The Three Witnesses and those who believe. There are some who do not.

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 I John 5:6-12 Witnesses to Christ & What Does it Mean to Believe?

I have been reading again slowly through The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.  Let me share one portion that relates to our faith in Christ for eternal life: "

Ignorant- I think of God and heaven.

Christian- So do the devils and the damned souls.

Ign- My heart is a good one.

Ch- But how do you prove that?

Ig-It comforts me in hopes of heaven.

Ch- That may be through its deceifulness; for a man's heart may minister comfort to him in the hopes of that thing, for which he has yet no ground to hope... Who told thee that thy heart and life agree together?

Ig- My heart tells me so

Ch- Except the Word of God bears witness...other testimony is of no value.

---It goes for several pages, but it appears Ignorance has never trusted in Christ for salvation, and he sees no relation to his life in how he lives it.  This got me thinking. How many of us may know the truths of Scripture and good theology, but we have not applied them to our situations that we struggle with so dearly?

Or we may not have been born from above, or as some say born again?  Our hearts must be regenerated.

---this Sunday we are looking at the word martus, or witness in this section.  Biblehub.com  mar-too-reh'-o)

Definition: to bear witness, testify

Usage: I witness, bear witness, give evidence, testify, give a good report

Deut 9:15 talks about witness, "  a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed."

1.  There are three that bear witness. The Spirit, the water and the blood. v 8

Also we hear in v. 7, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost are bearing  record, orig is witness, kjv is bear record .

The water ---Baptism of Jesus?  Matthew 3:15-17   " This is My Son, the Beloved"

---we said before there was a false teacher John spoke against antichrists .  The false teacher was teaching that the Christ descended upon Jesus at His baptism, and left Him at the Cross.

The blood- I see this and agree that it is John's earlier comment in his Gospel, 19:33-35 " but one of the Soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knows that he says true, that ye might believe."

The Spirit bears witness to Jesus. 4:2 

I Corinthians 12:3 " ...no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost"

Agreement- At the trial of Jesus the witnesses did not agree see Mark 14: 56,59  but the witnesses agree.  5:9 we receive the witness of men; the witness of God is greater.  

5:10 " The one who does not believe ( present tense) God has made Him a liar because he has not believed ( perfect) in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son ( perfect tense)."

2.  Results of this witness

Eternal life.  5:11 in His Son. 

He who has the Son has life Present active verb here. Presently and forever.  v. 12

We having believed have the witness in ourselves v. 10  

" He that has not the Son has not life"  

There are those who have not believed.  And John says that person has made God a liar. 

At the end of talking with " Ignorance" in The Pilgrim's Progress,  Bunyan has the two characters, Hope and Christian in a dialogue about why some people do not believe:  1.  " Though the consciences of such men are awakened, yet their minds are not changed"  ---" when the power of guilt wears away, that which provoked them to be religious ceases"

2. " Another reason is that they have slavish fears that do overmaster them"

3.  " The shame that attends religion lies also as a block in their way....religion becomes low and contemptible; therefore when they have lost their sense of hell and the wrath to come, they return again to their former course"

4. " once they are rid of the awakenings about the terrors and wrath of God, they harden their hearts gladly, and choose such ways as will harden them more and more."

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.


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