A verse that can be quoted by most Christians is 1 John 5:7-8 KJV, but have we memorised a proper translation? Before you stop reading, I challenge you to finish the post. Reply with why you disagree or agree.
Monotheism
As a monotheistic (God is One), born again Christian, I believe when it comes to understand how God reveals Himself to the Jewish people then to humanity everywhere, it is simple and clear. Nothing complicated about one God. Monotheistic believers (Jews, Muslims, Oneness Christians, etc.) reject the idea that a Trinity of persons could make up ‘one God.” Oneness Pentecostal believers don’t always agree on every aspect of God’s nature, wither about His Spirit composite, flesh nature, or how they fit together to create the Son of God, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. But all true monotheists reject the idea that this One God could be made up of three co-eternal, co-equal, separate persons (some say that “person” isn’t the western concept of an individual, but i say, “what else is a person?”). It just doesn’t make logical sense nor keep Biblical consistency. I don’t care what a theology’s label, but rather does it match up with the Scripture. Some monotheistic faiths rejects the idea of God taking on flesh of any kind. I disagree. I believe that God is primarily revealed as;
- Father in Creation(omnipresent Spirit),
- Son in Redemption (flesh), and
- Holy Spirit in dealings with men and indwelling(Evidenced 1st by speaking in other tongues [languages]) .
The primary roles or manifestations of God are these three, but God is One. Pure and simple. Three can not be one. But one can have three primary distinct ways of communicating with others.
I am not give a full study on the Godhead in this post. The purpose of this post is to introduce the possibility that these verses might be better translated now with the discovery of older manuscripts, thus, changing how we debate the Godhead using these verses.
Not to long ago most Christians said that they were monotheistic in faith but recently charts put out by Rose Publications on Worldviews has “monotheism” and “Biblical Christianity” as distinct views. Rose Publications’ definitions are fundamentally flawed.
Monotheism – There is only god
Biblical Christianity – There is only one Triune god
Take any basic definition from a dictionary for example:
monotheism [ˈmɒnəʊθɪˌɪzəm] n
(Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the belief or doctrine that there is only one God
monotheist n & adj
monotheistic adj
monotheistically adv
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition 2003. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
But this Rose Publications is putting out charts in all the Christian book stores in the country. Flawed, flawed, flawed.
In Christianity, there are many ways of viewing God’s make-up, but most fall under two main perspectives – Trinitarianism and Oneness. It matters little if you call it monotheism or Biblical Christianity. The main reason Trinitarians would want to not call it monotheism is because they might have to go see how the Jewish people, first monotheistic God worshippers, defined the composite of God. Did they think Jesus was saying He was God the Son or the Son of God? Did they think He was revealing a new pluralistic nature of God? No. They understand what He was saying when He said, I Am. (John 8:58) (Mark 14:61-62) He was saying, He was the God of the Old Testament. Which the Jews knew was a Spirit and One in nature.
1 John 5:7-8
So let’s look at one of the main proof text by Trinitarians: 1 John 5:7-8 KJV
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
Firstly, a person has to take the verse in context and there are plenty of blog posts online dealing with 1 John 5:7-8 KJV within the context of monotheism of the Jewish mindset and other Sonship Biblical studies. But, I want to give a slightly different slant, what if KJV of the verse isn’t the best rendering of the original? What if KJV isn’t correct in its choosing of original manuscripts to use in the translations?
Lets take 1 John 5:7-8 NLT
7
So we have these three witnesses*— 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree.
Let’s look at the study notes in the NLT Study Bible (NLTSB):
1 John 5:7-8 three witnesses: The Spirit descended on Christ at his baptism (see John 1:32-34). The water is the water in which Christ was baptized (see Matt 3:13-15 Mark 1:9-11). The blood is the blood that Christ shed at his crucifixion (see Mark 15:37-39). All three proclaim Jesus as God’s Son (1 John 5:6). • After the phrase three witnesses, a few very late manuscripts add in heaven—the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And we have three witnesses on earth. The longer version was written in Latin several centuries after John to explain the three elements (water, blood, and Spirit) as symbols of the Trinity. This explanation found its way into some Latin editions of 1 John, including later copies of the Latin Vulgate. Eventually, Erasmus translated it into Greek and included it in what became the Textus Receptus, the “received text,” which is why it was included in the King James Version. The longer version cannot be found in any Greek manuscript prior to the 1700s and was never cited by any of the early fathers of the church. For these reasons, few modern English translations recognize the longer version as part of the authentic text.
Notice the line: “The longer version was written in Latin several centuries after John (wrote the original) to explain the three elements (water, blood, and Spirit) as symbols of the Trinity.” The longer version cannot be found in any Greek manuscript before the 1700s and was NEVER cited by any of the early fathers of the church.
We have to remember that the KJV isn’t God’s Word, but a translations of Textus Receptus which was Greek translated from copies of the Latin Vulgate. But no scholars have access to the older manuscript copies of the original writings which are the Word of God.
These three elements are not symbols of the Trinity; they are witnesses, and they all agree or point to the fleshly man, Jesus, as the Son of God, Son being a production or the begotten of Go, and created by God to redeem humanity back to the Spirit (God) was the flesh man.
Other translations of 1 John 5:7-8
Let’s look at how differently other scholars translated this verse into English from manuscripts that was older than the ones used in KJV 1611.
For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
1 John 5:7-8 NIV
For there are three that testify:the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
1 John 5:7-8 NASB
So we have these three witnesses— the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree.
1 John 5:7-8 NLT
For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.
1 john 5:7-8 ESV
In fact, there are three who tell about it. They are the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and they all agree.
1 john 5:7-8 CEV
So there are three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three witnesses agree.
1 john 5:7-8 NCV
For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood —and these three are in agreement.
1 john 5:7-8 HCSB
For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
1 john 5:7-8 (Today’s New International Version)
Footnotes Today’s New International Version:
1. Late manuscripts of the Vulgate testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the (not found in any Greek manuscript before the fourteenth century)
Commentaries on 1 John 5:7-8
What do some of the Bible Scholars say in their commentaries?
Barnes’ New Testament Notes says,
Missing in Early Text:
It is wanting[missing] in all the earlier Greek manuscripts, for it is found in no Greek Ms. written before the sixteenth century.
No mentioned in the early church debates:
It is never quoted by the Greek fathers in their controversies on the doctrine of the Trinity–a passage which would be so much in point, and which could not have failed to be quoted if it were genuine; and it is not referred to by the Latin fathers until the time of Vigilius, at the end of the fifth century. If the passage were believed to be genuine–nay, if it were known at all to be in existence, and to have any probability in its favour–it is incredible that in all the controversies which occurred in regard to the Divine nature, and in all the efforts to define the doctrine of the Trinity, this passage should never have been referred to. But it never was; for it must be plain to any one who examines the subject with an unbiased mind, that the passages which are relied on to prove that it was quoted by Athanasius, Cyprian, Augustin, etc., (Wetstein, II., p. 725,) are not taken from this place, and are not such as they would have made if they had been acquainted with this passage, and had designed to quote it.
Adam Clarke’s 1810/1825 commentary and critical notes on the Bible says,
But it is likely this verse is not genuine.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) says,
All the old versions omit the words. The oldest manuscripts of the Vulgate omit them.
Robertson’s Word Pictures says,
At this point the Latin Vulgate gives the words in the Textus Receptus, found in no Greek MS. save two late cursives (162 in the Vatican Library of the fifteenth century, 34 of the sixteenth century in Trinity College, Dublin)
Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition says,
It is generally agreed that v.7 has no real authority, and has been inserted. 1 John 5:7 KJV.
John MacArthur, answering a letter concerning his position on KJV,
Perhaps the biggest error of fact that you report concerns 1 John 5:7-8. You claim that it was a part of the original manuscript and should, therefore, be included in any Bible. You and I both cling lovingly and tightly to the tri-unity of God. It is taught in numerous places in both testaments. To say that the deletion of the phrase in verse 7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are One” is to deny the tri-unity of God is not true.
Have you really read the textual history of that particular manuscript? Let me give you a summary. The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except four, and these four contain the passage of what appears to be a translation from a late translation of the Latin Vulgate. These four manuscripts are dated very, very late. The passage is quoted by none of the Greek fathers, who, if they had known it, would certainly have used it in the trinitarian controversies of the early centuries. The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions. It is quoted first in time not in a Bible text but in a Latin treatise about the Bible in the 4th Century A.D.
Its inclusion in the TR seems to have come through the pen of Erasmus. When charged by Stunica, Erasmus replied that he had not found any Greek manuscript containing these words, but that if a single Greek manuscript could be found that contained it, he would include it in a future edition.
The one manuscript that was later presented to Erasmus in substantiation of the inclusion of that verse has now been identified as a Greek manuscript written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar who took the words from the Latin Vulgate. Erasmus then inserted the passage in his third edition of 1522 but indicated in a lengthy footnote his own personal suspicions that the manuscript had been prepared in order to refute him. These are the facts.
15. You speak very highly of the New King James Version recently published by Thomas Nelson. Did you know that they footnote I John 5:7 and suggest that it has very little manuscript evidence? By the way, I personally know several of the translators who worked on that project and while the original intent was to do new translations from the majority text, what ultimately happened in the midst of the commercial endeavor was to merely change the English text by modernizing a number of archaic words which makes it little more than a Scofield without notes.
Conclusion
I’m not for abandonment of the KJV as a practical translation. But if a specific verse(s) has been proven to not fit with older copies of the Word of God then let’s reconsider the rendering. Especially, when the modern Trinitarian translators would better support their theology of the Trinity by retaining the KJV additions in more modern translations but they omit it.
If there was only KJV translation and zero access to manuscripts we could still defend the oneness of God, thus, defending monotheism.
The whole context of the scripture is about becoming sons of God by believing in the Sonship of Jesus, thus, overcoming the world. Sonship has to do with the flesh that God produced, the expressed image of God (Hebrews 1:3). Believing in the Sonship is the topic in these verses (1 John 5:5-8).
The Spirit: the miracles, the voice from Heaven, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecostal; the Comforter, the Teacher.(John 15:26)
The water: the baptism; a ceremonial commonality (Matthew 3:15) Representing sanctification.
The blood: the shedding of blood on the Cross, the atonement. Of course, the ceremonial offerings that pointed to the perfect Lamb. (Hebrews 9:12) Representing justification.
They are beautiful witnesses that point the Messianic fulfilment of the Old Covenant in the God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God but in no way God the Son.
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Additional reading about the debate of KJV translation only. I don’t endorse everything on theses external sites.
The Biblical Position on the KJV Controversy by Grace Community Church (John MacArthur)