Amen. If you’ll please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 7, beginning at verse 37. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow Rivers of Living Water.”
Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ,” but some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”
So there was a division among the people over him.
From there, we turn to the prophet Isaiah, chapter 12. The prophet writes, “You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation, and you will say in that day, ‘Give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples; proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.’”
And lastly, we turn to Ezekiel 47, where we’ll just read the first five verses:
Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east. The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east, and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.
Going on eastward, with a measuring line in hand, the man measured a thousand cubits and then led me through the water, and it was ankle deep. Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was knee deep. Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, and it was waist deep. Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, you have given us your word as encouragement and as a source of knowledge and understanding to keep us filled with reserves of water that flows from out of us. Fill us with the knowledge of your word and the power of your Holy Spirit to give us understanding and peace. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
So each of the three mandatory attendance feasts of the Lord were times of joyful celebration, even as they were also solemn remembrances of historical events. We find them described in Leviticus 23.
The Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, together were a memorial remembrance commemorating the death of all Egypt’s firstborn children, alongside the deliverance and passing over of Israel’s children. But it was also a celebration of the Hebrews’ Exodus from Egypt—not only their deliverance from slavery and bondage to cruel foreign masters, but also it was their effective Independence Day.
The Feast of Harvest, Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks, or better known to us Christians as Pentecost, was a memorial remembrance celebrating the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, and it was a celebration of Thanksgiving at the start of the harvest season, the time of gathering the firstfruits.
The Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, or Sukkoth, also known as the Feast of Inap, was a memorial remembrance of the Hebrews’ nomadic life for forty years in the wilderness. It was a celebration also of the bountiful provision of the promised land, and a Thanksgiving at the conclusion of the harvest season.
Now Leviticus 23 describes and regulates how they were to memorialize and celebrate during this feast. It says, “And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.”
And it goes on to say, “You shall dwell in booths for seven days; all native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
Now today, Orthodox Jews continue to celebrate this feast by spending some prayerful time under a canopy outside, and a common 10×10 pop-up tent will suffice for most. They will also wave two items that they call a lulav and etrog. An etrog is a citron fruit, kind of an ancestor of the modern lemon, while the lulav is a collection of palm, myrtle, and willow branches bundled together as examples of those three branches commanded in Leviticus 23.
However, that’s going on all week long during this festival, but the actual conclusion of the feast was always on the eighth day, when a holy convocation and solemn assembly was held, and when they could do no ordinary work, making this a special extraordinary Sabbath.
I draw your attention to these details because just as how John informed us that Jesus appeared teaching in the temple about the middle of the feast, John’s not here that this particular discourse occurred on the last day of the feast—the great day—implies that there is something important about the specific time and place, because, well, timing is everything.
Now the events of our passage happened on the great day of the feast. It was an extraordinary Sabbath, and to them it was a very holy day. The great day was the day when the largest crowd would have been present at the temple, worshiping, and their worship would have contained an attitude of Thanksgiving and jubilant praise for the Lord’s good gracious provision and mercy.
Keeping that context in mind and under consideration, we begin to discover that Jesus’s cry here, which is a very familiar and popular quotation, carries a greater weight than we ordinarily recognize. This proclamation, as described by John, occurred while Jesus was up on the Temple mount, an area of about 37 acres of sacred space, which included the outer courtyard, also known as the court of the Gentiles.
Now John doesn’t tell us specifically where Jesus was standing within the temple complex. He could have been within the inner courtyard standing next to the great altar and right in front of the doors leading into the holy place, or he could have been further on the outside standing in the midst of a great volume of people.
Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to assume that he and his hearers, no matter where they were standing, had the temple in eyesight. No matter where Jesus would have been when he stood up to cry, he would have been surrounded by a large number of Jewish worshippers. They would have been waving their etrogs and lulavs—their palm, myrtle, and willow branches—before the Lord, rejoicing and praising God. They would have been praying and singing, raising their voices in worship and giving God glory and honor.
And this is the setting when John says Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water.”
This was, in today’s modern parlance, a mic-drop moment. This was a complete and total showstopper. This is a moment when if there had been a record playing, it would have scratched to silence. But why?
Jesus did not say something new; he earlier said the same thing to the Samaritan woman of Sychar back in John 4. Although she was not and would not have been expected to understand the greater significance of what he said, because the Samaritans did not have or believe the writings of the prophets, the majority of these hearers should immediately have recognized and understood exactly what Jesus said and meant.
Jesus was claiming to be God—the Lord—clearly and undeniably, with this very public declaration. Jesus also announced the inauguration of the Messianic age and God’s earthly kingdom.
See here, Jesus invoked the prophet Isaiah with his declaration of “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,” identifying himself with the wells of salvation, with the Lord God himself, the wells and God who has become our salvation.
In that particular time and place, Jesus very obviously claimed to be God with this cry of “Whoever believes in me,” declaring himself to be the rightful object of his hearers’ faith—apistos—that ought to be reserved for the Lord alone.
Lastly, Jesus, in that specific time and place, invoked Ezekiel’s vision of the temple, which happens after God’s presence returns, where Ezekiel saw a purifying flow of Living Water issuing out from this spiritual temple.
As John interjects and explains with it using the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, the temple represents and includes all of God’s believing people. So, it is a near-zero probability that the Jewish men who heard Jesus say this would have misunderstood, misinterpreted, or missed his divinity claim.
This would have been the ideal moment and justification for the Jews to arrest Jesus, except they were all busy, preoccupied with the festival, and because of the pressing crowd of worshippers that surrounded Jesus. Their continued fecklessness and inability to silence Jesus was again likely interpreted as evidence affirming Jesus and his teachings, or at least evidence of their permission.
See, the audacity of Jesus to make this declaration and claim, coupled with the presumed approval of the religious leadership—those so-called experts—prompted the crowd’s response. Some of the people said, “This really is the prophet,” and others, “This is the Christ.”
Again, some people were beginning to accept and believe that Jesus might really be the Messiah, but others continued to look for reasons and excuses to doubt it, asking, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”
Therefore, there was a division among the people. The first-century Jews were naturally divided over Jesus, just like most people today are. They were divided over who they thought he was—whether the Christ or not; whether God or not. Divided over their opinions about him. Was he right? Was he good? Was he simply crazy, or was he a political and theological problem?
Just like today, everyone had an opinion about Jesus, yet few could agree on every point. Their division again demonstrates for us that the more we think that things have changed, the more we realize how much they actually are the same.
Now, beyond understanding this merely as a watershed moment in Jesus’s ministry, with this unopposed public declaration of his divinity, what else is John trying to teach us here?
Working backwards, we see that with their doubtful reasoning, some folks were trying to judge rightly, but just as in horseshoes, almost doesn’t count. They were asking the right questions, yet they lacked the necessary information to reach the correct answers.
Asking, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee?” was a reasonable question, and it’s one that we can only answer yes to because of how we interpret Isaiah 9, having the full hindsight of New Testament scripture and the Holy Spirit’s illumination.
Asking, “Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem?” was also a reasonable question and one that they did answer rightly, just like the wise men had some 30 years before when they told Herod.
However, by asking these particular questions, they demonstrated their collective ignorance of certain important facts. John demonstrates that the general public here was ignorant of the circumstances surrounding Jesus’s birth.
Clearly, they knew the prophetic scriptures as related to the Messiah’s birthplace, and they did interpret them correctly, but they did not know that Jesus satisfied them. See, the average person did not know that Jesus of Nazareth belonged to the tribe of Judah or that he was descended from King David.
I mean, the average person did not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during a Roman census, since he grew to adulthood in Nazareth before relocating to Capernaum. So if the average person did not know those facts, it’s also unlikely that they knew anything about the Magi, the shepherds, angelic visitations, or even the virgin birth.
It’s also unlikely that the average person knew about any possible rumors related to Jesus’s legitimacy and heritage. Even if they had, that was 30 years ago, and since Jesus was raised as Joseph’s own son and rightful heir, that kind of ancient gossip would be dismissed as unimportant or irrelevant.
See, John’s gospel does not recount Jesus’s birth narrative not because those events were unimportant, untrue, or unnecessary, but because the evidence wasn’t necessary to John’s thesis—that Jesus is God. That Jesus is the Son of God and God the Son; that Jesus is the logos, who is Theos and Andros.
Instead, it’s the signs that were performed by Jesus as an adult that were sufficient evidence for John’s argument. Today, some skeptics will argue against the birth narratives of Jesus, suggesting that Christians merely stole the idea from other pagan religions, cherry-picking details from half a dozen or so unrelated myths and legends and using that as proof of Jesus’s divinity.
Other skeptics will argue that the absence of a birth narrative in Mark or John suggests that the early church actually had no knowledge or tradition about Jesus’s miraculous birth, implying that those stories were made up later on.
I myself would suggest the alternative—that the reason John doesn’t include a birth or infancy narrative about Jesus was because that evidence was not necessary for the case he was making.
John argued to prove his original thesis that Jesus is God, as Jesus often claimed, using the public signs that Jesus performed rather than leading off with a miraculous beginning and using that beginning to justify Jesus’s wondrous works.
Consider the difference between the two arguments and their impact: “Since Jesus performed all of these supernatural signs and wonders, therefore, they prove that Jesus is God,” or “since Jesus’s birth was the product of a divine miracle, he’s God; therefore, Jesus can perform miracles.”
See how the impact changes with those? Remember, John’s gospel was written for the edification and encouragement of existing believers, so it carried a more apologetic character because his whole case was built upon eyewitness evidence and his own personal testimony.
It’s really unreasonable to expect that he would write about an event he was not present for or closely connected to. Furthermore, since Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels earlier, and if John understood that his purpose for writing was to fill in the gaps about Jesus’s ministry, there really was no need for him to add anything more.
So really, the circumstances surrounding Jesus’s birth as the Messiah likely had little to no bearing or impact upon those who were initially and originally willing to believe in him as the Christ; they had minimal covert import but a greater apologetic reference.
Now, they are still important for Christians to know and believe because they’re examples of prophetic fulfillment and they serve as evidence testifying to who Jesus is.
Next, we have John’s explanation about the Holy Spirit. First, his interjection supports the idea that John’s gospel was written less as a panegyric to convert non-believers and rather more for the encouragement of existing believers by augmenting their present faith with evidence to support it.
Second, John is foreshadowing the gift of the Holy Spirit, who would be received by all those who believed in him, but whom at this moment in the narrative had not yet been given, reminding us that the reason was because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Third, John correlates the Holy Spirit with the two waters that Jesus speaks of: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” And out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water.
He implies that anyone who thirsts is everyone who desires God—namely, anyone who has been awakened to their great need for God, someone who has been called internally and regenerated—they may come to Jesus and drink and be satisfied.
But what are they being satisfied with? They may drink and be satisfied with the justification of Christ that they receive by faith. They may drink and be satisfied in their adoption by the Father and enjoy his love and favor, now being in a right relationship with him.
They may drink and be satisfied with the gift and presence of Jesus Christ—the indwelling and sanctifying Holy Spirit. See, John implies that the natural logical consequence of coming to Christ in faith and drinking the water he gives is that out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water, whereby Jesus calls to mind Ezekiel’s image of a more glorified Temple from out of which a purifying flood flowed—a spiritual river of life.
Where Ezekiel continues, “And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish; for this water goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.”
So, John, cooperating with the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, describes God’s ultimate transformative, cleansing, regenerative work, which leads us to consider our point of application: the transformative work of the Holy Spirit within every believer and for their whole lives.
Whenever we finally come to Jesus, responding to his eternal call upon our lives, we get to drink deeply from these wells of salvation. But our salvation is not the end of the story.
After having first been foreordained and called, now after we drink the spiritual life-giving water that Christ freely provides, we become justified through our past sins, and then soon we shall be glorified in total.
But before we get glorified, we first must be cleansed, washed, purified, and sanctified inside and out. The Holy Spirit dwelling within every believer will and is sanctifying us constantly and consistently, filling our hearts beyond capacity so that His cleansing power overflows out into the world surrounding us, purifying everything it comes into contact with.
Have you ever noticed how after a person becomes a Christian, after they are regenerated, everything about them begins to change? Ordinarily, that change follows a kind of logical progression as they’re sanctified, as they become more conformed to the image of Christ.
First, their desires begin to change—the things they want and seek and hope for. They want fewer worldly things, or they find themselves wanting worldly things less. They often become less selfish and self-centered, less focused on “me.” Instead, they find themselves with more godly desires, like wanting Christian fellowship, listening to Christian music, spending more time in the word and prayer.
Second, their vocabulary begins to change. Many words and expressions will fall out of use, and others, more appropriate, will replace those that were lost.
Third, their preferred actions and activities begin to change. They stop doing some things and start doing others instead; they stop going to some places and go to others. They repent and intentionally stop doing things that they know are wrong and sinful. They intentionally stop going where they know that they will be tempted to sin. They begin to act more kindly and charitably toward others. They begin to share what they have more and perform more works of charity and love.
Fourth, their relationships begin to change. The character of some relationships will change, while other unhealthy or sinful relationships are abandoned as newer, godlier relationships are established. Non-believing friends will naturally separate themselves as a Christian becomes more sanctified, because the unholy will always seek to avoid the presence of the holy, and other previously known Christian friends will grow closer to them as their shared and common faith becomes recognized and known. New friends are even made with more mature Christians.
Fifth, since most people by this point will have noticed their change and may have been asking them about it—asking them why, how, and who—they tend to more freely share the good news about Jesus, beginning to confidently evangelize. They begin bringing up matters of faith in their various engagements and interactions.
Then, after they recognize the good transformation that has been happening within themselves, they will begin working towards a similar transformation in their surroundings.
Sixth, eventually, Jesus becomes the primary person, place, and thing that they ever talk about or want to talk about or desire, and the rule of scripture becomes their used standard for right judgment. Finally, the practical and observable effect of a believer’s sanctification is that as individual Christians become more and more sanctified and concerned with the things of God and live for his glory, the totality of their lives will be transformed to their good.
Then particular churches, particular expressions of the body of Christ, will become more sanctified as their members increase in personal piety and holiness. This will transform the heartfelt character and quality of their worship and their engagement in the church’s mission of discipling, evangelizing the nations, and loving their neighbors through works of mercy and acts of charity.
As more churches become more sanctified, then their communities begin to be transformed towards a greater social good. As more needs are met, more people are introduced to Jesus and come to trust him for salvation. More people begin to live for God’s glory and in accord with his commandments, the moral law, and then as a whole, people begin to be more kind, more gracious, and more tolerant—truly tolerant—as more people rightly love their neighbors.
Then as communities become sanctified, their states and nations and the world begins to change and transform for the better—not only for the good of all those who love God and are called to his purposes, but also for every resident and citizen, no matter their faith.
Because ultimately, global life gets better for everyone as more individuals accept and submit themselves to the lordship and authority of Jesus Christ in their own personal capacity.
This is what I call the Christendom effect, and this has improved the lives of believers and non-believers alike over the past 2,000 years.
The progressive improving impact of this effect proves that humanity does not need Christian nations because, so long as nations have Bible-believing, Bible-trusting, and Bible-obeying Christian citizens living within them as resident aliens until Christ, our true and only King, returns in glory, we Christians will continue to live, love, and work for the good of everyone by seeking the welfare of the cities and nations wherein we live, as we’re counseled by the Holy Spirit through Jeremiah.
Because it’s in their benefit that we shall find our benefit. So, as Christians, we know and understand that we can never perfect the world or make it as good as it ought to be, but we can, should, and must work for its betterment and good as a consequence of our faith and obedience to Jesus Christ.
This is the consequential impact of Jesus’s declaration: “If anyone thirsts, let them come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water.”
Because once a person comes to Christ in faith and is justified, they receive and are overfilled with this gift of the Holy Spirit, working inside them and with them, cleansing, purifying, and sanctifying them, and then he works through them to progressively cleanse, purify, and sanctify the world until Christ finally returns and restores everything in the new creation.
Therefore, we know that our salvation, our being saved, is not just for our own individual good, but the good of the whole church and for the good of the whole world.
The reason why people have always been divided over Jesus has less to do with whether or not they believe Jesus is the Christ and God, but more with the eschatological implications that come from Jesus’s divinity and authority—the restoration and recreation of the world with the absolute eradication of sin and wickedness; because that is antithetical to the desire of Satan and our remaining indwelling sinfulness.
This is why people, including many believing Christians, resist submitting to the lordship of Christ—because we are too much in love with the world and this present life and too little in love with Jesus and the world to come.
Therefore, we all need to repent and come to Christ in faith and drink deeply from those wells. We need to believe in Christ, to believe Jesus and the testimonies of sacred scripture, and rightly judge all things according to his divine absolute standard.
We need to be united together in Christ by our shared faith in holiness, with God’s love for us and with our love for one another and for Jesus alone. We each need to be so filled with his Holy Spirit that his sanctifying power and presence flows out in everything we think, say, and do.
Therefore, let us remember our temporary time dwelling here in the spiritual wilderness, and so come and praise the Lord and celebrate with thanksgiving for his graciousness in bringing us into the promised land of his presence—our being adopted as his chosen sons and daughters, our being justified in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and by our being sanctified by his Holy Spirit. Amen.