Pastor John,
What does this mean, from 1John 5?
Who is it who overcomes the world except he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
- This is he who came through water and blood — Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit is what bears witness because the Spirit is truth.
- For there are three that bear witness,
- the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree
Beth D.
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Hi Beth.
As I recall, those verses were tampered with in about the 10th century by Christians in order to make them appear to teach the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Look at the King James Version, and you will see what I am talking about. Those translators used the corrupted Greek text for their translation of 1John.
Our translation, which you quoted, is based on the Byzantine Greek Text, which predates the 10th century corruption; still, the verses are difficult to understand.*
I could come up with a reasonable and understandable interpretation of those verses, as we translated them, but I would rather not. The best thing for us to do, I think, is just to be familiar with them, and trust Jesus to give us perfect understanding of them in his time.
Thanks for the question.
Pastor John
*To view our translation of these verses, please follow the link below.