INTRODUCTION
We’re in a series looking at descriptions of Jesus. The Bible is full of descriptions of God the Father, of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. Last week, we looked at one of Jesus’ descriptions of himself. He said, ‘I am the good shepherd’ [John 10:11]. We looked at what shepherds were like in the Bible, and we looked at what shepherds are like today. Shepherds today are very much like the shepherds in the Old Testament. They care for their sheep. They’re committed to their sheep. And they’re very tough and resilient.
Jesus is a shepherd like that for us and we can be very thankful that he is. But it isn’t enough to understand that Jesus is our good shepherd. We have to do something! We have to listen to our shepherd. We have to follow him. And we have to reject other voices.
That’s what we looked at last week.
JESUS THE ROCK
This week, we’re going to look at another description of Jesus: Jesus the rock.
Are rocks useful? They certainly are if you want to build a tall building! This is a picture of the world’s tallest building: Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. It’s 828 metres high! For comparison, The Shard in London is 310 metres high. For a really tall building like Burj Khalifa to stay upright it needs a really strong foundation. As you can imagine, it has one.
As far as I know there is just one place in the Bible which says that Jesus is the rock. It comes in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
I think this is quite a difficult passage. Not impossible. But a bit difficult.
Let’s read 1 Corinthians 10:1-10.
Paul is teaching the Corinthian Christians something. Paul’s takeaways come in verses 6-10. Paul has a list of don’t do this, don’t do that. He is warning the Corinthians. His argument is, Look at what happened to the ancient Israelites! They were destroyed! The same could happen to you! In the context of that argument, Paul says that the spiritual Rock that followed them – the ancient Israelites, in other words – was Christ.
How does all this connect up? It’s a bit difficult! But not impossible!
Let’s take it one step at a time.
GOD IS THE ROCK
The Old Testament is very comfortable with the idea that God is a rock. Indeed, The Rock.
One of the chapters in the Bible which says that most clearly is Deuteronomy 32. Moses is about to die. He decides to sing a song! Priscilla [my wife] will probably sing a song when she’s about to die but I don’t think I will. Anyway, Moses gets going with his song. This is how he starts:
“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak,
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
May my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distil as the dew,
like gentle rain upon the tender grass,
and like showers upon the herb.
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect…” [Deuteronomy 32:1-4a].
Moses wants to say why God is great. And the first thing he says is ‘The Rock, his work is perfect…’
God is THE ROCK. In the ESV, Rock has a capital ‘R’. The ESV has treated The Rock as a name for God. It’s a great name for God. God is very much a rock. He’s strong, stable and permanent. He is the ONLY true place of security for God’s people. We could talk a lot more about God as The Rock in the Old Testament but that’s probably enough for our purposes.
THE ROCK WHICH GAVE WATER
Let’s go back to Paul. He wrote that the ancient Israelites ‘drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them.’ What is this about? The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They followed Moses across the Sinai Peninsula on their way to Egypt. It’s a big desert and – surprise, surprise – there was sometimes no water. On two occasions, God miraculously provided water from a rock. Once was at a place called Rephidim. God told Moses to strike a rock and water came out of it [Exodus 17:1-6]. The second time was at a place called Kadesh. This time, God told Moses to SPEAK to the rock [Numbers 20:1-11]. But Moses struck it. Water came out of the rock as before, but God was not happy with Moses.
On those occasions, physical water came out of a physical rock. But Paul wrote about spiritual water and a spiritual rock. We need to think some more.
SPIRITUAL WATER AND A SPIRITUAL ROCK
Moses knew God as The Rock. But God wasn’t just The Rock. In the Old Testament God also calls himself ‘the fountain of living waters.’ God told Jeremiah:
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 [Jeremiah 2:13]
God is the fountain of living waters. He is like living water in the sense that he is a source of spiritual refreshing in a dry place.
The Israelites found a physical rock which gave physical water in the desert.
God is The Rock. And he gives living water.
The physical rock which gave physical water was a very good picture of the true Rock, God, who gives living water.
THE CONNECTION TO THE CORINTHIAN CHRISTIANS
Paul’s point is that the Corinthian Christians were just like the ancient Israelites. Spiritually, they were in the same situation. They ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual food. And to clinch his argument, Paul tells them that the SPIRITUAL ROCK who was accompanying the ancient Israelites was Jesus!
Jesus was born about 2,000 years ago. But he is part of God. He has always existed. He told some Jews: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am’ [John 8:58]. Jesus was with the ancient Israelites as they travelled through the wilderness.
WHAT WE HAVE TO DO
Paul has established that the Corinthian Christians were spiritually in the same situation as the ancient Israelites. Now he’s made that point, he can draw a lesson from it.
The church in Corinth had a lot going for it. In particular, there were lots of spiritual gifts on display in the church in Corinth. But there was also sin present. Paul needed to give the Christians in Corinth a warning. He does that by comparing Corinthian Christians’ situation to the situation for the ancient Israelites.
God was the ancient Israelites’ Rock. HE was faithful to THEM. He guided them by the cloud. He led them across the Red Sea. He gave them manna and quail in the desert. He gave them spiritual drink from the spiritual rock.
But THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL were not faithful to GOD. They worshipped idols. They committed sexual immorality. They tested God. And they grumbled. The result was that God wasn’t at all happy with those ancient Israelites. Paul writes, ‘With most of them God was not pleased.’ By one means or another, the ancient Israelites who committed those sins were destroyed. Only two of the adults who left Egypt reached the promised land.
What’s Paul’s point? The Corinthian Christians were in the same situation as the ancient Israelites were in. Therefore what happened to the ancient Israelites could happen to the Corinthian Christians. The ancient Israelites were destroyed.
So Paul writes, ‘Corinthian Christians, you need to be careful! You must not be like those ancient Israelites!’
God is not just A rock. He is The Rock. But that will not help if his people are unfaithful. That is Paul’s point.
CONCLUSION
There are two things I hope we will get from this study.
Paul tells us that the rock which – or I should say, who – accompanied the ancient Israelites, was Jesus. Their Rock guided them by a cloud. He led them across the Red Sea. He gave them manna and quail in the desert. He gave them spiritual drink from the spiritual rock. Jesus can be that Rock for us. He can be a source of strength, stability and permanence in our lives. He can be a place of security. He is the only firm foundation to build our lives on. We need to do that!
But there’s another message. It comes from what Paul taught the Corinthian Christians. Paul recalls what happened to the ancient Israelites. God was faithful but they were unfaithful. They fell into sin. Ultimately, they were destroyed. We must not make the same mistake. And with God’s help, we will not.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 25th August, 4 p.m. service
