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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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1 John 5:8
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Though the Spirit is the only personal agent among these three, and an impersonal object cannot strictly speaking be a witness, the Spirit uses the water and the blood to reinforce his message and so makes them witnesses with himself. They agree on the point that is central to this passage: that the Son of God took our nature, and that therefore he is the long-predicted Christ. The water and the blood are witnesses because they provide details of Christ’s coming in the flesh that are foretold in Scripture and which God’s providence has brought to pass.
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Because the KJV includes verse 7 some editions have the word ‘spirit’ with a small ‘s’ in verse 8 and so make it refer to man’s spirit, but in verses 9-11 this combined witness is called the record of God. Once verse 7 is taken away and the words ‘in earth’ are removed from verse 8, it is clear that verse 8 refers to the divine witness of the Holy Spirit who along with the water and the blood bear witness to Jesus Christ, come in the flesh.
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