Reflections with Andy - 1 John 5: 6-12 – Testimony
Three things give testimony to Jesus: the Spirit, water, and blood. What does that mean?
In this Monday reflection on 1 John 5:6–12, John’s three witnesses — the Spirit, the water, and the blood — are unpacked through the lens of Wesleyan theology to show how each one gives unified testimony to the same truth: eternal life is found in Jesus, and only in Jesus. The Spirit is the agent of prevenient grace, always going before us, calling, convicting, justifying, and sanctifying. The water is baptism — the sign of the new covenant, functioning as circumcision did under the old, marking us as God’s covenant people. And the blood is the atoning work of Christ, by which our sins are washed away and through which we feast at the communion table — the sacraments themselves flowing from the wounded side of Jesus. Together, these three testify to the same thing: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life. It’s only ever about Jesus.
Join us for our daily reflections with Andy. In 10 short minutes, he’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help you better understand God’s Word.
You can read today’s passage here.
Click here if you’d like to join our GroupMe and receive this each morning at 7:00 a.m. CST.
Subscribe through Spotify -
Subscribe through Apple Podcasts -
Or, if you’d like to read the transcript of the video, keep reading!
Good morning! Great to be with you on this Monday. Hope you have a wonderful week ahead. Things are a little busy on my end — if you follow me on social media, you may already know that we’re moving at the end of annual conference. I’ll be the new Senior Pastor at First United Methodist Church in Starkville, which means it’ll be time to say goodbye to my beloved Saint Matthew’s, and hello to the next chapter. We’re hoping to list the house this Wednesday — Madison/Gluckstadt area, Germantown school zone, great schools — so if you’re looking, I can hook you up. If you see me covered in paint between now and Wednesday, now you know why.
We’re almost done with First John — tomorrow we’ll finish it out, then we’ll move through Second John, Third John, and Jude. Today we’re in chapter 5, verses 6 through 12:
“This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
Once again, John brings us back to the center: it’s all about Jesus. Eternal life doesn’t come through denominational affiliation, theological commitment, or political allegiance. This is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. That’s it. That’s what it’s about.
So what is this testimony — the Spirit, the water, and the blood? Let me unpack each one, because I think this is rich territory, especially for those of us in the Wesleyan tradition.
The Spirit. In our United Methodist, Wesleyan theology, we believe in prevenient grace — the grace that goes before us, always calling, always present, always working in our lives before we even know it. James says every good gift comes from the Father, and I love thinking about it that way: if something good is in your life, that’s God’s grace already at work. The Spirit is the agent of that grace — calling us into salvation, convicting us of sin, leading us to confess Christ as Lord, and then continuing to sanctify us and grow us deeper in our walk with him. If you can confess Jesus Christ as Lord, it is because the Spirit who lives in you has made that possible.
The water. That’s baptism. In our tradition, baptism functions similarly to circumcision in the Old Testament — every covenant God makes has a sign. Noah had the rainbow. Abraham had circumcision — the mark that said these are my covenant people. Moses had the law at Sinai. David had the kingship. And we, as people of the new covenant, have baptism. That’s why we practice infant baptism in the United Methodist Church — because in the same way children were circumcised under the old covenant to mark them as part of the covenant community, we baptize children to show they belong to God’s covenant people. And then, just as that child grew and had to embrace their covenant identity as their own, our children confirm that gift — they claim for themselves what was given to them. Baptism marks us. It makes us Christ’s own.
The blood. I know that language can feel strange to modern ears — I’ve had seminary professors who advised against what the hymnal sometimes jokingly calls the “blood songs.” But I love them. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. There’s a medieval painting I think about often — I can’t remember the painter, but it depicts the moment on the cross when the soldier pierced Jesus’s side and blood and water flowed out together. In the painting, angels are catching what flows from Christ’s side: the ones collecting the blood hold a chalice for communion, and the ones collecting the water hold a baptismal font. I love that image because it shows us that the sacraments themselves flow from Jesus — through them, we receive the grace of his life poured out for us. This is my blood, shed for you — do this in remembrance of me. The blood of Jesus takes us straight back to Passover, where the blood of a perfect lamb on the doorframe meant salvation. The blood of Jesus washes us clean. It speaks.
So these three — Spirit, water, blood — give testimony together. And what is their unified testimony? God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. That’s what they all point to. The grace that calls and saves, the baptism that marks and claims, the blood that washes and feeds — all of it testifies to Jesus. All of it leads to Jesus. All of it is about Jesus.
It’s only ever about Jesus, friends. Only Jesus truly saves. Only Jesus truly gives life. Only Jesus can bear the full weight of our souls. That’s the testimony of God, and it’s the only testimony that ultimately matters.
So let’s live fully and joyfully in his name today. Tomorrow we finish First John. See you in the morning!