1 John 5:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

For there are three, &c.— "For there are three divine Persons, the habitation of whose glory is in heaven, who from thence bear their united testimony to the incarnate Saviour. The first is God the Father, who said of Christ at his baptism and transfiguration (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5.), This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; and (Romans 1:4.) declared him to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead: the second is the eternal uncreated Word himself, who was ever God with the Father (John 1:1.); and said, I and my Father are one (John 10:30.); and often asserted his office as well as divine character in the plainest terms, and appealed for the truth of it to the miracles which he wrought by his own power: the third of these heavenly witnesses is the Holy Spirit, who gave abundant attestations to our blessed Lord, as the only Saviour, by his visible descent upon him at his baptism (Luke 3:22.), and by his coming from the exalted Messiah in heaven to bear witness to him, and to spread his name, kingdom, and glory in the world. And thesethree heavenly witnesses, though personally distinct in a manner that infinitely transcends all our ideas, are essentially one divine Being, one thing (εν εισι), or one God, in distinction from, and in oppositionto, all nominal or pretended deities, which by nature are no gods (Galatians 4:8.)." I have entered very fully into a critical view of this text in my Preface to this Epistle, and shall therefore only add the following remarks: If we drop this verse, and join the 8th to the 6th, there is a considerable tautology, and the beauty and propriety of the connection are lost, as may appear to any who attentively read the 6th and 8th verses together, leaving out the 7th, and they do not give us near so noble an introduction of the witnesses, as our reading (which, I have no doubt, is the true canonical one) does: nor do they make that visible opposition to some witness or witnesses elsewhere, which is manifestly suggested in the words and there are three that bear witness in earth, 1 John 5:8. But all stands in a natural and elegant order, if we take in the 7th verse, which is very agreeable and almost peculiar to the style of our apostle, who, of all others, delights in these titles, the Father and the Word, and who is the only sacred writer that records our Lord's words, in which he speaks of the Spirit's testifying of him, and glorifying him, by receiving of his things and shewing them to his disciples, and says, I and my Father are one (John 10:30; John 15:26; John 16:14.). The Trinitarians therefore had less occasion to interpolate this verse, than the Anti-trinitarians had to take it out of the sacred canon, if any, on either side, can be supposed to have been so very wicked as to make such an attempt: and it is much more likely that some transcriber might, through the similarity of the beginning of the 7th and 8th verses, or through some obscurity in the writing of that part of his copy, carelessly slip over the 7th, than that any should be so daring as designedly to add it to the text: and it can scarcely be thought that the apostle, in representing the foundation of the Christian'sfaith, and the various testimonies which were given to Christ, should omit the supreme testimony; and yet with a reference to the before-recited witnesses should add, 1 John 5:9. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, though, according to the Arian sense of the 8th verse, no immediate witness of God had been mentioned before, if we leave out the 7th verse. But, as I have observed in my Preface, we have alsoa thousand other texts which, directly or indirectly, establish the Personality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in the supreme Godhead.