John 7

As Jesus moved toward the cross, the controversy around Him grew. A major turning point in the opinion of even many of those who had once considered themselves to be His disciples came when He told them they needed to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life. This was an escalation of a conversation where people who were already offended by His statement that He came down from heaven, now frankly admitted that His difficult words were too troubling for them to remain associated with Him. Nonetheless, it was not yet time for the cross. He escaped some of the day to day dangers of being too near Jerusalem by travelling around Galilee, not because He was afraid of death, but because His time had not yet come.

One problem with avoiding Jerusalem is that Jewish adult males were commanded by God’s Law to gather in Jerusalem for three major religious feasts every year. One of these feasts was the culmination of the annual calendar, the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, which is rightly associated with the idea of God dwelling with His people in a world of perfection forever. That feast, we are told, was at hand, so as a true worshipper of the Father, He eventually went to Jerusalem. His brothers were trying to push Him to go to the feast for another reason, to make a name for Himself, to attend with the idea that this would be a way to prominence. They did not believe in Him, or they would have trusted Him to know the pathway to the fulfillment of His destiny. They thought as the world thinks. The way of Jesus and His kingdom is different than the way of the world. Jesus came to glory through the cross, and the time for that had not yet fully come. He did go to the feast, but He went first as a private worshipper.

There was much discussion about Him at the feast. Somewhere in the middle of the eight days of Tabernacles, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. His teaching came from His Father. In this way He was very different from celebrated rabbis who studied the opinions of other teachers from the past and showed that their understanding was based on their research and their assent to the traditions of scholarly Jews. Jesus had an immediate Word from God in His teaching, and seemed to even possess an immediate understanding of the opinions and motives of those who were listening to Him. He forthrightly confronted those who would not receive His Word as violators of God’s Law who were actually seeking to kill Him, an innocent Man, and this because of His healing people on the Sabbath. Everyone agreed that to circumcise on the Sabbath was necessary work, and yet to heal the whole man was not allowed. Though the religious leaders taught based on tradition, they had full trust in their own opinions, even when those traditions and opinions were at complete odds with the bold teaching of One who was performing the signs of the Messiah from the Scriptures.

It is easy to imagine that this situation was not only awkward, but full of significant tension. A Man was openly teaching who was generally known to be opposed by powerful people, and yet He was not being arrested. His miracles seem to be well known to everyone, but as the people judge Jesus, some find Him lacking in some detail of what they expect to be signs of Messiah. For example some apparently expect that Messiah will come in such a way that people will not know where He came from. Others insist that He will be known to have come from Bethlehem. In addition to all this, Jesus is talking about going away to Him who sent Him, and some of them are getting the distinct impression that it is the intention of Jesus to go to other Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire.

In the midst of all of this, on the last day of the Feast, Jesus stood up and cried out one of the most dramatic and meaningful sayings of His entire ministry. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” We are told by the gospel writer that Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, whom those who would believe in Him were to receive.

The story of a healing river that is connected with the presence of God is a story that starts in Eden, and finds its perfectly secure fulfillment in the new heavens and the new earth, described at the very end of the Bible. Along the way, the prophet Ezekiel is given a vision of what has to be a heavenly temple where God dwells. Proceeding out from under that temple is a healing river. Jesus is that Temple, and those who believe in Him are united with Him in His designation as the temple of the Holy Spirit. This heavenly hope is what Tabernacles was all about, and Jesus is saying to all who would hear, “If you want the glory of the life to come, come to me and drink. Not only will you get heaven’s river, that river will proceed from you, for you will be the temple of the Holy Spirit, together with all the church, of which I am the Cornerstone.”

This was a very appropriate declaration by just the right Man, at just the right time, in just the right setting. It did not take away all of the trouble that was already swirling around His Name. Instead it caused the conflict to grow, since it was a conflict that could only end at the cross. Eventually His time would really come, the time of His atoning death on the cross for us, the time for His resurrection from the dead, the time for His ascension into heaven, where from the right hand of the Father, the Spirit of God would be poured out upon the church, and the New Testament temple of believing people would be born and would grow. This growth of the temple would happen with still more controversy. There would continue to be men like Nicodemus who would question the rightness of persecuting the innocent, and there would continue to be those who would be ready to hurl curses and insults at anyone who showed any weakness in the direction of faith. Above all of them, there would be the true Rock of our salvation who will not be moved. He is an ever-determined Source of life-giving waters to His people.