I find that 1 John 5:7 is in the KJV…which is my primary, trusted, translation in english of the word of God…so that settles the matter for me.
Anyway...This essay is quite a lengthy read but worth the effort.
Defense of the Johannine Comma
The quote below is found under the subheading Matters of Grammar and Consistency...and taken from the Defense of the Johannine Comma (link above)
Matters of Grammar and Consistency
The grammatical difficulty which is found in this passage if the Comma is deleted rests on a rule of Greek grammar (as well as in many other languages) which demands gender agreement among parts of a sentence. If the Comma is left in place, the masculine article, participle, and number in the apodosis of verse 7 then agree with the two masculine (Father, Word) and one neuter (Spirit) nouns in the protasis. This agreement is made by means of the principle of attraction, a rule of Greek syntax by which a masculine noun in a series of nouns within the same clause determines, or "attracts" to itself, the gender for the series as a whole. This gender of the clause, usually subordinate, agrees with the predicate of the preceding clause within that sentence. Hence, the two masculine nouns in the protasis force the whole list to take on a
de facto masculine gender, which is then in agreement with the masculine predicate in the apodosis. The problem for those who support the deletion of the Comma is that, if the Comma does not appear in the text, then the masculine predicate in the apodosis of verse 7 is mated with the three neuter nouns (water, blood, spirit) found in verse 8 (which then becomes the subordinate clause), a serious grammatical error. The problem disappears with the Comma in place, because not only does verse 7 agree throughout in gender via the attraction principle, but the mating of the three neuter nouns in verse 8 with the masculine
treis marturountes (three witnesses) in verse 8 is then also explained by the attraction principle by, as Dabney also says,
"...the fact that the Pneuma, the leading noun of this second group, and next to the adjectives, has just had a species of masculineness superinduced upon it by its previous position in the masculine group."
Hence, this close proximity and the fact that the pneuma is a carryover noun from the previous list of nouns and was made
de facto masculine by the Power of Attraction rule in verse 7, cause the nouns in verse 8 to be treated as masculine as well. This all falls apart if the Comma is deleted, as there are no truly masculine nouns (or a masculinated pneuma) from verse 7 directing the attraction phenomenon.
It may reasonably be suggested that the reason Gregory's opponents (and Gregory himself) did not know of the Comma directly was because of the efforts by Arians in their time to expunge the verse from the copies of Scripture which either fell into their hands, or were of their own manufacture. As there are no other known grammatical solecisms in the Greek Gospel and Epistles of John, it seems more reasonable to suppose that the existence here of such an egregious grammatical error (one noted by
Greek speakers, remember) is due to the deletion of the relevant portion of the Scripture, rather than an original unique error in John's inspired writing.
We should note, again for emphasis, that Robert Dabney was not the modern "inventor" of the grammatical problem seen in I John 5:7-8 when the Comma is deleted. As early as 1740, Bengel noted the grammatical issue involved. Also in the 18th century, we see the testimony to the grammatical problem introduced by the removal of the Comma, as it was recognized by Eugenius Bulgarus, Archbishop of Cherson, a high official and scholar in the eastern
Greek church. Knittel reproduces Eugenius' discussion of the solecism as it was reported by a Professor Matthaei in Moscow, in 1780, who included a letter from Eugenius in his own discussion of the passage. A similar grammatical argument was advanced by Frederick Nolan in 1815.
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. 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)
Likewise, at the end of John's epistle, we see John's own testimony about the water and the blood,
"But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe." (John 19:34-35)
In these cases, we see these things - the Spirit, the water, and the blood - being the object of man's (in this case, John's) testimony, as both passages
specifically record. This seems especially cogent if, as some scholars have suggested, the epistle of I John was originally coupled with the Gospel of John, serving as a sort of "introduction" to the Gospel for John's readers. It would naturally follow that as they read the Gospel, his readers would see and understand the witness of man to the things concerning Christ and His ministry as John relates them.
The Gospel of John contains similar references to the "witness of God" as we saw for the "witness of men." In John 8:18, Jesus (whom John calls "the Word," if we will remember) says, "I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me." In John 15:26, it says, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me..." Hence, in John's Gospel, we see the three Persons of the Trinity each bearing witness to Jesus. If the Comma is removed, then where is the witness of God spoken of in the verse, a witness that most naturally refers to the "Father, Word, and Holy Ghost" who bear record in heaven in the parallel formation? It is not there, and verse 9 refers to....nothing. The parallelism between the Gospel and the Epistle is broken, and the local referent in v. 9 is muddled.
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