28. To these two John adds a third witness, "the Spirit." The Spirit
bears witness with the water and the blood; in fact, through these
other two he operates. It is the Holy Spirit himself; not as he is
invisible up in heaven in his divine essence, but the Spirit who
publicly manifests himself through his external office and permits
himself to be heard through his Word. As John here asserts, the Spirit
bears witness on earth with both the water and the blood.
29. Neither Moses nor any other teacher in his doctrines of personal
effort and external purifications, his washings and his sprinklings of
the blood of sheep and goats--no such teacher brings and gives the
Spirit. With them is no Spirit, no divine power, no regeneration of
man. Any unbelieving, spiritless, wicked knave can exercise human
effort and practice physical cleansing. But Christ alone brings with
him the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies us
through the blood and water issuing from the divine side. The Spirit
makes us partakers of its cleansing influence through the external
office of preaching and through the sacraments, which are called the
office and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Through these the Spirit works in
the Christian Church just as he did at first, among the apostles on
the Day of Pentecost, and will continue to do in the whole world, unto
the last day. Without his ministration we would never obtain, nor know
anything about, the saving power of Christ's blood in baptism.
30. Such is the kingdom Christ unceasingly develops through the
Christian Church. In him we have eternal purification when to the
water is added the Spirit, who through the Word enkindles the heart
and purifies it, not with the cleansing qualities of the water alone,
but with the healing efficacy of the blood of Christ, whereby sins are
exterminated and God's wrath appeased. Although the work of our
redemption was wrought once for all in Christ's blood shed upon the
cross and is sufficient to cancel the sins of the entire world, yet
Christ so instituted it that the same efficacy should remain forever,
and be daily distributed and offered to us through the Holy Spirit.
31. This work of the Holy Spirit is neither received nor perceived
except through faith in this witness, the preached word of
Christ--when with the heart man grasps it and confidently believes it
is fulfilled in himself as the Word declares. Thus is the heart really
cleansed, the individual born anew, through the Holy Spirit present in
the sacred cleansing of water and of the blood of Christ.
Peter (1 Pet 1, 2) speaks of the sanctification of Christians as the
"sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" upon us by the Holy Spirit
through the public preaching of the Gospel. This sprinkling radically
differs from the Jewish sprinkling of water, or of the ashes of a red
heifer, or of the blood of a dead lamb or goat, round about the altar
and upon the applicants for purification. In the sanctification of
Christians, the true consecrated water and the sprinkled blood of
Christ are combined; that is, the message concerning the shed blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ is "sprinkled," so to speak, upon the soul, and
wherever that Word touches the soul it is effective. The blood in this
case is not the ineffective, lifeless blood of a slain animal, but the
potent, living blood of the Son of God. Under its application the soul
cannot remain impure. Christ's blood purifies and heals from sin and
death; it strikes at their very foundation, and entirely releases us
from their power and grants us eternal life for soul and body.
32. Note, this text is a grand sermon on the witness Christians have
here on earth, which the apostle in concluding explains and extols in
beautiful and comforting words. He calls it a witness that God himself
bears to his Son and that serves to assure us of being the children of
God and possessors of eternal life. For he says: "And the witness is
this, that God gave unto us eternal life," etc. This is indeed an
excellent witness, which God himself witnesses and declares to you,
and the Holy Spirit brings and reveals to you. God cannot lie nor
deceive, he is the eternal, unchangeable truth, as already mentioned.
If you believe this witness, you certainly have received and possess
it, as John again says: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in him."