, he's
not walking around after his resurrection with blood and water
coursing through his veins. For the blood and the water are
poured out as a testimony in the earth that God actually came
incarnate. It's a witness down here of the
testimony that we hold that Jesus Christ is the God-man. It's a
witness down here. As I was preaching a couple of
weeks ago to you, prior to the resurrection Sunday, Jesus didn't
take a bowl of his blood into glory. On the third day, he rose
again. He went into the upper room where
the disciples were. He said, put your hand in my side. Put
your hand in the palms of my hand. He says, flesh and bone. He didn't say flesh and blood,
did he? So what power is, as it were, operating in Christ's
life to sustain a flesh and bone body without blood? Because the
life of the body is in the what? Blood. Our physical bodies operate
according to our blood when we are living in the natural. What
was it that was sustaining Christ in his physical body wherein
there was no blood pumping through his heart? The Spirit! He was
operating out of the quickening Spirit. He's now the resurrected
God-man operating out of the Spirit. But he was still human. just as human as the rest of
us without the support of a physical blood operation. Where is food? Let me eat. Let me affirm to
you that it is. I, I am the physical resurrected
Christ before your eyes. Why did Jesus do all that as
a testimony, as a testimony? Cause we are dealing with the
earthly testimony. Go back to our texts. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, stay in John chapter 19,
because we still need to observe one more thing. Listen to what
it says. But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side
and forthward came there out blood and water. And he that
saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that
he saith the truth, that you might believe. There was someone
who bore record, when the sword pierced his side and blood and
water came out. Who bore record of the blood
and the water? The Spirit of God. The Spirit
of God. Look at it again. And he that
saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that
he saith truth, that you may believe. Sure, you can say that
John might have been an earthly witness of that piercing But
that's not the one who is bearing record of the water and the blood
If you go back to first John chapter 5 you see the one who
is bearing record of the water and the blood Look at it First
John chapter 5 Do you see it verse 6 now watch this This is
he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water
only, but by water and blood. Now watch this. And it is the
what? That does what? Because the spirit is what? Do
you see it? If you were to go back to John
19 again, you would have to admit that while John was the earthly
author, it was the Spirit speaking through John, testifying to what
he saw concerning the blood and the water being poured out, because
the Spirit of God is the only one that can authentically take
that testimony around the world for 2,000 years, even to this
day, to bear record with the fact that he was there. Are you with me so far, brother?
See, you and I are dealing with what is called the earthly testimony.
And the blood and the water, and you can mark this in your
outline because we are actually leading to something. What does
the blood and the water mean? Well, it means that Jesus was
a real man. See, the doctrine that John is
affirming and strengthening in 1 John is the doctrine of the
incarnation. Remember what it says in 1st
John chapter 4 opening the verses in 1st John chapter 4 verse 2
Hereby we know Hereby know ye the spirit of what God? Every
spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the what is
of God Stay with me Saints John knows that he is defending the
claims of the false teachers that Jesus is not God and that
Jesus did not come in the flesh. What John is saying is if you
have the spirit of Christ, you cannot but tell the truth about
both his divinity and his humanity. because it is the Spirit that
bears record not only at Christ's birth, because He was the one
that conceived Christ in the womb, not only at His baptism,
because He was there hovering over Christ at the Annunciation,
but He was there at the Crucifixion. Follow this now. I appreciate
John the Baptist's witness, or John the Apostle's witness. John
the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb that came into the world
to take away our sins. John, the apostle was there in
John 20, John 19, John 20. But the witness that you and
I need is the witness of the spirit. It's the third person
that bears record to the incarnation. He bears record to the sufferings
of Christ. He bears record to the death
of Christ. He bears record to the resurrection of Christ. That's
the witness that John is talking about. So what does the water
and the blood mean? It means his humanity. It means
that he came into the world incarnate. This is what 1st John 4.2 is
saying. Read with me 1st Timothy 3.16. You guys don't know, but
what you and I are dealing with is the fundamentals of the gospel
of the nature of God in Christ and the nature of Christ in terms
of his humanity with respect to the confession of the church.
And here's what the confession of the church is in 1st Timothy
chapter 3. Verse 16, listen to this. And
without controversy, great is the mystery of what? Godliness. Here it is, listen to the phrase,
God was manifest in the flesh. Do you see it? God was manifest
in the flesh. The whole Christian church has
lived and died on this claim. God was manifest in the flesh. What person of the Godhead was
manifest in the flesh? Christ. How do we know? Listen to the rest of the language.
He was justified in the spirit. What do we mean by him being
justified in the spirit? The spirit is the one that raised
him from the dead. Romans chapter one, verse three
and four, he was raised by the dead and thus justified for if
Christ died on Calvary's tree, but God did not accept his sacrifice,
the spirit of God could have never raised him from the dead.
The resurrection is the affirmation that Christ's death actually
put away the sins of his people. The Spirit is saying justified. Got it? The Spirit is saying
justified by having raised him from the dead. Now notice what
it goes on to say. Not only is he justified in the
Spirit, but he's seen of the angels. The angels here are not
looking at God. They're looking at the God-man
that was raised from the dead. How do we know? Because when
you go back to the account after the resurrection, when the ladies
come to the tomb, who talks to them about the resurrected Christ?
The angels? See, what we're doing, ladies
and gentlemen, if you're staying on track with me, is we're building
the testimony of God. We're building the testimony
of God. We're telling the world that
we have all of the criterion by which we can bear an authentic
testimony to the person and work of Jesus Christ, to the gospel
of Jesus Christ, to his death, burial and resurrection, which
is the cornerstone and the basis of our salvation. So it says
he was justified in the spirit that is raised from the dead.
He was seen of the angels. He is not here. Why seek you
the living among the dead? In fact, they told the ladies,
he's going to Jerusalem, head to Jerusalem, tell the disciples
he'll be showing up in a minute. That was the role of the angels
to bear record of the resurrected Christ and to let the disciples
know they will see him shortly because they too must see the
resurrected Christ in order to be authentic apostles. Remember one of the criterion
to be an apostle is to see the resurrected Christ. We are talking
about the qualifications of being a witness. It goes on to say
not only seen of angels, but what preached unto the Gentiles.
Now, what is the significance of him being preached unto the
Gentiles? It's simply this. The Old Testament already anticipated
that when Messiah would come, when he would suffer, when he
would die, when he'd be raised again, the gospel would go into
all the world. It's been in all the world now
for 2000 years. But in the days of Paul, it had
just gone into the world for about 30 or 40 years. But the
whole Roman Empire had heard the gospel. The Gentiles are
believing on Christ. Now watch what the text says.
The last part. Are you there? He's believed
on in the world and what received up into glory. Now, this is the
confession of the church. This is what Matthew's chapter
go back with me to 1st John chapter 5 I want to just deal with one
more thing before we shut it down This is what Jesus said
to the disciples in Matthew chapter 16 when as he was headed to Capernaum
on his way to Jerusalem, he said to the disciples Men what who
do men say that I the son of man am and they said, you know
some there's some that some the other Who do you say that I am? that was critical to their confession
of faith. I want you to mark these two
words. Peter says, thou art the Christ. That's one office. Then he says, the son of the
living God. That's another title for one
is his role as Messiah. The other is his deity expression. the term that constitutes who
he is as the son of God. And both of those roles, if you
will, are in contention today. Did God send his only begotten
son into the world? We say yes. Is Jesus of Nazareth
the Messiah? We say yes. Is Jesus of Nazareth
the son of God? We say yes. This is why John
is using the phrase, What is it that overcomes the world?
Is it not this? He that believeth that Jesus
is the son of God. Are you hearing me? We are not
only dealing with his messiahship, but we are dealing with the nature
of Christ as the second person of the Godhead, God the son.
We are bearing record that God actually sent his son. We are
bearing record that God sent his son in a human nature. We are bearing record that his
son lived and his son died and that his son rose again. Are
we not bearing record to that testimony? This is the, this
here is the crucial doctrine that John is establishing with
regards to the witness that is born to us by the spirit, the
witness that is born to us by the spirit. And so in verse six,
in verse six, we have what I call the earthly witness, the earthly
witness. That's what this E was about.
Verse seven is about to give us what I call the heavenly witness,
the heavenly witness. And I want to talk about that
briefly. and how critical it is for us to accept this premise. Now, some of your Bibles, if
they are not King James Version Bibles, if they are NIV Bibles
or others, you don't have verse 8 in your Bibles. I'm sorry,
verse 7 in your Bibles, because verse 7 has been contentiously
argued that there are no early manuscripts where in verse 7
is written. The language goes like this,
and there are three that bear, I'm sorry, for there are three
that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost, and these three are one. You guys see that language? And
these three are one. And there are three that bear
record in the earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the what?
And this is what we have been dealing with for the last hour,
the earthly record, right? Now we're going back to what
I call the heavenly record, and there are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these
three are one. And like I said, all the way up to about the 15th
century AD, there are no extent evidences in the manuscripts,
the New Testament manuscripts, where verse seven is given. The
translators are those who translated our Bible from Greek to Latin
to English, particularly in the days of King James. Many assert
that this text was supplied because we don't have the manuscript
evidence. So what the scholars suggesting that we don't have
a lot of manuscript evidence. There are some manuscripts that
have it, but they were questioning the authenticity of those manuscripts,
whether or not those were just scribal insertions. This gets
into what we call textual criticism. The analysis of critical texts
in the Old Testament or in the New Testament as to whether or
not they are authentic and can be added into the document as
evidence. In my assumption, when you have
manuscripts with passages of scripture in it though they may
be only one or two manuscripts with those passages in it and
the other thousand manuscripts may not have that passage in
it if that passage that is in it does not contradict every
other passage in all the other manuscripts are in the totality
of scripture you better be careful about deleting it because It
does not necessarily follow that the majority of the manuscripts
that may have deleted it or not have that text in it are the
right manuscripts, or are the thorough manuscripts, or the
complete manuscripts. In other words, the argument
in textual criticism is, is it really valid to say that if I
have 20 manuscripts and only two of them have the word theos
or the word huios in it and the rest don't, am I to throw out
the two just because there's apparently a majority rule? Well,
we say, no, you can't do that because a majority rule does
not necessarily constitute the facts. It is much better, and you guys
will know this if you become sensitive to your translations,
it is much better to leave those texts in there and let people
work through them for themselves and let the contemporary theologians
and scholars of our present generation work through the language, work
through the history, work through the archives because of this
fact. What happened in the 15th, 16th
century with regards to the translation of our Bible from the Latin Vulgate
into the English by the King James, was that they only had
so many documents to work with, so many original documents to
work with. But once the Qumran scrolls really broke open around
the 17th, 18th, 19th century, where we had a plethora of manuscripts
that were given to us, now we can go back and look more accurately
at the way our brothers labored in the first, second, third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, 10th century, we can see how
remarkably God preserved their rationale, their thinking, their
philosophy, their logic in terms of the integrity and in the what
we would call perpiscuity as well as the verity of Scripture. How that even though we didn't
have all of the manuscript evidence that we have today, we were fairly
consistent going all the way back to the 1st and 2nd centuries.
Which means we weren't playing fast and loose with the scriptures,
even though we only had a little evidence. Which also means that,
now watch this now, had the brothers in the first thousand years said,
all we have is all the evidence that we presently have with regards
to being able to affirm the scriptures, they would have been wrong. For
several hundred years later, we come to find out we've got
more evidence. So who's to say another 500 years
from now or another hundred years from now, we don't find even
more evidence. What if God in his mercy had
other scribes writing down the New Testament in volumes of thousands
and placed them in some other cave? We find that cave and then
we break out all of those thousands of manuscripts. Come to first
John chapter five, verse seven, And we have 3,000 copies of 1
John chapter 5 or 7. In other words, we would have
been hasty in making our judgment that there were only a small
extent of copies versus the plethora of copies that did not have verse
7. Am I making some sense, ladies and gentlemen? And so in textual
criticism, one has to be very careful. Now, I'm saying this
to just take the time to be honest with you that if you have a Bible
where that verse is missing, My concern about that falls in
this category. If the scholars that have worked
through your Bible, your NIV Bible, your new revised standard
version or your, there are several versions with which they chose
with what we would call higher criticism analysis of the text
to take out Bible verses. Once you find that first John
chapter five or seven is not there, you'll go around your
Bible and find a whole lot of other verses are not there either.
And a whole lot of other words are not there because they were
using a certain philosophy of textual approach that basically
said, let's delete everything that does not have a majority
rule on it. And you start reading your Bible
and Pastor Jesse is reading in Mark, chapter 16, verse 17, 18,
19, and you find eight, nine verses going, you go, wait a
minute. The problem with that experience is it undermines the
authority and integrity of the scriptures. It brings to question
in your own heart and mind, do I actually have the word of God?
Am I making some sense? And so here's my argument with
the older scholars. If the manuscripts have it in
there, even though they are in the minority, leave it in there. If it doesn't contradict the
doctrine of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, we call that the
analogy of Scripture, then leave it in there. For instance, when
I talk about verse 7 being the heavenly witness, the text says,
for there are three that bear record, where? Now stop and think
with me for a moment, ladies and gentlemen. Is that proposition
true? Can we affirm that in the Word
of God? We don't even need 1 John 5,
7 to know that the Father spoke from heaven. We don't need 1
John 5 for us to know that the Spirit of God who is in heaven,
because He's omnipresent, is the one constantly bearing record
to the Word. And we don't need 1 John 5, verse
7 to know that the Word made flesh is back in heaven now.
Am I making some sense? so that it is true that there
are three that bear record in heaven. Not only do they bear
record in heaven now, they have born record in heaven from eternity. For the three are seen all through
the Old Testament. We learn this in biblical theology.
Genesis 1, 1, 2, and 3 is the Trinity. In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,
in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the
Word was God, and the same was in the beginning with God. There
was nothing that was made that the Word did not make. These
are the three that bear record in heaven all the time. Are you
following what I'm saying? So the translators understood
that we are to leave that in there because we have a plethora
of biblical evidence all through the Old Testament, as well as
in the New, that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are constantly
bearing record of who they are. And we believe their testimony. So this is the record that's
in heaven and this is the record that's in earth. Let me see here. Let me see how which mine is
a little bit different from yours. Let me see. What does the water
in the blood mean? What is the next statement in
yours the witness of the spirit? Is that what I say? Okay, the
witness of the spirit verse 6 and then that does yours go to the
heavenly witness? Then does it go to the earthly
witness again? Okay, good So we've already fulfilled both
of those in terms of affirming that there's an earthly witness
the earthly earthly witnesses the water and the blood and the
what spirit The heavenly witness is the father and the word and
the what? Spirit. So the triune God is bearing
record from heaven. The water and the blood, along
with the spirit, is bearing record in the earth. And the spirit's
job is to take the testimony of the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ, represented in the water and the blood, and to bear
record in the hearts and the lives of men and women all over
the world. That's his job. That's John 14, 15, and 16. And
when the Spirit of truth has come, He will take the things
of mine and He will show them to you. Next week we'll get into
the third category, because I want to stop now. So today we dealt
with the earthly witness, the water, the blood, and the Spirit.
We talked briefly about the heavenly witness, the Father, the Word,
and the Spirit. And next week I want to talk about this next
word, and it's called the internal witness. The internal witness. So there are three aspects to
the witness. There's the witness of the gospel, the historic gospel
of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, that earthly testimony
of which the disciples became apostles and the Holy Spirit
assisted them in testifying to the death, burial, resurrection
of Christ. There's the witness of the father, the word and the
spirit in heaven. We believe that. Right. And then for those
of us who are true believers, there's the witness in us. And that's the next part that
John wants to affirm in our life. Here it is in verse 9 and 10,
and I'll close. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness, or record,
or testimony of God, which he hath testified of his Son. Verse
10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness where? See it? See? So everything that
I've been talking to you about, insofar as the objective of God
is concerned, is to take the heavenly witness and the earthly
witness and to have it terminate on the hearts and minds of men
and women so that they are qualified to be God's witnesses. You guys
got that? The heavenly witness and the
earthly witness must penetrate our heart and our mind so as
to qualify us to be God's witness. Until the gospel penetrates the
heart with the testimony of Christ by the power of the spirit, you
and I have no right or claim to say we are witnesses of God. But the work of the spirit is
to bear record with our spirit that we are sons of God and therefore
witnesses of God as well. So we're going to treat that
matter next week. Let's close a prayer. Father,
thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the brothers and sisters that have come out tonight. Thank
you for a very clear and a very serious and sober portion of
scripture that really requires every believer to ask the question,
has God born record in my heart and in my mind of the reality
of his son, his incarnation, his life, his ministry, his suffering,
his death, his resurrection, his ascension into glory after
all of the multitude of witnesses, angels, and men, the apostles,
and the church for the last 2,000 years, has the Spirit of God
born record in my heart that indeed Christ is the Son of the
living God, so that I am not only able to declare that, but
to be ready to suffer for that and to die for that as our brothers
and sisters did, as our Lord did for us. Can we be witnesses
to him as he was a witness to his father for us? May we be
granted grace to be like all of our brothers and sisters around
the world who hold to the gospel even until death because of the
preciousness of it and because of the promises that comes out
of it as well. Father, give us grace to do just
that. As we go, give us traveling mercies and prepare our hearts
to worship you on Sunday, oh Lord. In Jesus name we pray,
amen. God bless you.