9.1 The Great Day of the Feast
The words of Jesus in John 7:37-38 are spoken inside a very definite context. That context is Jesus’ final Feast of Tabernacles, six months before His crucifixion and resurrection the following April.
First, here are those words. Every particle of the context serves only to place these words out from the intentions of God. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
Jesus spoke these words in the moment of silence, just after the final elements of the final rituals of the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the great day of the Feast.
The Interchange
We begin with the first obvious but profound implication of Jesus’ words. When God designed man in the beginning, He created us with the capacity to release God Himself into the knowledge and experience of His creation.
But first, look carefully at the center of this interchange.
The Exchange
This model of our human construction and purpose is the Ark of the Covenant structured into a different form. The heart, the Mercy Seat, is the center of everything.
As we consider the meaning and experience of Jesus’ words regarding God through us, we keep this model fully in mind. Our purpose is to receive ALL of an invisible God into ourselves as humans and then to turn and reveal God as He is to all. This exchange from all of God in us now to God flowing out from us to all takes place inside the Mercy Seat. The river of life flows out from our hearts, as Jesus said.
Outward Display
The setting of Jesus’ words begins with a conversation between Jesus and His brothers. Jesus’ brothers do not believe in Him, and in their skepticism they suggest to Him that if He is “sent from God,” He should PROVE it by outward display. This is the great argument of the human definition of God drawn from the appearance of the serpent. This is the seductive and whimpering cry of Eve. Jesus answers their demands with a powerful and terrible word.
“The world hates Me.” These words are definitional and rule many critical concepts.
The Feast
The Feast of Tabernacles was the third great festival of Israel’s religious year and the seventh specific “feast.” It took place in the fall, six months after the Feast of Passover. The Feast of Tabernacles, on the surface, celebrated the historical experience of the children of Israel as they lived in simple booths constructed out of branches in their departure from Egypt. This feast covered eight days. It began on a Sabbath, upon which the people gathered branches and constructed booths. The feast then passed through six week days during which the people lived in those booths, and then ended on a final Sabbath, the great day of the feast.
The Fulfillment
The Feasts of Israel mark the most significant events in the life of the church and in the experience of each individual believer. The sacrifice of Jesus took place during the Feast of Passover, and is then experienced by each one as being born again. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the birthing of the church took place during the Feast of Pentecost and is then experienced by each as immersion into the Holy Spirit.
The Feast of Tabernacles, however, has not yet been fulfilled in the life and experience of the church. The fulfillment of Tabernacles in all that it means is the heart and focus of the New Testament.
The First Sabbath
The first Sabbath of Tabernacles represents the fulfillment of these words in fullness in the experience of the Church.
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20b-23).
Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . (Ephesians 3:13).
Filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).
The Dwelling in Booths
The six in-between days during which the children of Israel lived in booths made of branches, eating and drinking to their hearts’ content represent the fulfillment in fullness of these words in the experience of the Church.
In sincere love of the brethren, love one another with a pure heart fervently (1 Peter 1:22b).
That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us . . . and the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You . . . have loved them as You have loved Me (John 17:21-23).
The Great Day
The final Sabbath of Tabernacles represents the fulfillment of these words in fullness in the experience of the Church.
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38a).
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19).
These verses are the third most important verse in the Bible.
In Secret
Rejecting His brothers’ unbelief, Jesus remained behind in Galilee while they made the journey up to Jerusalem. Then Jesus did something of critical importance to our understanding of the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles in our lives right now and in the days just ahead.
Jesus went to the feast in secret.
Everyone expects to see Jesus at the beginning of this feast, but they cannot find Him. They go around asking, “Where is He?” Jesus is there (here) in the fulfillment of the first part of the Feast, only no one knows He is there (here) – except those of us who see Him by faith filling our hearts with His glory.
The Great Debate
Jesus begins to teach in the temple in the middle of six days of dwelling in booths. The conversation, however, between Himself and the Jews takes the form of the great debate.
The great debate is very simply – What does God look like? What and who is the appearance of God to His creation?
Jesus opens the debate by positioning human desire. What do you want? – Everyone finds what they seek. Only those who desire to know God above all will know the truth as it really is.
The Jews responded with these words: “You have a demon.”
We Know Who You Are!
Jesus answered: Do not judge according to appearance, but judge by substance (that is, righteous judgment).
The Jews responded back with the argument of all, Christians and non-Christians alike, against God showing up in the flesh. “We know who you are. You’re a man, just like us. We know your brothers and sisters. We know where you came from. We know the circumstances of your childhood. You are a man!”
OUTWARD APPEARANCE!!!
Jesus’ rebuke is so powerful and of great significance to the same revelation of Father through us. We are just like Him as we see Him as He is.
Jesus’ Rebuke
Let me paraphrase Jesus’ rebuke.
“Yes, you know Me. Yes, you know where I am from, a dusty little village in Galilee of no account. But you do NOT know God; you do not know the Father. But I know the Father. From the Father I AM, and the Father sent Me.”
The Greek word John chose here for Jesus’ “You know – I know” is eido. Yet this word, eido, has two sides, appearance versus substance.
When Jesus said, “You know,” He meant outer appearance, and when He said, “I know,” He meant the substance of God.
Eido
· eídō (oida) – properly, to see with physical eyes, as it naturally bridges to the metaphorical sense: perceiving ("mentally seeing"). This is akin to the expressions: "I see what You mean"; "I see what you are saying” (http://biblehub.com/greek/1492.htm).
· eídō ("seeing that becomes knowing") then is a gateway to grasp spiritual truth (reality) from a physical plane. (eídō) then is physical seeing (sight) which should be the constant bridge to mental and spiritual seeing (comprehension).
When the Jews said, “No one will know where the Christ is from,” they meant “not in human flesh.” In their minds, a deified angelic being was the image of God, certainly not a man of flesh and blood.
You Will Not Find Me
I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me.
The response of the Jews to these words were to send officers to arrest Jesus for the crime of blasphemy. The problem for them was that it was not yet His time.
Jesus’ reply to the officers sent to arrest Him was this: You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.
This final word of Jesus in the great debate really set them off, muttering and muttering without answer or response. Yet this word is NOT for us, but only for all those who judge all things by outward appearance and who refuse to see God.
The Moment
Now we turn from this debate to the moment of Jesus’ words prophesying the source and nature of the new creation. It is the final day of the feast. The people fill the temple waving branches in the air and shouting at the top of their lungs, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Into their midst comes the High Priest bearing a cup of water from the pool of Siloam and another priest bearing a cup of wine out from the temple. As these two priests hold the cups high, the people shouting and beating their branches, they pour out together the wine and the water, down upon the altar of sacrifice.
Then – everything goes silent. Not one sound is heard.
Jesus’ Piercing Cry
Into that very moment of pregnant silence, into that moment representing to Israel all the fulfillment of God in their midst, Jesus stood and cried out. We must grasp the meaning of the word.
· krazó: to scream, cry out. I cry aloud, I shriek.
· krázō – an onomatopoetic term for a raven's piercing cry ("caw"); (figuratively) cry out loudly with an urgent scream or shriek, using "inarticulate shouts that express deep emotion.”
· "Properly onomatopoetic of the raven, (krázō) means to croak; hence, generally used of inarticulate cries, to scream, cry out (Aesch., etc.)" (Abbott-Smith) (from biblehub.com).
The Words
It is into this moment and into this great debate that Jesus “screamed” these words. Oh, how we must know them.
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Let’s turn from the setting, now, and look briefly at the words. “Thirsts,” “come to Me,” and “drink” all mean exactly that. “He who believes in Me” is the same as “Christ lives in our hearts by faith.” There is no direct Old Testament verse that says this; rather, Jesus refers back to many passages on the outpouring of water.
The Womb
The word of significance is belly/heart/innermost being.
I just read “Bible teachers” arguing, over and over, that this word cannot be referring to any believer, but only to Christ as an entity separate from us. “The source of living water CANNOT BE a human.” The great debate rages on.
· koilia: belly, abdomen, heart, a general term covering any organ in the abdomen, e.g. stomach, womb; met: the inner man.
The word refers to the entire cavity containing lungs, heart, stomach, guts, and womb. It is most often translated “womb.”
The Spirit
We will look at rivers of living water in the next lesson. Here, let’s position our construction once more.
But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive . . .
Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.