This is a paper I wrote for a biblical theology course at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. I was assigned to demonstrate how biblical theology contributes to the understanding and application of a chosen passage of Scripture.

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The Judean wilderness is a harsh, desolate desert whose only major body of water is the Dead Sea.^[1] The high salt and other mineral content reach “over 25 percent as compared to 5 percent for most oceans,” making this water unsuitable to sustain human and agricultural life.^[2] Near the north end and to the west, Jerusalem sits “perched right on the boundary between the desert and the [fertile land],”^[3] dependent on rain and the Gihon spring for its water.^[4] It was to a people and city that knew the importance of water that Jesus proclaimed, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water’” (Jn. 7:37b-38^[5]). Mankind requires water to live, and Jesus promised all who depend on him an abundant source.

Of course, though he used it as a word picture, Jesus was not speaking of physical water, but of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit necessary to sustain spiritual life (Jn. 7:39). When Jesus spoke these words, he did so on the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles (or Shelters).^[6] God had instituted this feast as one of three for which all male Israelites were required to assemble before God (Exod. 23:14, 16-17; Lev. 23:33-43). Jesus would likely have been addressing one of the largest regular gatherings of Israel, and he offered the life-giving Holy Spirit to whomever of this great assembly would come to him.

But there is more meaning than a simple word play on abundance of water. John implies that Jesus was “in the temple courts” when he made his offer (Jn. 7:28). And it is possible that he spoke these words about the time the priests performed a water pouring ceremony at the altar, though this cannot be confirmed from Scripture.^[7] By speaking of rivers of water, Jesus was drawing on a significant theme of Scripture; and by doing so in the temple, he was further directing our attention to significant Old Testament promises.

The first mention Scripture makes of a river is found in Genesis 2. That first river flowed out from Eden before dividing into four separate rivers that watered the earth (Gen. 2:10-14). Not only is there a river flowing from Eden, but T. Desmond Alexander argues that “the Garden of Eden is portrayed in the opening chapters of Genesis as a divine sanctuary. . . . it may be more accurate to designate it a temple-garden.”^[8] Many reasons for this designation can be advanced, but three will be given here.^[9] Each not only supports the view of Eden as the first temple, but also allows us to trace the themes Jesus utilizes in his proclamation through the Old Testament.

First, Eden as the place God met and communed with man mirrors His presence in the later tabernacle and temples. Genesis 3:8 states that God “moved about” in the garden while the preceding chapter implies that Eden and its garden were the location of God’s interactions with man. G. K. Beale points out that “[t]he same Hebrew verbal form” later “describes God’s presence in the tabernacle,” citing Leviticus 26:12, Deuteronomy 23:14, and 2 Samuel 7:6-7.^[10] And Solomon’s temple is described as the place of God’s earthly presence, where man could appear before God (Ps. 84:7, 2 Chron. 7:2).

Second, both the symbolism and the imagery of the tree of life are echoed in the descriptions of the tabernacle. The tree’s symbolism as the source of life is plain and corresponds to “the idea that fulness of life is to be found in the sanctuary [which is] a basic principle of the sacrificial law and a recurrent theme of the psalms.”^[11] And a physical image of a tree served as the lampstand for the tabernacle, with the tree of life “a good candidate to be considered as the model for [it]” (cf. Ex. 25:31-40).^[12] Solomon’s temple also contained tree imagery^.[13] And though no image of a singular tree is mentioned in the account of the building, the lampstand was used in the temple (2 Chron. 13:11).

The passages that develop this third reason each also advance Jesus’ chosen theme of rivers of water. The river flowing from Eden is itself evidence of the temple/sanctuary connection. Though neither the tabernacle nor the later Israelite temples were water sources, they were envisioned as such by God’s people. Psalm 36 portrays God’s house as a source of abundant water for all men:

They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
And You allow them to drink from the river of Your delights.
For the fountain of life is with You… (Ps. 36:8-9a NASB).

And though the temple is not specified, Psalm 46:4 also speaks of a river flowing through the earthly dwelling of God. Beale appeals to Jeremiah 17 as further demonstrating this theme, though there, the connection is less direct.^[14] The most conspicuous evidence of a temple and river connection are the references to a future temple. Joel spoke of a day when “[a] spring will flow out from the temple of the Lord, watering the Valley of Acacia Trees” (Joel 3:18b). The reference to acacia trees indicates “that the stream that has been mentioned will proceed to the most dry and barren locations in the vicinity of Jerusalem;”^[15] thus it seems that Joel understates the size of the stream. Ezekiel was given a vision of the temple in which a trickle begins in the temple but rapidly becomes a river as it flows away to the Dead Sea (Ezek. 47:1-12). Finally, Zechariah 14 speaks of “living waters” that “flow out from Jerusalem” year-round (Zech. 14:8); though this water is not stated to come from the temple itself, the close association of Jerusalem with the temple causes the reader to identify this passage with the two previous.

This brings us back to Jesus, standing in the temple court, proclaiming that abundant water was available to all who would come and believe in him. The use of Old Testament themes and imagery both broadens and deepens the meaning of Jesus’ words. Christ, the life-giving Lamb of God, offered the source of life to his hearers. Here the presence of the tree of life is again glimpsed within reach of mankind; the offer of its fruit, life, is made without qualification to all who hear. The living water, John tells us, refers to “the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive” (Jn. 7:39). The second Person of the Godhead offers the third Person of the Godhead to mankind.

Emmanuel, God robed in humanity and living in the midst of humans, invited all to come to him; the purpose of the temple, first begun in Eden before it was lost and then begun again in halting stages, was finally realized in him. No longer was God’s presence to be confined to a single location, a grand but stationary building in a city in an arid land; it was now living among humanity and flowing out into those who came to Christ.

Jesus spoke in terms of rivers of living water. This “branch from a root out of a dry ground”^[16] promised an over-abundance of the Spirit for the people of God. If the extra-biblical sources are to be believed, “on this [last] day” of the feast, the Jews “had also the ceremony of drawing and pouring water” in which a priest filled a pot with water and poured it into two basins to the left of the altar.^[17] This ceremony was celebratory of “the pouring forth of the Holy Ghost” and was involved with the traditional Jewish prayers “for the rains for the year ensuing.”^[18] Assuming the account is accurate, Jesus’ words would have evoked this ceremony, thus drawing on not only the Old Testament theme of a river coming from the temple, but also of God’s provision for his people and the promise of the Holy Spirit.

For anyone familiar with the Old Testament, it is immediately clear from John’s account that Christ was evoking temple language. But a problem of translation presents itself at this point: from whom will the rivers of living water flow? Two different readings are possible, that of the NET which has been quoted above or the more popular readings as represented by the NASB – “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’” (Jn. 7:37b-38 NASB). In the first, the rivers come from Christ but in the second, from the one who believes on Christ. The translators of the NET state, “Three crucial questions are involved in the solution of this problem: (1) punctuation [of the Greek]; (2) determining the antecedent of αὐτοῦ (autou); and (3) the source of the Scripture quotation. . . . Grammatical and stylistic arguments are inconclusive.”^[19] They go on to argue, regarding the second question, that nowhere else in John’s writings is the believer said to be a source of the Spirit while Christ is several times said to be the source; and, regarding the third question, that the most likely Old Testament quotation also supports a reading with Christ as the source of the rivers.^[20]

Matthew Poole, taking the second reading, sees the statement as promising “that [the believer’s] soul shall abound with all saving and comfortable influences of saving grace” rather than that the believer becomes a source of the Spirit. “[A]ll those promises we meet with in the Old Testament, about pouring out the Spirit” supply the source of the quotation.^[21] Benjamin Keach writes that, on the second reading, the “flowing of water must be understood of the plentiful gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, by which the apostles and other ministers by preaching of the Gospel converted many unto Christ, and filled them with living comfort.”^[22] This more naturally fits the idea of water flowing outward but still tends to make believers a source of the Spirit.

Thankfully, the meaning of the passage is not significantly altered by either reading. In either case, Jesus announces the satisfaction of the Old Testament expectation of God with man resulting in a renewed creation; he declares the fulfillment of the promises in Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah of a temple with life-giving water pouring forth. If the second reading is used, those who come to Christ are then the temple out of which the rivers flow. Several places in the New Testament speak to the reality of the Church as God’s temple. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church that they were “grow[ing] into a holy temple in the Lord, . . . being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21b-22), and of the church at Corinth he asked, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that the God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). At least two other passages, 2 Corinthians 6:16 and 1 Peter 2:5, also speak of the New Testament Church as God’s temple. The emphasis, in this case, of Jesus’ words is on the presence of God’s Spirit in the gathered body of God’s people.

But if the first reading is followed, it is Christ himself who is the temple and who is the wellspring of the Spirit. This seems to best fit not only the imagery Jesus evokes but also the immediate context in John’s gospel account:

Throughout John 7, Jesus is presenting himself as the fulfillment of the Old Covenant feast of tabernacles. He is the Word from John 1:14 that has “tabernacled” among his people as the incarnate Son of God. . . . He is claiming to be the fulfillment of the feast of tabernacles, and everything that it pointed to. He is the true tabernacle and temple, the special dwelling place of God’s presence on the earth. He is also the source of life-giving drink for God’s weary people.^[23]

The Church as God’s temple is always predicated on the foundational nature of Christ to the Church, so nothing of the more popular reading is lost. But much is gained in the application of the passage when the NET’s reading is used.

The most obvious application (on either reading) is that the hearer must come to Christ! Without Christ, there is no opportunity to drink but only to remain parched throughout life, still banished from God’s presence and abundance. Christ lays no obstacle before his hearers. Are you thirsty for the water of life? Then Christ calls you to come. And yet, “that ‘If,’ spoken in tenderly solemn tones of apprehension, reminds us that many are called, but few are chosen.”^[24] Even the desire to obey, to come and drink, must be supplied by the Giver of Life.

For those who have drunk of Christ, his words remind us that he is the source of the Spirit. Out from him flows the abundance of the Spirit for his people. If a church looks to music, lighting, special effects, powerful preaching, inspiring stories, or anything other than Christ, it is looking for water in a desert and finding only mirages. Even those who have already drunk from Christ must remain with him or else they abandon the very source of the Spirit.

Nor is the Spirit given only to some Christians. Jesus’ invitation is open to all who thirst. To all who respond and come to him, Christ offers a drink from the rivers that flow out from him. “So all true believers that are in Christ have the Spirit of God, regenerating and indwelling them, this river of living water. . . . [A]ll united to Christ have the Spirit.”^[25]

But there is more still to be seen. John indicated Jesus’ words had reference to a yet future event for their full import – “the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus was not yet glorified” (Jn. 7:39); even now, after Jesus’ glorification, the use of the theme of water flowing out from the presence of God with his people indicates the totality of the promise has not yet been fully realized. “It is important to note that in Revelation 22:1, John was shown ‘a river of the water of life. . . flowing from the throne of God and from the Lamb.’ The entire new Jerusalem appears to be an expanded holy of holies–the special dwelling place of God among men.”^[26] Unlike in the visions of Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah, John does not see a temple of walls and roof “because the Lord God—the All-Powerful—and the Lamb are [the city’s] temple” (Rev 21:22). This is what Jesus’ proclamation ultimately points us to:

In the beginning of the Bible, the sacred space was limited to the garden of Eden. In the middle of the Bible we see altars, a tabernacle, Israel’s temple, Christ Himself, and then the church as a sacred space–where God dwells with man in a special, unique way. All these things . . . point forward. They are symbolic of God’s special dwelling among men on the earth. . . . One day the whole earth will be sacred space where God dwells with men.^[27]

All this is possible only because God became man and calls men to himself.

This is the contribution Biblical Theology makes to our understanding and our application of John 7:37-39. It points us backward to the beginning of the story, allows us to trace the themes Christ employed through the Old Testament, then directs us forward to the return of Christ, when God will permanently dwell with his people. A sermon outline utilizing this approach concludes this paper.

1. Introduction
   1. A dry city
   2. Christ’s proclamation and its context
   3. Old Testament
2. The Place of God’s Presence
   1. Tabernacle/Temple as the Place of God’s Presence
      1. Eden
      2. Tabernacle
      3. Temple
   2. Christ as God’s Realized Presence
3. The Tree of Life
   1. Tabernacle/Temple the Place of the Tree of Life
      1. Eden
      2. Tabernacle
      3. Temple (possible)
   2. Christ as the Realized Tree of Life
4. The Rivers of Water
   1. Tabernacle/Temple the Source of Water
      1. Eden
      2. Tabernacle/Temple
      3. Visionary Temple
   2. Christ as the Realized Source of Life-Giving Water
5. Conclusion/Application
   1. Come to Christ!
   2. Remain with Christ
   3. Look for the Future Coming of Christ

Footnotes

1. Carl G. Rasmussen, Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 48–49. ↑

2. Rasmussen, 50. ↑

3. Rasmussen, 241. ↑

4. Rasmussen, 241, 247. ↑

5. All Scripture citations are from the NET unless otherwise noted. ↑

6. It is not certain if the last day of the feast is the seventh or eighth day. John Gill argues for the eighth day. John Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament, vol. 1 (Mathews and Leigh, 1809; Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc, 2006), 834; Mitch and Zhava Glaser argue for the seventh day but on the basis of the Mishnah. Mitch Glaser and Zhava Glaser, The Fall Feasts of Israel (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1987), 177–78. ↑

7. Glaser and Glaser, Fall Feasts, 174–77; See also Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament, 1:834–35. ↑

8. T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2009). ↑

9. Gordon Wenham discusses two of these and several other reasons to read Eden as preliminary of the later tabernacle and temples. Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Division A, The Period of the Bible (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986), 19–24. ↑

10. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies In Biblical Theology 15 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 66. ↑

11. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 21. ↑

12. Beale, Church’s Mission, 71. ↑

13. See 1 Kings 6:29-35 and 2 Chronicles 3:16. ↑

14. Beale, 73. ↑

15. NET Bible, Full Notes Edition ([Nashville?]: Thomas Nelson, 2019), 1688nD. ↑

16. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 5, The Baptist Commentary Series (1810; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc, 2006), 311. Gill is commenting on Isaiah 53:2. ↑

17. Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament, 1:834; See also the description given in Glaser and Glaser, Fall Feasts, 174–77. ↑

18. Gill, An Exposition of the New Testament, 1:835. ↑

19. NET Bible, 2019nA. ↑

20. NET Bible, 2019nA. ↑

21. Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 318. ↑

22. Benjamin Keach, Tropologia: A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors (London: William Hill Collingridge, 1856), 120. Keach is not explicit, but seems to opt for the same reading as the NET. ↑

23. Kendall Oliver, “Christ, The Glorified Spirit-Lord,” Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, accessed December 31, 2024, https://covenantchurchdecatur.org/articles/christ-the-glorified-spirit-lord. ↑

24. Charles Spurgeon, “The Preacher’s Last Sermon for the Season,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 31 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1885), 676. ↑

25. Oliver, “Christ, The Glorified Spirit-Lord.” ↑

26. Richard Barcellos, Better Than the Beginning: Creation in Biblical Perspective (Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2013), 129. ↑

27. Barcellos, 132. ↑

Bibliography

Alexander, T. Desmond. From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2009.

Barcellos, Richard. Better Than the Beginning: Creation in Biblical Perspective. Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2013.

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. New Studies In Biblical Theology 15. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Gill, John. An Exposition of the New Testament. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Mathews and Leigh, 1809. Reprint, Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc, 2006.

———. An Exposition of the Old Testament. Vol. 5. 6 vols. The Baptist Commentary Series. 1810. Reprint, Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc, 2006.

Glaser, Mitch, and Zhava Glaser. The Fall Feasts of Israel. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1987.

Keach, Benjamin. Tropologia: A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors. London: William Hill Collingridge, 1856.

NET Bible. Full Notes Edition. [Nashville?]: Thomas Nelson, 2019.

Oliver, Kendall. “Christ, The Glorified Spirit-Lord.” Covenant Reformed Baptist Church. Accessed December 31, 2024. https://covenantchurchdecatur.org/articles/christ-the-glorified-spirit-lord.

Poole, Matthew. Annotations upon the Holy Bible. Vol. 1. 3 vols. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853.

Rasmussen, Carl G. Zondervan Atlas of the Bible. Revised Edition. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.

Spurgeon, Charles. “The Preacher’s Last Sermon for the Season.” In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. 31. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1885.

Wenham, Gordon J. “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story.” In Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Division A, The Period of the Bible, 19–25. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986.