In our daily meditations at Group Bible Study, we are examining some of the things Jesus taught. In the Book of Deuteronomy, God told Moses that when the time was right, He would send a mighty prophet with a ministry similar to Moses. They were to listen very carefully to the One whom God would send.
15The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him… 18I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19).
The people of Israel understood that the Prophet, the Messiah, would perform miracles similar to those Moses did when He came. They expected bread from heaven just like in Moses' time, but Christ said the true bread from Heaven was Himself (John 6:32-33). John's Gospel provides Israel and us, the Gentiles, with another proof that Jesus is the prophet Moses spoke of. Just as Moses brought water out of a rock when he struck it with his staff (Exodus 17:5-6), Paul the apostle told us that the rock struck to bring forth water was a metaphor or picture language for Christ being crucified. Christ is the giver of the water of life, meaning the Spirit of God poured out. Here are Paul's words:
2They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3They all ate the same spiritual food 4and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:3-4; emphasis added).
When Moses brought water from the rock, it symbolized what Jesus would do on the cross. Just as Moses struck the rock, Christ would be wounded, and the Spirit would be poured out on the Day of Pentecost as various prophets predicted (Joel 2:28, Isaiah 44:3, Ezekiel 36:26-27).
On the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, with thousands of people watching, the High Priest went down to the Pool of Siloam, filled a two-pint golden pitcher, and carried it back into the middle of the crowd standing before the Temple’s altar. The people would circle the altar seven times in remembrance of the walls of Jericho falling. Then, with the event accompanied by singing various Psalms, the chief priest would pour water before the altar as a prophetic sign that the Jewish people were ready for the water of life to be poured out. At that exact moment of the pouring, Jesus spoke the words written below.
37On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39By 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. 40On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” 41Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” 43Thus the people were divided because of Jesus (John 7:37-43).
Six hundred years before Jesus, the prophet Ezekiel described a time when a river of life would flow eastward from beneath the threshold of the Temple. The river would start ankle-deep, become knee-deep, and then deepen so much that it would lift people off their feet and carry them along (Ezekiel 47:1-9). Wherever this river flowed, it would bring life, fruit, and healing. This river would reach the Dead Sea (a symbol of people outside of Christ), and its effect would be to produce all kinds of life and fish in the Dead Sea (Ezekiel 47:8-9). The act of pouring out water symbolized the Jewish hope that, in their time, the river of life would begin to flow as the pitcher was poured out. While we still expect a literal fulfillment of this river, the Holy Spirit points us to Jesus, the true Temple from whom the Spirit of God is poured out. To keep this a four-minute read, let’s discuss it more tomorrow.
Shortened from the more extended study at the following link: To All Who Are Thirsty