Today's Devotion
Thursday, December 11, 2025 - 1 John 5:1-21
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
St. John stood at the cross. As our Lord was dying, He gave His mother to John. And John shares details from the cross that the other evangelists don’t. One thing that made a strong impression on “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:7) was when the soldier pierced His heart with a spear. John saw this with His own eyes, “He who saw it has borne witness – his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth.” John saw “blood and water” flow out of our Lord’s heart. And John reports this detail “that you also may believe” (John 19:24-25).
John sees the connection between the cross and the manger. For not only did Jesus issue forth blood and water at His death, He “came by water and blood” when He was born. And our Triune God has left us a threefold testimony: “the Spirit and the water and the blood” and “these three agree.” The Holy Spirit works through the physical means of the body of Christ as the very “testimony of God,” and we continue to experience the water and the blood from the body of Christ as testimonies of God’s saving incarnation. We are washed by the water, cleansed by the blood, and we become members of the body of Christ, the church. And these three also agree. And John testifies that we also may believe.
For “whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.” But “whoever does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son.”
And so we read St. John’s Gospel, that is, his Spirit-inspired written testimony of the Good News of our Lord’s incarnation and death. For when God became incarnate, He was able to be born – and was able to die – as a man. This is God’s testimony, and it is John’s testimony. It is not only the testimony of a man, but of God. These two agree, even in the person of Jesus. But in the water, the blood, and the Spirit, we have three divine witnesses in addition to John’s testimony. “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”
John writes unto one end – as he repeats both here and in his Gospel – “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” John writes not only to convince us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but also that we may have “confidence… toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.”
And it isn’t our own goodness or willpower that causes us to shun sin and impels us to do good works, but rather Jesus. Our faith, our confidence, our hope is in Christ and in His promises – promises that are signed and sealed and delivered by the Spirit and the water and the blood. And it is this incarnation and cross of Jesus that does not allow “the evil one to touch” us. It is by this testimony of the Spirit, the Word of God, the water and the blood that “we know that we are from God,” even as “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
John’s last words for us in this letter, having testified that Jesus is our true God, is simple: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I think what stands out for me is the last part: “It is not only the testimony of a man, but of God“. Sadly, all false religions refuse to believe that; nevertheless, when Jesus returns on the Last Day, “Every knee will bow and
every tongue will confesss that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Philippians 2:11
I'm always very moved by St. John's example, standing with Christ at the cross. I would guess that Jesus felt horrible that his other 11 male friends deserted him in that moment. To me, that would've been one of the most grievous aspects of the whole ordeal.