A Gospel Invitation at the Feast of Tabernacles John 7:25-39
Human nature is indeed spiritually dead without a life given from above. In John 6:24 Jesus warned: “Do not judge (or stop judging) by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Jesus forbade judgment of others without exercising moral and theological discernment, yet we read the inability of the Jewish leaders and the crowds were unable to make “right judgments” concerning Jesus as the Messiah in Verses 25-36 ESV:
“25 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? 26 And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? 27 But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” 28 So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. (They knew His name was Jesus and that He had come from Nazareth.) But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. 29 I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.”
Several things here: The people were amazed that although the leaders sought to kill Jesus, He still spoke boldly and He did so in the temple. They THOUGHT they knew where Jesus came from, namely Galilee, and they refused to believe He could be the promised Messiah from Heaven. There had been a tradition based on poor interpretation of scriptures that the Messiah “would appear suddenly, and that no one would know where He had come from. On both accounts, the people had misjudged who Jesus was!
The people knew a little about Jesus but their view was totally inadequate: The reason He was in Jerusalem was that God had sent him on an earthly mission which had begun in Heaven with its roots in the will and purpose of YHWH, the Lord God of Hosts. Although they were God’s chosen people, separated from the pagans around them who knew nothing of God, they didn’t know God as well as they thought they did. If they did, they would have recognized the works which Jesus did as the very works of God, that Jesus, Himself was the fulfillment of Scripture, but they did not! They failed to see Jesus as the very fulfillment of the Law given to Moses and that He was the very goal and purpose of the Law. Jesus, on the other hand knew God, the only TRUE God because He had come from the very presence of God.
30 “So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. (God’s sovereign timetable would not permit Jesus to be taken yet.) 31 Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?” 32 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. 33 Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. 34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” 35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
Again, the crowds, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the temple guards all miss the point which Jesus makes so clearly: I am FROM HEAVEN and I will return TO HEAVEN.
LIVING WATER
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. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said (that is, the totality of what the Scriptures teach), ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 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.”
There were two special ceremonies associated with the Feast of Tabernacles: One was the lighting of the lights, which is the setting of John 8:12. Here we have the second, which involved a tradition which appeared a few centuries before Jesus, namely the offering of water unto the Lord. A golden container filled with water from the pool of Siloam was carried in procession by the high priest back to the temple. As the procession came to the Water Gate on the south side of the inner temple court, three trumpet blasts were made to mark the joy of the occasion and the people recited Isaiah 12:3, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” At the temple, while onlookers watched, the priests would march around the altar with the water container while the temple choir sang the Halle (Ps. 113-118). The water was offered in sacrifice to God at the time of the morning sacrifice. The use of the water symbolized the blessing of adequate rainfall for crops.” (“The MacArther Study Bible”, Note on p.1555)
At the Feast, Jesus is once again explaining that HE IS the One who provides the water of life. Remember when He spoke to the woman at the well in John 4:13 and said, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
A Gospel Invitation: Thirst
Three of Jesus’ words at the Feast summarize the Gospel invitation: Thirst, Come and Drink. We all know what it means to be physically thirsty: Your mouth becomes parched. Figuratively and spiritually this word is used in scripture referring to those who painfully feel their want of something deep inside: You eagerly long for your heart to be satisfied and filled in that place which is at the very core of your being.
In Psalm 42 David put it this way: 1 “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. 5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” I thought of St. Augustine’s famous quote in the context of Psalm 42: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
Back in Jeremiah 2:13, the people of Israel sought satisfaction apart from God; God’s words were this: “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Manmade philosophies which seek fulfillment apart from the living God and His Christ will result in spiritual starvation and devastation.
Jeremiah 17:13: “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.” The fountain of living water is only found in the Lord. He is Savior. He is the True life. (See verse 28 in our text: “He who sent me is true, and him you do not know.”)
An often mis-applied scripture is Jeremiah 29:11-14, which actually gives the spiritual solution to “spiritual thirst” and redemption: “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12 ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 ‘I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD.” This is the kind of heart who is coming to saving faith, a heart like David’s, one who is earnestly seeking God to provide life for Him. You come to the realization that there is life in nothing or no one else.
A Gospel Invitation to “come to Me”.
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me.” This was not a new teaching. The invitation was extended all the way back in Isaiah 55:1: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Also in Isaiah 58:11: “And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Jesus’ invitation was repeated throughout His ministry. Listen to some of these: Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 11:28: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matt. 16:25: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
John 5:39: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 6:37: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”
Listen to Psalm 107: “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. 2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say this-- those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, 3 those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south. (not just Israel!) 4 Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. 5 They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. 6 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 7 He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. 8 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, 9 for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” A clear picture of those who are thirsty and who come to the Lord for satisfaction.
An invitation to Drink
Isn’t it amazing that people would refuse to drink if they were thirsty and dying? Yet the unbelieving heart is hard toward God, unless God begins a work in it; but when the Father draws a person to Jesus, that person is thirsting for life and because he is thirsting for true life, he WILL come and he WILL drink…and he WILL believe, and follow, and deny himself, and take up his cross. In John 6:35 Jesus made the promise: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
The person who thirsts, who comes, and who drinks is the person who BELIEVES. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture (that is, the totality of what the Scriptures teach.) has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” When you come and drink it means that you believe, and when you BELIEVE, you are saved, and when you are saved, you have such abundance from God that you tell others the reason for the hope that you have within you.
We close with verse 39: “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.” Not only did Jesus fulfill prophecy as the Bread from Heaven and but the promised Holy Spirit would cause the rivers of life to flow to those who are thirsting after God, those who would come, and drink (believe). (Ezekiel 47:1-9)
The prophecy of Isaiah 44:3 would be fulfilled after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension in Jerusalem at Pentecost: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” And the LIVING WATER continues to flow from the Spirit and the Word throughout the world by those who carry the Gospel message wherever they are…and it will continue to do so.
The writer, John, had the privilege of seeing the eternal glory of the Living Water and of the things which will come in Rev. 7:17: “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
Rev. 22:17: “The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” Praise God the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit for this gift of LIFE without cost to us, but provided by the life of the Incarnate Son.
I. Jesus is the Living Water.
II. The words of John 7:37-38 convey the Gospel invitation:
A. Thirst:
B. Come:
C. Drink:
III. “Whoever Believes” is the person who thirsts, comes, and drinks.
IV. The promised Holy Spirit would cause the rivers of life to flow to those who are thirsting after God, those who would come, and drink (believe). (Ezekiel 47:1-9)
