And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
And he that saw it bare ('hath borne') record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe - `that ye also may believe,' is clearly the true reading х kai (G2532) humeis (G5210) - so Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles]; that is, that all who read this Gospel may, along with the writer of it, believe. The use of the third person in this statement, instead of the first, gives solemnity to it, as Alford remarks. This solemn way of referring to his own testimony in this matter was at least intended to call attention both to the fulfillment of Scripture in these particulars, and to the undeniable evidence he was thus furnishing of the reality of Christ's death, and consequently of His resurrection; perhaps also to meet the growing tendency, in the Asiatic churches, to deny the reality of our Lord's body, or that "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" (1 John 4:1-3). But was this all? Some of the ablest critics think so. But if we give due weight to the words of this same beloved disciple in his First Epistle - "This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; net by water only, but by water and blood (1 John 5:6) - it is difficult to avoid thinking that he must have seen in the "blood and water" which flowed from that wounded side a symbolical exhibition of the "blood" of atonement and the "water" of sanctification, according to ceremonial language, which undoubtedly flow from the pierced Redeemer. Certainly the instincts of the Church have from age to age stamped this sense upon the fact recorded, and when the poet cries:
`Rock of Ages! cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee: Let the water and the blood From Thy wounded side which flow'd Be of sin the double cure; Cleanse me from its guilt and power'
- TOPLADY
He does but nobly interpret our Evangelist's words to the heart of the living and dying Christian.