Brethren in Christ acknowledge that 1 John 5:7-8 (the Comma Johanneum—the explicit Trinitarian statement 'the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit...') is absent from the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. The passage appears to be a later interpolation added to support Trinitarian doctrine. Most modern Bible translations note this textual issue in footnotes.

While BIC affirms Trinitarian theology from other passages, this particular text's manuscript evidence is too weak to serve as a doctrinal foundation. BIC follows a principle of biblical fidelity informed by textual scholarship: the authentic text matters for reliable doctrine. The Trinity is affirmed on grounds of passages with stronger manuscript support and the broader witness of Scripture.