clearly have known what the author was talking about. A common interpretation sees the water as a reference to Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, while the blood is a reference to Jesus’ death on the cross. It is hard to see, though, how the opponents could have been insisting that Jesus “came…by the water only” at his baptism, unless the water is not referring only to the water of baptism, but to the Holy Spirit. Water in the Gospel of John is consistently used as a symbol for the Holy Spirit (John