Add or Remove III: What Happened to the Trinity Verse of 1 John 5:7-8?

A Christian friend told me a long time ago about the New International Version (NIV) being an untrustworthy translation of the Bible. Unscrupulous individuals were alleged to have removed verses from the NIV. They tampered with the text and corrupted God’s Word. Only the text of King James Version (KJV) of the Bible preserved the Scriptures whole and untampered.^[1]

This NIV conspiracy was validated just by flipping over to 1 John 5:7-8. There I read:

For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

However, the same passage in the KJV read:

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.

Absent from the NIV are the words, “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” Moreover, this extension — often referred to as the Comma Johanneum or Johannine comma — makes a clear declaration of the Trinity, which made the problem all the more significant.

Even other modern translations were considered just as corrupt since they too followed the shorter reading of 1 John 5:7-8.^[2]

I had been told that nineteenth century Bible scholars Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and F.J.A. Hort (1828-1892) were the culprits accused of tampering with the Bible. Their published Greek New Testament contained the shorter reading of 1 John 5:7-8. But the unadulterated Greek New Testament was the Textus Receptus produced by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536). The Textus Receptus with Comma Johanneum was the Greek text used by the KJV translators.

Only the KJV preserved the Scriptures fully intact,^[3]and if I wanted to read the best translation, I had to read the KJV, so I was advised. I uncritically and mistakenly took to heart that information or better put misinformation.

Addition Not Subtraction: All the textual evidence we possess today actually weighs in favor of the shorter reading of 1 John 5:7-8. In fact, the Comma Johanneum is absent in the vast majority of the extant ancient Greek manuscripts, and it is mainly found as a variant reading penned in the margins.^[4] Moreover, it can be pointed out that: “None of the early Greek fathers quotes the words, and it is quite certain that had they known of them, they would have used them in the ancient Trinitarian debates. None of the ancient versions supports the gloss, including the early editions of the (Latin) Vulgate. The words first appear in a fourth-century Latin treatise (not a biblical manuscript), after which some Latin fathers start to use them.”^[5] All the external evidence falls in favor of the Johannine comma being a subsequent addition to the biblical text.

Here is how the Comma Johanneum entered into the Textus Receptus.^[6] Erasmus was commissioned by publisher Johann Froben to produce a Greek New Testament. A Greek copy of the whole New Testament was unavailable, but Erasmus used several semi-complete manuscripts that were available to him, and occasionally backwards translated passages from Latin Vulgate into Greek, as in the cases of Acts 9:6 and the last six verses of the Apocalypse. Erasmus’ Greek New Testament was first published in 1516 and many copies were sold. The second edition of the Textus Receptus came to be used by Martin Luther (1483-1546) for his German translation of the Bible. One of the main criticisms levied against the early editions of the Textus Receptus came from scholar Diego Lopez de Zuñiga, who indicated Erasmus’ Greek New Testament lacked the Trinitarian statement in the longer reading of 1 John 5:7-8, i.e., the Comma Johanneum. The response to the criticism changed everything:

Erasmus replied that he had not found any Greek manuscripts containing these words, though he had in the meanwhile examined several others besides those on which he relied when first preparing his text. In an unguarded moment Erasmus promised that he would insert the Comma Johanneum, as it is called, in future editions if a single Greek manuscript could be found that contained the passage. At length such a copy was found —or was made to order! As it now appears, the Greek manuscript had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the Latin Vulgate. Erasmus stood by his promise and inserted the passage in his third edition (1522), but he indicates in a lengthy footnote his suspicions that the manuscript had been prepared expressly in order to confute him.^[7]

Erasmus thus under protest adds the Comma Johanneum in the third edition of the Textus Receptus! The Textus Receptus with the Comma Johanneum informs the 1611 KJV.

Many ancient manuscripts of the Scriptures have been discovered since Erasmus, and these witnesses favor the shorter reading of 1 John 5:7-8. This is the reason the NIV and most other modern translations of the Bible use the shorter reading in the main body of the text but preserve a translation of the Comma Johanneum in a footnote.

Spirit Water and Blood: Jesus Christ is identified as “the one who came by water and blood” and “not by the water only but by the water and the blood (1 Jn. 5:6).^[8] What does this mean? It is best to take “water as referring to the baptism of Jesus, at which he was declared the Son and commissioned and empowered for his work, and blood to his death in which his work was finished.”^[9]

John’s declaration that Jesus came by water and blood challenges theological controversy within the first century church at Ephesus. A heretic named Cerinthus espoused Jesus to be mere man born from the union of Mary and Joseph and that the Christ descended upon Jesus at the baptism but departed before the cross. This heresy separated the man Jesus from the Christ, and “it was to refute this fundamental error that John, knowing that Jesus was the Christ before and during the baptism and during and after the cross, described him as ‘the one who came through water and blood.’”^[10]

All this is more than discussions on abstract theological principles. Here is what is at stake: “If the Son of God did not take to himself our nature in his birth, and our sins in his death, he cannot reconcile us to God. So John emphasizes not just that he came, but especially that he came by water and blood, since it is his blood which cleanses from sin (1:7).”^[11] We would never be able to reconnect with God, unless God first came to us through the water and blood.

Jesus Christ came by both water and blood, and this is confirmed by the inner testimonial of the Holy Spirit (1 Jn. 5:6). The Lord taught that “when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (Jn. 15:26). Paul, likewise, declared that “no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).

The Spirit, water and blood are united as a threefold testimony (1 Jn. 5:7-8). This threefold testimonial is significant because “according to the law no charge could be preferred against an accused person in court unless it could be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:15; cf. Jn. 8:17-19).”^[12] God is ultimately behind this threefold testimony of the Spirit, water, and blood concerning Jesus Christ. “This is the testimony, that 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 (1 Jn. 5:11-12).

God comes to us and shows us the way to go. He gets baptized and goes to the cross. His death redeems sinners and atones for their sin. The Christian convert is, likewise, buried with Christ in water baptism and raised to the new life. This is the initiation into the way that culminates with the resurrection to eternal life at the time the Lord appears a second time to judge the living and the dead. Christians are adopted as sons and daughters into the family of God, and God is intimately involved in ever step of the adoption process.

Trinity: The Comma Johanneum makes a Trinitarian statement, but the doctrine of the Trinity has never hinged upon a single verse. The Trinity is really the central hub of all Christian doctrine expressed through divine revelation communicated through the Scriptures.

What has been shown to us is this: God is one essence (ousia) and three persons or subjects (hypostases), namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Just as there can be musical trio, the three musicians share the same essence (ousia), they are human beings, yet each one is an individual person or subject (hypostases), so too God is one divine essence which just only applies to three individual subjects, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit^[13] The three persons of the Godhead are three centers of consciousness possessing volition. As Hank Hanegraaff puts it: “one What and three Whos.”^[14]

The doctrine of the Trinity is then a threefold biblical truth. First, there is one God. This is most clearly expressed in the beginning of the Jewish Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4).^[15]

Second, the three persons share the same divine nature. The Father is God. This is why Christian prayers are addressed to “our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:5). Jesus Christ is God. The prologue to the Gospel of John tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:1-3, 14). ^[16] Jesus is neither a demigod nor a creature made in the likeness of God but fully divine and fully human in one person. The Holy Spirit is God. Paul taught “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:13) and Peter indicated lying to the Holy Spirit is tantamount to lying to God (Acts 5:3-5). Our verbal assaults upon one another can grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:29-30), which tells us the Spirit is a person, since only a person can grieve.^[17] As such the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.

Third, the three persons are distinct from one another. Scriptures present clear subject-object relationships between the three divine persons. For example, at the baptism of Jesus, the Lord comes up from the water, the Spirit of God descends like a dove, and a voice from heaven says “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16-17; cf. Mk. 1:10-11; Lk. 3:21-22). Prior to being put to death by stoning, the first Christian martyr Stephen was “full of the Holy Spirit,” and he “gazed into heaven a saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55-56).

John 14-16 further illustrates the subject-object relationship between the three persons of the Godhead:

• Christ asks the Father to give us the Helper, i.e., the Paraclete or Holy Spirit, and the Father sends the Spirit in the name of Christ (14:16).
• The Father sends the Helper in the name of Christ and the Spirit teaches and brings to our remembrance the teachings of Christ (14:26)
• Christ sends to us the Spirit from the Father, the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and bears witness about the Christ (15:26)
• Christ goes to the Father, the Spirit comes to us, He convicts the world concerning sin righteousness, and judgment (16:7-11).
• The Spirit guides us in all truth, yet never speaks on His own authority, but He speaks on behalf of Christ. All that the Father has belongs to Christ, and the Holy Spirit takes what belongs to Christ and declares it to us (16:12-15).

These interactions between the three persons of the Trinity demonstrate that they are distinct from one another. The Father is neither the Son nor the Spirit. The Son is neither the Father nor the Spirit. The Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. They interact with one another. Nevertheless, they are one in essence. We do not have three Gods but one God.

Now, our finite minds can never fully comprehend the infinite and any attempt to resolve the mystery of the Trinity ends in folly.^[18] We can only affirm what has been unveiled to us: God is one essence and three persons. Like Moses witnessing the bush with flames emanating from its center yet never being consumed, he beholds the glory of the Lord but can only observe in awe and wonder. We too humbly fall down and worship the glory of the Lord unveiled to us through the Scriptures. 

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1 John 5:6-8 presents images of water and blood to represent the sum total of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry from the baptism in the Jordan River to the crucifixion upon Golgotha. It defends the integrity of the Incarnation. The Christ neither came to Jesus of Nazareth at the baptism nor departed at baptism; rather, the Son of God who came experienced the baptism and crucifixion and the Holy Spirit testifies this. From birth to baptism to death to life everlasting, Jesus is the Christ. He is the Word become flesh, the incarnate deity, the God-man.

The Comma Johanneum comes from the pen of a different hand than John. Nevertheless, this scribal expansion simply affirms what is well-established in the panoply of the Scriptures concerning the Trinity.

— WGN

Ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἡ κοινωνία τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν.^[19]

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[1] The New King James (Thomas Nelson) likewise follows the longer KJV reading of 1 John 5:7-8.

[2] The shorter reading of 1 John 5:7-8 is used in the New American Standard Bible (The Lockman Foundation, 1960), the New Revised Standard Version (National Council of Churches of Christ, 1989), the English Standard Version (Crossway, 2016), the Christian Standard Bible (Holman, 2017), and the New Living Translation (Tyndale, 2015).

[3] Other alleged omissions from the Bible included the ending of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:13), the appearances of the resurrected Christ (Mark 16:9-20) and the woman caught in adultery (Jn. 7:53-8:11).

[4] Cf., the textual apparatus in Matthew Black et al., The Greek New Testament (Federal Republic of Germany: United Bible Societies, 1997).

[5] D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 682.

[6] Information in the following paragraph is gleaned from Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3rd, enlarged ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 98ff.

[7] Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 101.

[8] All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.

[9] John R.W. Stott, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Letters of John, vol. 19(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1988, 1996) 180. The water and blood have also been identified with Christ presence in the receiving of baptism and partaking in the Lord’s Supper. But, John tells us Christ “came by water and blood,” this is past tense, as opposed to a repetitive action into the present and beyond. Others take the water and blood to be an allusion to the blood mingled with water that poured from the wound in the side of the crucified Lord, the infliction being caused by a Roman solider thrusting a spear into victim’s side. But the pericardial fluid is bleeding out of Christ, but John is telling us Christ “came by blood and water” (Ibid. 179-180). I find it best to take the water and blood as a reference to the Lord’s baptism and crucifixion.

[10] Ibid., 180-181

[11] Ibid, 181.

[12] Ibid., 1988, 1996), 183.

[13] A more detailed explanation of the Trinity can be found in Nathan Jacobs, “Understanding Nicene Trinitarianism, Christian Research Journal, 41, 4 [2018] https://www.equip.org/article/understanding-nicene-trinitarianism/. Cf. also discussion on the full divinity and humanity of Christ along with the Trinity in Bradley Nassif, “How was Orthodoxy Established in the Ecumenical Councils,” Christian Research Journal, 40, 6 [2017]: https://www.equip.org/article/how-was-orthodoxy-established-in-the-ecumenical-councils/

[14] Hank Hanegraaff, The Complete Bible Answer Book: Collector’s Edition Revised and Updated (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008, 2016), 51.

[15] Other passages which affirm one God include: Deuteronomy 4:35, 39; 32:39, Psalm. 86:10, Isaiah. 43:10, 44:6, 8; 45:5, 18, 21, 22, John 17:3, 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Galatians 4:8, Ephesians. 4:6, 1 Timothy 2:5, and James 2:19. Cf. discussion in “Deuteronomy 6:4 and the Trinity: How Can Jews and Christians Both Embrace the Echad of the Shema?” Christian Research Journal, 38, 4 [2015]: https://www.equip.org/article/deuteronomy-64-trinity-can-jews-christians-embrace-echad-shema/

[16] Other passages revealing Christ full divinity include: Colossians 1:15-20, Philippians 2:5-11, and Hebrews 1:1-4.

[17] Cf. Bobby Conway, “A Holy Spirit Encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness,” Christian Research Journal, 28, 1 [2016]: https://www.equip.org/article/holy-spirit-encounter-jehovahs-witness/

[18] One mistake is to suppose the three persons are simply modes of existence of the one God, like liquid, crystal, and vapor are modes of water (H₂O) or roles taken on by the one God, like a man takes on role of a husband to a wife, a father to a child, and an employee to an employer. But neither takes into account the relational subject/object distinctions between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Another mistake is to affirm God as Father yet demote the Son as some sort of demigod or creation of God, and take the Holy Spirit to simply be an impersonal force without consciousness nor volition. But such ignores the clear things from the Scriptures about Jesus being fully divine, and the personhood of the Holy Spirit (see paragraph above on the three persons sharing the same divine nature).

[19] “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14)