Living Water

Thoughts on the Gospel for Last Week.

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John 4:3-14
In last weeks portion, we saw the Messiah using the metaphor of Living Water to describe His truths that will bring man life in the world and eternal life in the world to come.  This is not the only metaphor Yeshua uses to convey the concept of Him bringing life to man.  Previously, we saw Him refer to Himself as the Light of Life.  He also refers to Himself as the Bread of Life and finally, we see in the scriptures that life is in the blood.  This week we will explore these metaphors used to describe the life received through the Messiah Yeshua.
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Light of Life 
In a previous review we saw Yeshua refer to Himself as the Light of Life.  Our review of the scriptures considered that Yeshua is the Light of Life: 

1. That through His example of living the law would bring us life in mortality. 
2. That through His Atonement and Resurrection would bring us immortality and eternal life. 
3. That through His Word we have physical light that sustains physical life. 

 

Bread of Life 
In the Torah, we see God use the concept of leavened and unleavened bread to symbolized the existence or absence of life in God and His Law.  Yeast, a living organism, causes bread to rise and gives bread volume and a fullness of flavor.  During the Feast of Unleavened bread, we eat unleavened bread made without yeast, symbolizing the absence of life without His law.  Then during Shavuot, we consume leavened bread to symbolize a fullness of life in His law – a fullness of the blessings of His law. 

In the New Testament, Yeshua refers to Himself as the Bread of Life.  Jews at the time would have immediately recognized the connection with the law – Yeshua – and life with the metaphor of bread having life.  Again, we see similar concepts with the Light of Life and the Bread of Life with the same three points made above.

Consider this video how yeast makes bread rise.

Living Water 
We could make the same three points listed above about water giving life - Yeshua giving Living Water through His teaching of the truth.  Lets see how Isaiah puts  the concept of Living Water in an Endtime context. ​ Dr. Gileadi comments,

​"When God says, “Attention, all who thirst; come for water!  By pointing his people to his covenant, he leads them to a restoration of its blessings (Isaiah 55:3). In that end-time context, God’s covenant subsists in his servant, whom God appoints as “a witness to the nations, a prince and lawgiver of the peoples” (Isaiah 55:3–4; compare 42:6; 49:8). As mediator of God’s covenant, the servant guides people to “food” and “water” during a dearth."

"As forerunner of Jehovah’s coming to reign on the earth, the servant summons God’s people who repent to return from dispersion in an exodus to Zion (Isaiah 55:5–13). Just as Israel sang a Song of Salvation following its exodus out of Egypt (Exodus 15:1–21), so do God’s people following the new exodus: “In the God of my salvation I will trust without fear; for Jehovah was my strength and my song when he became my salvation. Then shall you rejoice in drawing water from the fountains of salvation” (Isaiah 12:2–3; compare 11:10–16). Symbolizing the Waters of Life, water typifies God’s covenant blessing (Isaiah 35:6–7; 41:17–18; 44:3–4; 49:8–10)."


Finally,  we see during the last day of Sukkot, which represents eternity, Yeshua declares at John 7 of those who follow him that His truth would flow from them in eternity.

37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.


Life in Blood
In the Torah, we see God declare that life is in blood and Israel was commanded not to eat blood.

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.  Lev. 17

Blood in all living things provides oxygen and nutrients to each cell in the body. It is what sustains the body's ability to continue to exist.  In an atonement context, by the shedding of blood, which is essentially the shedding of life under God's Word an atonement is made for sin. In the New Testament, we see Yeshua's blood shed for the atonement of all humanity.

​In yet another aspect of blood, Clay Trumball writes in his book, The Blood Covenant, he says,

“A covenant of blood … has been recognized as the closest, the holiest, and the most indissoluble, compact conceivable. Such a covenant clearly involves an absolute surrender of one’s separate self, and an irrevocable merging of one’s individual nature [with God].... Man’s highest and noblest outreachings of soul have, therefore, been for such a union with the divine nature as is typified in this … covenant of blood.” (The Blood Covenant, p.204)

Circumcision is a covenant of blood.

​In the Passover feast or meal and Christian sacrament, we see this sealing of a covenant and three emblems representing the Messiah who is a party to the covenant and to the sealing of the covenant – the meat of the sacrificial lamb, the bread, and wine. Not only do these emblems represent the body and blood of the Messiah, but by taking these emblems within oneself, one takes into one the very attributes of His life, His virtues and His energies. Of the blood covenant, Trumball writes, “… the taking in of another’s blood was the acquiring of another’s life, with all that was best in that other’s nature. It was not merely that the taking away of blood was the taking away of life; but that the taking in of blood was the taking in of life, and of all that life represented.” (The Blood Covenant, p.126) Yeshua affirms this symbolism at John 6:53-58.

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Resources for this Weeks Portion

Matthew 10:21-38

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