#367 1 John Series# 8, Spirit, Water & Blood

#367 1 John Series# 8, Spirit, Water & Blood
By: Zach Sloane

1 John 5:1-12

 Recap:
A book written for you but not to you. And when read with a lens of performance, you will read it wrong. Need to RIGHTLY divide word.

Holy Spirit Himself who is in you and with you and will teach you all things. (1 John 2:27) That teaching of the Holy Spirit direct to your heart brings an assurance.

Assurance is one of the stated aims of John’s writing, to help us know somethings. And he makes an appeal to some very concrete pieces of evidence, not just ethereal ideas when we seek to bring that assurance. He gives us handles, and some definite things we can hang our hats on.

Pastor Cheryl quoting Karl Barth, “God’s love is not an abstract definition we can fill with whatever we want to say. God’s love is Gods definition and only he can define it.”  And thankfully he does. In 1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is, he laid down his life for us.”

Looking at: knowing and being assured, about faith, and some real handles that God gives us to help us know some things.

1 John 5:1-12(NIV)
5.1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify:(IN HEAVEN: THE FATHER, THE WORD, and THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THESE THREE ARE ONE. AND THERE ARE THREE THAT TESTIFY ON THE EARTH:8 the[a] Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

N.B. parts of verse 7 in bold, not actually in most Bibles.

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” Love these kinds of verses. Ones that simplify things. “If you believe that Jesus is the Christ you are born of God” Nice and simple.

Really that easy? All you have to do is believe, I cannot earn it? YES!

But surely you have to be able to articulate a certain confession, you need to be able to say that you are a dirty rotten sinner, identify each sin one by one… maybe shed a tear or two, and then pray this exact prayer, without deviation. You must fully understand what Jesus did for you.

Its actually even easier than all that! There has been a historical inclination since the reformation to accept sinful people whose works don’t deserve salvation, but if they can’t articulate a very exact, predetermined confession of faith, they are still kept out.

When it comes to people joining the family of God… how much info do they need? How much revelation is required and who determines that?

Atonement Theories: Moral influence Theory, Ransom Theory, Christus Victor, Satisfaction Theory, Penal Substitution, The Scapegoat Theory… all different way to describe what happened at the cross, which one is right, how much of what do you need to articulate?

No! Jesus made it really simple. He said, come follow me. Paul said you need to confess “the Lord Jesus” (Romans 10:10). John says you need to believe Jesus is the Christ. Light, revelation, understanding is SUPER important, so is correct doctrine, but it’s all about unpacking truth IN relationship with Jesus. So John puts it this way, “whoever has the Son has life.” That’s it.

Salvation rests on the Person of Jesus Christ. Your faith does not make salvation happen. As if every time someone believes right Jesus is re-crucified, as if your faith makes it so. No, it’s true whether you believe it or not. Your faith makes you a full-fledged subjective participant in what is already true.

Not saying you don’t need to believe.  You do need to believe. But you also need to see that your salvation doesn’t come from the quality of your faith. Its even His faith that saves you, and the life you now live you actually live by the faith of the son of God. Every subjective requirement for salvation, even your ability believe God and trust Him, even that was performed for you by Jesus. By becoming a man he fulfilled every obligation of on humanity for salvation.

Not splitting hairs but hope to reaffirm that the faith we are to have is faith in a Person who did it all for us…. We do need to believe… but we need to be a believing person and not in our own ability to believe or a faith formula.

So, what does that look like. You say God I don’t have enough faith for this or that. And he says its ok. Jesus does. “Do you believe in Him; do you believe you are in Him… cause that thing your believing for and not having faith… its actually already yours in Christ. Just see that, just draw on your union with Him.”

This is why John writes, “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” 1 John 5:4-5.

Overcoming faith is faith that Jesus is the Son of God. And if you have that faith, and that faith alone, according to verse 4, you HAVE overcome the world.

If you have the Son, you have life. If you are in Him, you have overcome. If your faith is that you believe Jesus is the Christ, you’re in. If you believe he is the Son of God, you’re in. If you have the Son, you have life. But the problem is, we get so easily distracted that we can start to have faith in God for Jesus plus.

E.G. I believe in Jesus plus.  I believe God will heal me, bless me, work miracles, or give me strength, make me loving. Not realizing that the healing, the blessing, the miracles, the strength, the love, it all flows from the inner dwelling of Christ within. It’s all bound up in Him. God doesn’t give you Jesus plus a blessing. The blessing is he places you in Christ, Christ in you, and out of the Rock of Christ within flows the living water  that brings all the blessings.

So is about faith. And a simple faith that Jesus is the Christ, that’s it. And from here we can unpack what that is. OR, if you need help believing that, God has given us three witness in the Earth that this testimony of God is true, that Jesus is the Christ, and that in Him alone is life, the overcoming life of God.

1 John 5:6-12 Three witnesses – Spirit, Water, Blood. I believe taken from OT, from his traditions as a Jew. See them in Leviticus 8 and the procedure for consecration or ordaining a priest. 

Parallels between this public process and Jesus public ministry launch.

 Leviticus 8:5-6,
5 Moses said to the assembly, “This is what the Lord has commanded to be done.” 6 Then Moses brought Aaron and his sons forward and washed them with water.’

Then Lev. 8:10-12
“He poured some of the anointingoil on Aaron’s head and anointed him to consecrate him.”

Lev. 8:22-24
“Moses slaughtered the ram and took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot.”

The Spirit…

At the baptism of Jesus, at the public revealing of Jesus at the start of His public ministry we see the Spirit, coming down like a dove.

John 15:26 “But when the [a]Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

Even the conviction he brings to the world of sin and righteousness revolves round the Person of Jesus. John 16:9-10 “of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see me no more”

John 16:14(NKJV)
14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare itto you.

If you want to know what God is saying, what the Spirit is up to, look no further than Jesus Christ. It is Holy Spirit’s chief job description and full-blown passion to make known the Son of God. At the heart of it, that’s what the gifts are for, that’s what His ministry in you is all about. Manifesting the real you, the divine nature, the nature and expression of Christ in You, is all about making Jesus known.

WATER
Jesus had no need to be baptized with John’s baptism of repentance. But Jesus did say to John when John didn’t want to do it “Permit it to be so, for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Mathew 3:15 So he wasn’t saying he needed to become righteous, he always was of course.

What I think he is saying here is this: I am about to publicly go for it, my Father directed me here, and we need to do what is done, required and expected of all those consecrated to God’s service, the priesthood. And in so doing Jesus was saying whether you believe the law to be God given or an accommodation, Jesus was saying I am coming as the predicted one and I am entering my public ministry as the Consecrated and The Anointed of God. 

Leviticus 8:3 we see that this whole consecration business was to be done in front of the whole gathered congregation at the tent of meeting. And the priest would be washed in front of the whole congregation at the tent of meeting.

Awesome thing about Jesus baptism is it was also a place of meeting, where the Father spoke to all in attendance “This is My beloved Son, in him I am well pleased,” thus indicating that from now on the work of the priesthood is done by the sons of God and from a place of approval and blessing, not duty, law, and sterile servanthood. 

The Blood
At His baptism, if you can hear this, symbolically, prophetically, mystically, the blood was there when John the Baptist seeing Jesus cries out “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the whole world.”

The blood speaks. Hebrews 12:24 speaks about the blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Blood says: it says it is finished, it says that there is no more sacrifices required, it shows us that God does not need our sacrifices, he provides his own. It shows us the depth of human sin that we would be willing to kill our own loving Creator, yet it also shows us the depth of our Creator’s love for us, that he would be willing to die at our hands, misunderstood by the very people he came to set the record straight to.

The blood shows us that Jesus is the Christ. Only an act so unselfish as His, only an act that could reveal the self-sacrificial love of God to that extent, only the shedding of his own blood could speak a word loud enough and clear enough to get us to see that is not actually God who requires our lives, but God who gives his life for us. Only the cry of the blood of God could speak a word so penetrating and powerful to set the record straight and liberate us from the word engrained in us through the knowledge of good and evil.

And only the blood of the Messiah works. Whatever you think about it, the blood is the only remedy for your guilt. Hebrews 9:14 tells us “how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works serve the living God.”  Only the blood can speak louder than your guilty conscience, and only the blood has the transformative power to expatiate, or destroy sin, not just cover it up or change its definition.

Conclusion:
Embrace God’s testimony; “he has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son.

Embrace the handles he has given for it. Listen to the testimony of God… and know that His testimony is not over. He is testifying again through each of us, over and over.

John 15:26-27 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me. AND YOU ALSO will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”

Another way that God the Spirit testifies…
Romans 8:16(NIV)“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

Not just a little pat on the back saying “yup, you’re in.”
This testifying leads to an unpacking of what it means to be a Son, to live as the Son or Daughter you are, and to fully manifest it.

367 1 John Series# 8, Sprirt, Water & Blood, PowerPoint Slides

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