JOHN194 - Am I Overthinking This Living Water Thing?

0:14 Have you ever been called out for reading way too much into something? A movie or a song or even a comment from somebody? And then you start talking about it with people in your life, and like, dude, you are reading way too much into that. I've been called out for that, and probably rightly so. This is fair.

0:31 Overthink it a little bit. But am I reading too much into John chapter 4 with this stuff that Jesus is saying about living water? Here's the exact line. This is what Jesus says to the Samaritan woman. Jesus answered her, John 4.10. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

0:54 I guess you be the judge. We've got two days so far that we've spent looking at this little nugget of an image that starts way back in the Old Testament of water, springs of water, well water, and the water being nourishing. And we've watched it gain momentum through the Old Testament, from Genesis into Numbers.

1:18 We looked at some stuff in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And today we're going to look at some other stuff in the Old Testament, including Isaiah, Zechariah. But would I really spend three or four days on the theme of living water in the Bible? If I thought I was overthinking it. No. No, I would not. I think it's there.

1:38 And I think the more you look, the more it pops. What is really fascinating to me is that this living water thing, at first blush, it looks like, oh, that's a theme that runs through the whole Bible of the provision of God. If that's all that meant, that is pre good. But then you look a little bit closer and you realize, ah, it's more than that, though.

2:01 It's it's salvation. Yeah, well, if it means provision and salvation, that is even gooder. What a wonderful theme. But then you look a little bit closer and you're like, well, it's also kind of an image that communicates the Trinity and specifically that points toward God the Spirit. But then you look even closer at this theme and you realize that it is also communicating the idea of God's justice and mercy and glory and providence flowing from his throne and covering all of creation.

2:37 That's even gooder yet. So we have all these layers that start to accumulate to the you know with this idea of living water. And it just seems like it's passing a little remark from Jesus in John chapter four. Okay, in order to go back and get more of the old testament payoff, we're first going to cheat forward in the book of John and get a little bit of New Testament payoff that's going to send us scrambling back into the Old Testament a little bit.

3:05 All right. So we're in John uh chapter seven, and this is what happens: John 737. On the last and greatest day of the feast, the feast is what they would sometimes call the feast of tabernacles back then, because it was just the big, super fun, celebratory fall festival one that everybody loved is the big party feast.

3:27 So the feast means tabernacles. So on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Now by this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

3:51 Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. Whoa! Okay, there's a lot going on here. First of all, we have quite the social dynamic happening here in John chapter 7 as well. There's a big giant event with all kinds of choreography and pageantry. It's a big deal, is the point.

4:08 There are people in outfits, they've been planning for this all year. They got decorations, they got committees, they have a schedule, there are officials who officiate it. It would be weird for a messianic figure to just stand up in the middle of this in and around the temple courts and just yell out, if anyone's thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

4:29 Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Well, as you and I are reading through John, this doesn't come as a surprise that Jesus is saying that he is the fulfillment of the completion of this image of living water, that people need to come to God, that they need to come to Christ.

4:48 There's an extra-biblical bit of, again, pageantry that went along with the Feast of Tabernacles that had evolved somewhere after the end of the Old Testament and before the time of Jesus, and it involved carrying water from a spring, specifically the pool of Siloem. Some priests would get all dressed up fancy and they would go and scoop up about a liter of water from the pool of Siloam, and then there'd be a big procession through town, all the way up to the temple.

5:18 And then my understanding, and I'm looking at you know Josephus, again, surprise, I depend on that extra-biblical source a lot. There's plenty of documentation about how this happened beyond Josephus as well. It looks like they would go up to the top of this thing, and one priest would have some wine, and the other would have the liter of water from the pool of Siloam, and they would like dump them out in basins on or around the high altar, and there were like holes in the basin.

5:47 Maybe it's a little hard to picture. The wine and the water would flow down if you're catching like some crucifixion imagery and Jesus being stabbed in the side with the spear and blood and water flowed. It seems like it's there to me, but they would flow down on the altar and they would mingle down and seep into the foundations beneath the altar in the temple, or at least that's how I understand it and how I envision the scenes as described.

6:13 So apparently, on the last and greatest day, that that's when this happened. I think it was the eighth day of the feast. And at this point, in the big dramatic climax that is going to be followed with lampstands being lit and the court of women and dancing happening all over Jerusalem and feasting, right in the midst of all of that, Jesus just stands up and blurts this thing out.

6:36 People back then, they had this stuff on lockdown. They wouldn't have needed somebody to point out what Jesus was referencing. They would have had that. Their brains would have gone right to the stuff from Ezekiel that we looked at yesterday, the stuff from Jeremiah that we looked at. They would have gone right back to the early imagery of springs among the patriarchs that we looked at in the Old Testament.

6:59 And I think their heads would have gone right back to Isaiah chapter 12. You want to know a fun little behind-the-scenes thing? All my Bible verses today are marked with the cards that I used for my basket baby Moses and Sargon video. They're still just sitting on my cluttered desk, so I'm using them as bookmarks.

7:16 There's a hymn of praise in Isaiah 12. I'm going to read you verses 1 through 3. In that day you will say, I will praise you, O Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song.

7:35 He has become my salvation. That's a common memory verse. This next one, not as many people remember, but this is the payoff verse for the point of our conversation. Ready? Isaiah 12, 3. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Do you see the relevance? I think there's relevance. Some people who study the Feast of Tabernacles and the pageantry that evolved around that also point to Zechariah 14, verse 8 says, On that day, so it already kind of sounds like what we just read from Isaiah, living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea in summer and in winter.

8:18 Okay, it sounds like Isaiah drawing water from the wells of salvation. It sounds like Ezekiel and that imagery of the water flowing from the throne of God and it kind of going backwards, like the fresh water devouring the salt water instead of salt water consuming and overpowering fresh water, which is how it usually works.

8:38 And then here in Zechariah 14, it goes on verses 16 and 17. In the interim, there's you know curses and plagues and stuff, like the judgment of God stuff, which comes up in all of these prophetic books. And then it says, then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the king, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

9:00 So that's an amazing pivot. This is that vision from the Old Testament of all the kings who were missing the point, coming before the actual throne of God. Now they get it, they're coming to Jerusalem to worship. But then it says, if any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord God Almighty, they will have no reign.

9:20 There it is again. This theme of the life-giving provision of God that isn't just a physical provision, it's a spiritual provision, it's a salvific provision, it's the provision of God providing his very self, his very presence. All of that is wrapped up in this imagery of rain. And also, you know, what's the contrast to that?

9:44 Well, the land is thirsty, the people are thirsty. And so a lot of people who study the Feast of Tabernacles look at this and say, Well, I mean, the Feast of Tabernacles is literally mentioned right there in Zechariah 14, 16 and 17 that I just read you. They look at that and say, this is probably where the whole you know libation practice happened, the pouring out of the water.

10:06 The point is back over to John chapter 7, that Jesus is aware of this extra biblical practice of this pouring out. And in light of all of that history and all of that imagery, he picks that moment to say, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.

10:31 Now that alone is enough to make you think real hard about how all this fits together. But then John goes on to offer commentary, saying, by this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

10:50 So I ask you again the question I ask you at the beginning of our conversation. Am I overthinking it? I don't, I mean, I'm definitely guilty of overthinking things sometimes. Have I at some point in the history of this podcast been like, hey, my friends, I think I found a connection. Look at this. And then maybe it wasn't a real connection.

11:11 It was just something I got excited about. Yeah, probably. I mean, I I don't know, I don't know where, but I probably. But on this one, am I overthinking it? Nah, I'm not overthinking it. It's there, and we found it. And now that we're on this vein, we're gonna chase the vein a little bit further because this isn't the end of it.

11:31 There's more still ahead in the New Testament. And so I think it's really cool that we're just getting this one little thing that Jesus said in John 4 to the Samaritan woman, if you knew the gift of God and who it is to ask you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

11:46 And Jesus, with just those few words, has sent us on this Bible chase to go and track down all of the meanings that God has woven into history and the scriptures on this. I just love stuff like this. I think it's a blast. All right, last day of living watering tomorrow, and then we'll move forward in the Samaritan woman conversation further yet.

12:06 I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.