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Does
1 John 5:7,8 prove that
there is a trinity,
or that Jesus is Yahweh (Jehovah)?:
Restoration Light Bible
Study Services
HOMEPAGE
"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 witness in earth,]
the spirit, and the water, and
the blood: and these three agree in one."
This is the only
passage in the whole Bible
that gives any color to the trinity or "oneness"
doctrines. However, the bracketed portion (see above) of this passage
is almost universally
recognized as an interpolation. It first crept into the Greek text in
the fourteenth century. It is true
that some late Latin, Vulgate MSS., copied not more than five centuries
before, do contain it.
This interpolation was first inserted into some Vulgate manuscript and
was in the
fourteenth century translated into the first Greek text having it. Had
this text been in the Bible
when the trinitarian controversies were going on, in the fourth to the
eighth centuries, certainly
the trinitarians who were hard pressed by their opponents to produce
such a text, would have
used it as a proof text. But none of them ever appealed to John as the
author of this, for the good reason that it was then not in the Bible.
It doubtless crept into the Latin text by a copyist taking it from the
margin, where it was written by somebody as his comment on the text,
and inserting it into the Latin text itself, from which, as just said,
it was first translated into a Greek manuscript in the fourteenth
century. The next Greek manuscript that contains it is from the
fifteenth century.
<>Additionally,
Ivan Pain, who was a
trinitarian, gave added testimony that the portion in question
does not belong through his Biblical numerics. More than likely Panin,
being a trinitarian, would
like to have proved the portion as genuine with Biblical numerics, but
could not do so; thus he
came to the conlcusion that it must be spurious. See our website page
on Biblical Numerics:
http://reslight.net/l-numerics.html
Thus without the
added phrase, the verse reads in context: "This is he that came by
water and blood, [even] Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with
the water and with the blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three who bear
witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree
in one." -- 1 John 5:6-8, American Standard Version.
These three
witnesses spoken of agree in one testimony. The context shows that it
is God's testimony concerning His Son. "If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater." (1 John 5:4,9) As the Son is the great
expression or revelation of the Father, we should expect this important
testimony of the three witnesses to have reference to the revelation of
God's love for the world. "God is Love," (1 John 4:16) and He wants us
to believe it. Let Paul speak: "Because the love of God is shed abroad
[made known] in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us."
(Romans 5:5) Here is one of the three witnesses telling us of God's
love for us while we were yet sinners. How are we to know that love?
What is the Spirit's testimony --the record that God gives concerning
His Son?
We thus have the
testimony of the spirit, in that Jesus was anointed, or made christ, by
means of the holy spirit, the power of which was seen in the works of
God that were performed through Jesus, and it is the spirit that
witnesses to the believer (especially by means of the Bible writers)
concerning Jesus. -- Isaiah 61:1; Matthew 4:1; 12:18,28; Mark 1:12;
Luke 4:1,14,18; John 3:34; 14:26; 15:26; Acts 1:2; 10:38; 1 Corinthians
2:10.
We know that the
Textus Receptus has the added words "in heaven the Father, the Word and
the holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear
witness in earth."
If these words
are omitted from the text, it is simple and easy
to be understood, and fully in accord with all the remainder of the
Scriptures; but with these words in the text, as they have stood for
centuries, confusion is produced; for nonsense is asserted. For
instance, with these words remaining in the text, the sense would be
that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit agreed in bearing one
testimony in heaven, namely, that Jesus is the Christ. Who
is there in heaven ignorant of the fact that Jesus is the Christ? To
whom, therefore, would it be necessary for the Father, the Son and the
holy Spirit to bear this record or testimony? None.
Assuming that this scripture is valid, what does it state? That there are three are beaing witness in heaven. Who and of what are they bearing witness to in heaven? Perhaps to the angels? Maybe. Conerning what? The context: "Jesus is the Son of God". (1 John 5:5) Do the angels in heaven need this witness borne to them? If the witness is in heaven, the context, shows that it the witness is actually for humans on earth: "Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" By world, John is speaking of the world of mankind into which Jesus came (John 1:10), not the world of the angels, nor even the world of the material universe.
Nevertheless,
even if
we do assume that the
bracketed portion of the verse is genuine, it still would not prove
that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God. This only says that
in some way these three are one.
The Greek word
used for "one" here is hen
(Strong's # 1520). This is neuter
in Greek, not heis, masculine, or mia, feminine.
The phrase that
is used in Greek, however, to
describe the trinity is "treis
hypostaseis en mia ousia", ("three persons in one substance"), or "mia
ousia, treis hypostaseis" ("One essence in three persons"). With this
in
mind let us see if this really applies, either in John 10:30 or John
5:7,8.
John could not
have been referring to the
Father, Son and holy spirit as one God, for the masculine word Theos
(Greek God) cannot be supplied; for the Greek word for "one" in that
case would have to be heis (masculine for one). Nor can
the Greek word for being or substance (ousia) be supplied after it,
because
ousia is feminine, which would require the feminine of one, mia. We
would
have to supply a neuter noun, e.g., like pneuma (as meaning
disposition)* after
hen in this text: "these three are one (hen) disposition." It could not be
theos (God) or ousia (Being), which would respectively require the
masculine
heis and the feminine mia.
==========
*http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=4151
Whatever is
meant by their being one, the same
meaning would also have to
apply to the oneness of Jesus and the Father with the church, for Jesus
prayed: "That they may be one as we are." (John 17:11) "That they may
all be
one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may
be one
in us." -- John 17:21.
When Jesus
prayed (John 17:11,21,22) that all
of the saints may be one (hen,
not heis, nor mia) he did not pray that they be all one being or one
God,
which would be nonsense, but that their unity may be one in mind, heart
and
will. Since the oneness for which He prayed for them was not a oneness
of
being or oneness of nature as the Supreme Being, the oneness between
Him and
the Father cannot be that of being, because Jesus in John 17:11,22
prays
that the oneness for which He prayed on their behalf be patterned after
the
oneness that exists between the Father and himself: "That they may be
one as
we are." Hence the oneness between the Father and Jesus is not one of
being,
nor as one God, but one of mind, heart and will. Moreover Jesus defines
this
oneness in verse 21 as follows: "that they all may be one, as thou,
Father,
art in me [Yahweh was in Jesus by his holy spirit, (John 14:17,20) and
I in
thee [Jesus was in the Father (John 14:10,11,20) by accepting and
keeping
the Father as his head, i.e,, by his being and remaining in the
consecrated
attitude.
Hence 1 John 5:7
does not by the Greek word hen prove that the Father and
Son are one being (essence, ousia) any more than 1 Corinthians 3:8 proves by the word
hen
that Paul and Apollos were one being; but the same word and form of
that
word, proving Paul and Apollos to one in heart, mind and will, gives
presumptive evidence that the same word and form that word in John
10:30
proves the same of the Father and Son.
1 Corinthians
3:23; 11:3 are passages that
also strongly prove Jesus'
inferiority to the Father, and the Father's being the Supreme Being,
"that
[thus the Father and the Son, by their spirit, disposition, being in
them
and they by their spirit of consecration, being in them (1 John 5:20;
Colossians 3:3; 1 Corinthians 12:12,13] they also may be one in us . .
.
that they may be one, even as we are one." Thus these verses prove that
the
same kind of oneness as exists between the saints, also exists between
the
Father and Son and vice versa. Therefore, since the oneness that exists
between the saints is not oneness of being or of the nature of being
the
Supreme Being, but one of heart, mind, and will, the oneness that
exists
between the Father and Son is not one of being or of the nature of
being the
Supreme Being, but one of will, heart, and mind.
Additionally,
we might say, if the logic
were valid that the oneness of the three in 1 John 5:7 must be that of
being, we would have to say that Paul and Appolos were one being (1
Corinthians 3:6-8)! Of course Jesus and his Son are two separate
beings. Hen being used of them in 1 Corinthians 3:8 (not mia, which
would be necessary to agree with the feminine ousia, being) proves that
their oneness was not one of being but of spirit, disposition. -- Acts
4:32; 1 Corinthians 1:10; Ephesians 4:3-6,13; Philippians 1:27; 2:2;
4:2.
The Father,
Son, and holy spirit are one in
disposition, one in heart, mind, purpose and will; but not one
God. The Bible nowhere states that there are three persons in one God.
Nor does it ever say that
there is a being called God who is more than one person. In the Bible,
one person IS one personal
being, and one personal being IS one person always, and never more than
one.
Futhermore,
if the Father and the Son were
but one omniscient being, they would be the same sentient being -- having the same sentiency, and they could not be the two beings bearing required witness, as John 8:17,18 says they were, since the law required at least two different beings to be witnesses sufficient to establish a matter. But since they gave sufficient witness, they must be two beings. Therefore their oneness is not that of being -- for they are two beings. It must be that of mind, heart and will. Accordingly, John 10:30 does not prove the Son's equality with the Father. Rather, it proves the Son's subordination to the Father. John 17:21,
which shows the kind of unity that exists between them to be connected
with the Son's being in
the Father, implies that the Father is the Son's head that the Son is
His in the sense that believers
are Christ's, in subordination to him. Thus Jesus must be subordinate
to the only true Supreme Being (John 17:1,3; 1 Corinthians 3:23; 11:3),
even as the headship of Christ makes the Church subordinate to Christ
(Colossians
1:18; Ephesians 1:22,23; 4:15; 5:23,24, compared with Colossians 3:19).
It was Satan
who, in producing a
counterfeit for everything in the Bible, counterfeited the true
God as one Being composed of three persons. This unbiblical,
unreasonable and unfactual
distinction between the words *person* and *being* when referring to a
personal being should be
avoided. It is surely an error invented by Satan to deceive -- a work
of darkness, a self-contradiction, which no one can understand or
explain, while Bible doctrines are all explainable
and understandable.
Last update:
May 14, 2006.
For more information on the
web about 1 John 5:7, see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JohnOneOne/links/Sites_About_1_John_5_001026493109/
For more information
about
the trinity and oneness
doctrines, see:
Jesus and His God
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