A Defense of the Johannine Comma - Study to Answer.Net

included a letter from Eugenius in his own discussion of the passage. 83 A similar
grammatical argument was advanced by Frederick Nolan in 1815. 84
In 1808, Middleton (who himself seems to have been unsure of the authenticity of
the Comma) noted yet another grammatical problem with vv. 7-8 when verse 7 is
missing. 85 In his discussion of the verses, he notes that the unusual and emphatic use of
the article to before the en in v. 8, if verse 7 were genuine, would be easily
understandable as referring back to the en in v. 7, and would be interpreted as the three
witnesses in v. 8 agree with the one thing (the person and work of Christ) that was
likewise agreed to by the three witnesses in v. 7. Without verse 7, the construction is odd,
at best, and the emphatic reference assumed by such a use of the Greek is simply missing.
Because Middleton viewed the Comma as an interpolation, he was at a loss to explain the
use of this grammatical device in v. 8. If the Comma is genuine, however, this
grammatical difficulty, like the previous one discussed, disappears.
Clearly, the grammatical issue introduced by the deletion of the Comma was not
"invented" by Dabney, nor was it only noticed in recent times. In fact, those who
observed the solecism in the text (whether or not they believed in the actual authenticity
of the Comma) ultimately date all the way back to the early centuries of Christianity.
In addition to the grammatical problem, we should note that the deletion of the
Comma also introduces a consistency problem with the interpretation of the contextual
passage. The full passage, vv. 6-9, read as follows,
“This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only,
but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit
is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and
the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in
earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we
receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of
God which he hath testified of his Son."
The text of the Comma is italicized. The problem lies in that if the Comma is
removed, then the passage makes an irrelevant reference. The passage speaks of the
"witness of men" and the "witness of God." We know that the record of the "Spirit, water,
and blood" is the "witness of men" spoken of. At the beginning of the Johannine Gospel,
John the Baptist testified of the Spirit's role as a witness to Christ,
"And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a
dove, and it abode upon him." (John 1:32)
83
See Knittel, op. cit., pp. 206-8; interestingly, Knittel also notes where Gregory Nazianzus dealt with the
grammatical issue.
84
F. Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament, pp.
254-61, 564-5
85
T.F. Middleton, The Doctrine of the Greek Article Applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New
Testament, pp. 441-3
38