Matters of import in Hebrew life required witnesses. Two of them was the requisite number with which John the Apostle and his fellow Hebrews had been enculturated. Look how he writes as he draws this first of his existing letters to a close:
7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. (1 John 5:7-8–ESV)
“For there are three that testify,” he wrote, and then went on to identify them. The testimony of the spirit comprised the two-part lesson of last week’s class (part 1 /part 2). Two other witnesses, the water and the blood, testify in their own right, but how? Where are the voices of the water and blood? Is John merely using a literary tool here or do these actually express something? These speak the language of the heart.
The blood testimony–for your guilt
There is a burden of guilt, and which conviction comes there is an automatic heaviness. How is that cleared? In Terry Brooks’ trilogy, The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara an evil character murdered the parents of a young girl. He kidnapped her under the guise of rescue training her to employ magic in dark ways. Many years into that life of hateful deeds another trick of sort poignantly exposed to the truth of all this. Her enormous guilt crystalized in her mind.
To Christianize her experience, we might say that she was convicted of her sins. She was borne down under their burden disappearing into a shell of herself for a long time. How could she be freed from this? Grianne Ohmsford is not the point of this lesson. You will have to read that trilogy and its sequel if you want to know more.
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