What It Means to be Filled with the Holy Spirit # 15

"Upon that Great Day of the Feast ... Out of His Belly Shall Flow Rivers of Living Water" (continued)

We are told by scholars of the Old Testament, and of Jewish customs, that for seven days as a part of this great feast, the people led by a priest had made their way to the Fountain of Siloam, where the priest filled a golden pitcher, and brought it back to the temple amid music and joyful shouts. Then the priest, advancing to the altar of burnt-offering, at the cry of the people, "Lift up thy hand," emptied the pitcher of water toward the west, and he also emptied a cup of wine toward the east, while the people chanted, "With joy ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."

Now, it is not certain whether the Jews repeated this same ceremonial procedure on the last day, the eighth day of this great feast, but we do know that it was a day of great joy, of loud jubilation, and of sounding of  trumpets. And there can be no doubt that the Words of the Lord had reference to this ceremony of the pouring out of the water and wine, a ceremony that had taken place each year for centuries.

In the Greek the phrase, "Jesus stood," implies that Jesus was standing and watching the people participate in this great feast; the sense behind these words also indicate that His heart and thoughts were full. And from what He said on the last day of the feast, His thoughts were full of the great change that was about to take place, for He knew the Cross was imminent. He knew that this change would bring the old ways to an end, and that in Him would be the New and Living Way. He knew that out of Him, out of His Innermost Being would flow Rivers of Living Waters. First of all, Jesus said these words of Himself; then, because we are in Him, it is in the measure that we are filled in the Spirit that this River of His Life, that the Livingness of His Life, shall by the Spirit flow through us - "Out of His Belly shall flow Rivers of Living Water."

Now we do not know exactly when Jesus spoke these words on the last day of the feast, but we do know that they were said exactly at God's appointed time, for Jesus said, "I can of Mine Own Self do nothing" (John 5:0). We know that the people who heard His Words would understand some of the significance of these Rivers of Living Waters, for they had witnessed the pouring of the water on the altar for seven days. We know that the Words of Jesus must have reminded them of the river of water that had gushed out of the rock in the wilderness (Exodus 17:6). Also, when Jesus said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink," it must have called to their minds the prophetic words of Isaiah: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters" (55:1). Some of them must have surely thought of Ezekiel and his "waters to swim in" (47:1-5). Jesus' Words spoke of all these Scriptures, and of many others, because Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of them.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 16)