(Suggested Reading: Num. 21:1-181And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners. 2And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. 3And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah. 4And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. 5And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. 6And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 7Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. 9And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. 10And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in Oboth. 11And they journeyed from Oboth, and pitched at Ije-abarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrising. 12From thence they removed, and pitched in the valley of Zared. 13From thence they removed, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites: for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. 14Wherefore it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord, What he did in the Red sea, and in the brooks of Arnon, 15And at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab. 16And from thence they went to Beer: that is the well whereof the Lord spake unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water. 17Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it: 18The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves. And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah: (Numbers 21:1‑18); John 7)
Rivers of Living Water
Life as we know it cannot exist without water. That is why Scripture speaks of "the water of life." But water can also be an agent of death in the raging seas, floods, and storms. This is to be expected in a world in which life itself takes fierce and gentle forms the tiger on the one hand and the deer on the other. The explanation is found, not in studying nature, but in revelation. Good and evil, light and darkness, characterize a world stamped by sin. It was not so in the beginning when God saw everything He had made, and behold it was very good. But man marred the creation by his fall. Scripture now calls him "the man of dust.”
God's Works With Water in the Old Creation of Gen. 1
Only by turning to God's thoughts on any subject do we get light. The beginning and ending of God's thoughts reveal His purpose and its fulfillment. For this reason the beginning and ending of God's thoughts concerning water is a rich subject for the enjoyment of our souls. God begins at the deep. The Spirit of God hovers over that. Because of the entrance Gen. 1:22And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2) and the work Gen. 1:9, 109And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:9‑10) of God in this world, the deep changes to the waters, the waters to the seas. Even so, the sea is not pleasurable to God, for in the eternal state the sea is no more Rev. 21:11And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. (Revelation 21:1). Yet it is from this waste that God raises the dry land, the whole of which is Eden a paradise in which He plants a garden. The thought of a garden is an enclosure and fruit. There God would enjoy man and man God. A river went out of Eden to water the garden. Then it was divided into four main streams. Such were God's thoughts for the earth at the beginning a river whose crystal clear streams should keep the whole earth green a delightsome thing. But we miss the point if we don't see that it was from the garden God's presence that this parting to bless the earth took place. Connect this with the end of God's dealings with the earth. It is from the millennial temple God's presence again that the "waters to swim in" come out "a river that could not be forded" Ezek. 47:55Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. (Ezekiel 47:5).
God's Work With Water in the New Creation—the Story of John's Two Pools
But if God purposed blessing for the earth in the beginning and will see that it is blessed in the end, what of the intervening period marred by sin? It is here that the two pools in John's gospel come in. These pools symbolize the ruin of man, a ruin agreeing to the primeval chaos of Gen. 1:22And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2). At them we find man himself impotent and blind dust of the earth and truly as without form and void as the earth once was. Then there are the waters, not now the deep, but in two pools, motionless, confined by the earth. There is the Spirit of God, for every act in Jesus' life was done in His power. The Lord had told Nicodemus too that man must be born of water and of the Spirit. He is needful, both for life and power. And just as the Spirit of God came to the deep where the darkness and the great need were so does the Lord go up to Jerusalem to meet man's need at these pools, in the power of the Spirit.
a. Man is powerless under law, and blind to the glory of Christ by nature: The Lord said "sin no more" to the impotent man, who is simply a figure of Israel under law but powerless to keep it because of man's fallen nature. Acts 7:5353Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. (Acts 7:53) confirms this. It tells us that they had received the law as ordained by the ministry of angels and had not kept it. So at Bethesda an angel disturbed the pool, but it took One mightier than an angel to cure their willfulness.
At the pool of Siloam, on the other hand, the Lord lays no guilt at the door of the blind man. He says "Neither has this man sinned nor his parents." A nature is in question here. We cannot help being "born blind at our birth" it is completely beyond our control. That man, the man under judgment, must be ended by death. Ye must be born again.
b. The Man of power Christ gives a new nature to fallen man: The Lord had freed the prisoner in John 5 and opened the eyes of the blind in John 9 thus proving beyond doubt that He was Israel's God. In the face of such proofs the Jews rejected both His words and His works. Since Jesus knew what was in man John 2:2525And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:25) He did these great signs on the Sabbath. When the Jews objected to this the Lord answered "My Father works until now, and I work" John 5:1717But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. (John 5:17). The Sabbath was the sign of God's rest in creation. But the Lord clearly indicated that sin had entered that creation, making a new work necessary. Since man could do nothing, the Lord of glory would do it all for him. He would give eternal life to man.
To give this life to man the Word of God must be applied in the power of the Spirit of God. John 3:55Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5) makes it plain that man must be born of water the Word of God and the Spirit. The two pools in John's gospel and the signs the Lord performed at them typify the new birth. However God does not stop with the new birth. He uses John to show that just as the old nature man acquired at the fall is powerless and blind, so the new nature is one of power and vision. This new nature is symbolically represented to us in John's gospel by pictures of water in living energy, not only in contrast to the two pools for the water in a pool is stagnant but flowing out of them. Old things having passed away, all things have become new.
How the Pools Symbolically Change Their Character—Becoming a Fountain Rising Heavenward and Rivers to Refresh the Earth
To understand the transition which our caption indicates, we must group the rivers our subject in this chapter with the fountain of John 4. The rivers of living water do not stand by themselves, anymore than the fountain does.
a. A springing well for heaven: In the pool of Siloam all is grace. There the Lord is worshipped as the sent One of the Father. Now eternal life expresses itself in two ways service and worship, the figures of which are rivers and a fountain respectively. Rivers illustrate living water without in the world. In the chapter dealing with the Gentile sinner we have a fountain of living water within. But it does not stay within any more than the waters "in his belly" in John 8. They were many faceted, but the springing well worship in the power of the Holy Spirit springs heavenward, not over the earth like the rivers. There is but one object the worship of the Father and the Son. It is as though the waters of the pool of Siloam in the ninth chapter are energized to become the springing well in the fourth chapter. The link is that at the pool of Siloam the Lord is worshipped as Son of God; in John 4 the Father seeks such to worship Him.
b. Rivers to refresh the earth: The figure of a river is not difficult to understand. In nature a river is a flow of water rushing turbulently over the earth, and refreshing it. A river moves in channels, though these may change from time to time. It also has a source. Now let us apply this by going back to the beginning.
We are told that a river flowed out of Eden, to irrigate the garden where Adam was the figure of the man to come. From there it divided into four rivers. We find only one river connected with the Lord in John's gospel the Jordan. The river speaks of service in living energy and His service was undivided.
It was at His baptism in the river Jordan that His public ministry commenced. "Immediately the Spirit drives Him out to the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days tempted by Satan" Mark 1:1313And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him. (Mark 1:13). Our service, however, is expressed in many different channels of grace. That is why the Lord uses the figure of rivers, not a river, for us. "He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" John 7:3838He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38). But to do that you must first thirst, and come to Him and drink. Nothing can go out of your belly that hasn't first gone in it. The great point is that the rivers, which are pictures of eternal life in mighty rushing energy flowing over this earth, are confined in channels, for eternal life is the possession of believers. We are the channels God uses in service to refresh this poor earth. Like the four main streams in Gen. 2:1010And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. (Genesis 2:10) we all have one source of energy, and that is Christ.
However, while we can apply the figure of rivers as service for the Lord at the present time, we must not lose sight of the setting of the Lord's words. They were spoken at the feast of tabernacles John 7:22Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. (John 7:2). This was the last of the seven feasts of the Lord Lev. 23 and prefigured Israel's blessing in the coming millennial day. In that future day Israel's impotency will be gone. The pool of the impotent man, so to speak, will be changed into the rivers of which the Lord spoke on that last day, the great day of the feast. Israel is impotent today because they do not thirst for Christ. They are a river bed without water. One day they will be rivers again to the whole earth. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" Psa. 110:33Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. (Psalm 110:3). Then their belly will be filled and the rivers will go out to others. Now note how they go out over the world a fitting picture of the service an earthly people render to God. The rivers of eternal life, then, speak of the many forms which service to the Lord may take, a service which is confined to the earth, for a river does not rise above it.