And he that saw it hath given testimony: and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true: that you also may believe.
και ο εωρακως μεμαρτυρηκεν και αληθινη εστιν αυτου αυτου εστιν η μαρτυρια κακεινος οιδεν οτι αληθη λεγει ινα υμεις πιστευσητε
11 Church Fathers comment on this verse
That is, I did not hear it from others, but was myself present and saw it, and the testimony is true. This is fitting, because he recounts the reproach suffered by Christ, not something great and wondrous that might make you suspect his word. He relates what happened in detail, in order to stop the mouths of heretics and to foretell the future mysteries, beholding the treasure contained in them.
I did not hear it from others, he says, but was there myself and saw it, "and my testimony is true." He rightly notes this. He is recounting an outrage, not something great and honorable that might make you suspect the account. For this reason, he says, I describe it in detail and do not hide what seems dishonorable, so that you may believe all this is certainly true and not composed in anyone's favor. For whoever speaks in someone's favor presents the more glorious things.
He also says that the disciple who bore witness to this was a spectator and eyewitness of the event, and that he knows truly that he bore witness to the truth. Here he points to himself, and not to anyone else. He refrained from speaking more plainly, rejecting the inclination to vainglory as an impious deed and the final sickness.
He did not say, "that you also may know," but, "that you may believe." For the one who saw knows, and the one who did not see may believe his testimony. "To believe" belongs more properly to faith than "to see." For what else is "to believe" than to apply faith?
"And he who saw has borne witness." The one who wrote this had himself seen it and had not heard it from another. "And his testimony is true," because he saw what he bears witness to, and especially because he also writes of the outrage against the Teacher. Such an outrage was the piercing of His side, though a miracle followed it. "And he knows that he speaks the truth." He knows this with certainty, because he was present then and saw, though the Jews accuse him of falsehood. "That you also may believe." John wrote this so that you who have believed in Christ may believe this also.
Without speaking of the earthquake and the other miraculous signs of the death of Jesus Christ, related by the first three Evangelists, the Evangelist John instead reports a new miracle that followed the Lord's death.
It was the flow of blood and water from the pierced side of Jesus, already dead. According to natural laws, this could not have happened.
That the Evangelist John truly regards this fact as miraculous is evident from verse 35. There the Evangelist insistently affirms that everything was exactly as he says.
According to the Evangelist, the thought expressed by this fact is this. The body of the dead Jesus Christ, Who was to rise from the dead after three days, did not undergo the usual decomposition after death.
It had life, even after death, in death itself.
At the same time, the Evangelist indicates that, in Christ's legs not being broken, the Old Testament type was fulfilled. This type was given in the unbroken bones of the paschal lamb.
In the piercing of Christ's rib, the prophetic words of the prophet Zechariah were fulfilled (Zech 12:10).
John, wholly truthful in everything, considered it necessary to add precisely to this account that his testimony is true, and that he who saw this knows that he speaks the truth.
After putting both robbers to death, the soldiers came to the Lord’s cross. In this body, with the head bowed upon the breast, they saw no signs of life.
Therefore they considered themselves entitled not to break the legs of One already dead.
So that no doubt should remain concerning His death, one of the soldiers struck the side of the Crucified One with the blade of his spear.
He did this to extinguish even the last spark of life, if it had somehow still remained in His heart.
Such a blow was sometimes practiced by the Romans when it was necessary for some reason to end the life of the crucified more quickly.
Thus, by order of the judge Fabian, Mark and Marcellinus, after hanging on crosses for a whole day, were put to death by such a spear thrust in the side.
See Martyrology, June 18. Sometimes, for the same purpose, the crucified were pierced under the armpits, after which death quickly followed.
See Origen, Commentary on Matthew 27:54, and Friedlieb.
Wishing to deal a mortal blow, the soldier had to choose the left side of the breast as the place of the heart.
This side was also more convenient for the blow in the present case.
The soldier’s λόγχη was the ordinary Roman spear, the hasta. It was a light weapon with a long wooden shaft, κόντος, and a sharp iron point at the end.
The latter was oval in form and a palm’s breadth wide. This is why the wound it caused was so large.
After the Lord’s resurrection, unbelieving Thomas could put his hand into it.
The blow, forcefully directed from below upward, penetrated the chest cavity and necessarily had to cause death.
At that very moment, εὐθύς, “immediately,” according to the Evangelist’s precise expression, from the pierced breast of Jesus Christ “there came out blood and water.”
We shall not strain to explain this wondrous separation of blood in a body that had died so recently.
Should we trust the many years of research by the physician Stroud?
He concluded that the natural cause of the Lord Jesus Christ’s so rapid death was rupture of the heart.
Therefore the blood poured from the heart into the pericardium could undergo separation there more quickly than in the rest of the body.
Or should we agree with another explanation?
According to it, the water that flowed together with blood from the pierced rib of Jesus Christ was simply lymph of the pericardium.
In the pericardium there is a special vapor-like fluid. When the body’s temperature falls, especially if the pericardial sac is opened, it condenses and takes on the appearance of water.
In the ordinary state of the organism, it is present in very small quantity.
But the sufferings that preceded the death of Jesus Christ, and especially the terrible heat that burned His body on Golgotha, could have promoted the accumulation of this fluid.
According to physicians’ research, it could have accumulated in the pericardium of Jesus Christ in such quantity that its outflow was clearly visible to John.
Friedlieb here refers to the studies of two physicians named Gruner.
Or, finally, should we acknowledge that this water resulted from some abnormal physiological phenomena caused by the Savior’s terrible combination of sufferings?
We are unable to decide this. Many of the Fathers of the Church saw here the active hand of Him who conquers the laws of nature.
For example, see Cyprian, On the Resurrection, and Theophylact on Job ch. 19.
For us, as for everyone, and as for the soldier who by his act fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah, one thing must be clear.
At that moment on the hill of Golgotha, on the cross, there remained only the body of the Only-begotten Son of God, who had died for the whole world.
"And he who saw": that is, the one who himself stood at the cross at that time and saw with his own eyes. Therefore he is a fully trustworthy witness.
This is John himself (Jn 19:26), who usually speaks of himself in his Gospel in the third person.
"His testimony is true": there is no falsehood in it, because it is the testimony of an immediate eyewitness of the event.
"And he knows," and so forth. By this John assures us that he not only does not lead others into deception, but is not himself deceived. He is convinced of it. He knows that he speaks the truth.
Such strengthening of the testimony and assurance shows that John speaks of this event as extraordinary, unexpected, and miraculous. Otherwise this assurance would have no purpose.
For why would it be necessary to assure anyone if the phenomenon were natural and known? It would have to have been known to John, and anyone could believe it without special assurance.
St. John considered it necessary to present himself as an evident witness to the piercing of Jesus' rib and the flow of blood and water.
He fixes the readers' attention on this event as important. Why is this so?
The testimony of St. John is connected with two circumstances. First, in his own Gospel narrative we see that Thomas would not believe in the Savior's Resurrection except by placing his hand into Jesus' pierced ribs.
Thomas regarded the placing of his hand into the ribs as unquestionable assurance that the One appearing after death was not a phantom, but Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
If, then, in the history of the Resurrection the pierced rib of Jesus was a very important circumstance, St. John could not fail to attend to it in the history of the Savior's Passion.
He had to show how and before whom the piercing of the Savior's rib took place, all the more because he alone related this piercing.
The pierced rib is an unquestionable sign that Jesus died. Likewise, the appearance of Jesus with the pierced rib is proof that He rose.
On the other hand, in his epistle St. John writes, "Every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh is not of God" (1 Jn 4:3).
Then, to justify this thought, he says, "This is He who came by water and blood and Spirit, Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by blood" (1 Jn 5:6).
That is, he points to the very event of Golgotha of which he speaks in the Gospel.
This means that, according to St. John, the flow of blood and water from the Savior's pierced side serves as proof. Jesus Christ, while being the true Son of God and the eternal Word of the Father, was and is true man.
In this same spirit St. Ignatius the God-bearer, disciple of St. John, wrote: "He truly suffered persecution under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified, and died.
If certain godless men, that is, unbelievers, say that He suffered in appearance, then they themselves live only in appearance."
He repeats the same in his epistle to the Smyrnaeans: "He endured all this for us, that we might be saved.
And He truly suffered, as He also truly raised Himself, not as certain unbelievers say, that He suffered in appearance." They themselves are only seeming beings, to dokein ontes. These heretics were called Docetists.
"This is Jesus Christ, Who came by water and blood and the Spirit; not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit is the One who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth." "For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." "And there are three that bear witness on earth: the spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are one" (1 Jn 5:6-8).
Water, blood, and spirit are witnesses on earth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and they are heralds of life. In the Lord's death on the Cross there was not death, but life. The spirit, the water, and the blood bear witness to this.
The action of the soldier, raising his spear to make sure of the death of the Crucified One and piercing His side, accords entirely with the rough manners of Roman soldiers. Yet it too had been foretold by the prophets, and the soldier was unknowingly only the fulfiller of prophecies.
But the blow of the spear calls forth a miracle of special meaning. From the wound in the side of the Lord's most pure body two streams flow: blood and water.
It was not decomposed blood that flowed out, but pure blood and water. For in the most honorable body, which was to be glorified by the Resurrection, there was not death, but life.
The Lord's human spirit had been delivered into the hands of the Father. Yet the living blood and water bore witness to the incorruption of the body, which in the Resurrection again received the human spirit.
After descending in His soul into Hades to free those who awaited Him, the Lord, in His appearance to His disciples, was again in the full and glorified human form.
Thus the blood, water, and spirit bore witness to Him on earth. On the Cross was His most honorable body, dead in the eyes of the soldiers, yet for mankind it was a source of life.
From it flowed water, cleansing from sin, and blood, reuniting with God. The spirit that gave life to the Lord's most pure body was in the bosom of the Father and was bringing regeneration to life to "the spirits in prison" (1 Pet 3:19).
The most pure body was dead on the Cross, yet in it there was life for men. It rose because death could not hold the Author of life.
This Author of life grants eternal life also to man, who is to rise together with the Lord, not only in his soul but also in his body. This is for the sake of the Lord, the great Lamb offered before God for the sins of the world, and risen in the fullness of human existence.
His most pure body pours forth blood, and He said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves" (Jn 6:53-56).
Water flows from His most pure side, and He said, "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God" (Jn 3:5).
And in His last discourse with His disciples He spoke of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, Who was to come and teach them all things (Jn 15:20; 16:7-15).
Therefore, in the sign of blood and water flowing from the Lord's side, we see an indication of the holy mysteries of Baptism and of communion in the Body and Blood of Christ.
These are accompanied by the illumination of the human spirit and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, both in these and in the other mysteries of Christ's Church.
"Not without meaning, and not by chance, did these fountains flow forth," says Saint John Chrysostom concerning the piercing of the Lord's honorable side. "Rather, it was because the Church is composed of both.
Those initiated into the mysteries know this: by water they are regenerated, and by blood and flesh they are nourished. Thus our mysteries take their beginning from this.
Therefore, when you approach the dread chalice, approach as though you were drinking from the very side of Christ."
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, having in mind Christ's martyrs, points to a twofold baptism that can be by water and by blood in the following words:
"The Savior, redeeming the world by the Cross, was pierced and poured forth from His side blood and water. Thus some in times of peace might be baptized with water, and others in times of persecution might be baptized in the blood of their own death."
Tertullian expressed the same thought (De Pudicitia, ch. 22). Cyril also, pointing to the signs of blood and water under Moses, compares them with the last of all signs, the flowing of blood and water from the side of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Besides the many other meanings of this sign, of which we spoke above, he adds: "There is another reason for the piercing of the Lord's side.
Since Eve, created from the side, became the first cause of sin, Jesus, Who came to grant forgiveness to men and women together, had His side pierced for the sake of women, so that remission of sins might be given them."
Macarius the Great says the same. Euthymius Zigabenus and Theophylact of Bulgaria both adhere to Chrysostom's explanation, but add some thoughts of their own about the event of the piercing of the Lord's side and the flowing of blood and water.
Zigabenus says: "This event is beyond nature and therefore clearly indicates that the One pierced was more than man. For blood cannot flow from a dead man, even if he were pierced ten thousand times.
It should also be noted that our Savior was pierced with a spear in the side because Adam's side had been pierced by sin, that is, by Eve. The Lord healed the wound in Adam's side by the wound in His own side.
He pours forth blood and water, signifying two baptisms: one by blood, that is, martyrdom, and the other by the water of regeneration. By the stream of these two currents He washes away the stream of sin."
Theophylact of Bulgaria, in addition to the meanings indicated by Cyril of Jerusalem and John Chrysostom, also points to the flowing of blood and water, recalled in the mingling of water and wine in the chalice of Christ.
At the same time he reproaches the Armenians for not observing this: "Let those be ashamed," he says, "who do not mix water with wine in the holy mysteries.
They seem not to believe that water flowed from the most pure side together with blood, which constitutes the very highest part of the miracle. I understand the blood to have been a sign that the Crucified One was man.
But the water was a sign that He was more than man, that He was God."
We find a very fine observation in Tertullian, who likens the Lord's death on the Cross to Adam's sleep during the creation of his wife from his side (Gen 2:21).
He says, "The Lord died so that from the wound inflicted on His most pure side the Church, the true mother of the living, might be formed."
Blessed Augustine also makes a comparison between Eve, "the mother of all living," and the second Eve, the Church of Christ, created from the pierced side of the Lord.
John calls himself the witness of the miracle of blood and water flowing from the Lord's pierced side, though according to his custom he does not name himself.
As an eyewitness of the events, he records them. As one made wise by the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, he points to their meaning in his Epistles and in his Revelation. Compare 1 Jn 5:6-8, and also Rev 1:5; 5:9; 21:6; 22:17.
In the following two verses he links these events with the prophecies spoken concerning them.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 20 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS