THE RIVER OF LIFE by G. E. Fifield

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 18, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 29.

THE RIVER OF LIFE

By G. E. Fifield

THE FORCE OF THE FIGURE.

"If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. . . . This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive." John 7:37-39.

In the preceding paper we tried to show the present meaning of the River of Life. Our study made it plain that the real sacrifice of Christ was an eternal sacrifice, the constant manifestation of His everlasting character, which is love. We learned, too, that the gift of the Spirit was in the gift of the Son; and so that Spirit has been bestowed for all who would receive it, ever since the Lamb was slain at the foundation of the world. The "living water," or the water of the River of Life, is a symbol of the Spirit. And just as the Israelites in the wilderness "drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ," so, ever since that Rock was smitten at the foundation of the world, God's children in this wilderness life have been free to partake of the spiritual river that flows from the throne. The invitation is, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Now let us study more deeply the significance of this symbol, and if in the study we become thirsty, we will together seek the source of the water.

The Significance of the Symbol.

The Bible is the first edition of "Natural Law in the Spiritual World." Almost always its imagery is borrowed from nature, and it is constantly teaching us to lift our eyes from the study of the physical, to the contemplation of the spiritual. Here on earth, water is literally the water of life. The most desolate deserts are such simply for the want of water. The Great Sahara, properly irrigated, would be as fertile as the Nile Valley. By conducting the water from the mountains out upon the desert around Salt Lake, men have made the desert literally to blossom as the rose. Without water there could be absolutely no vegetable life and no animal life. The world would be a dead, rolling, mineral orb. An old Egyptian proverb says, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." So all the beauty, bloom, fragrance, and fruitage of the world is the gift of the water.

Now just what the water is to the physical world, Christ, by His given Spirit, the living water, is to the spiritual world. After man sinned, had it not been for this river of spiritual life, "proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb," the world would have become a moral desert; the image of God would have been speedily obliterated from every heart, and mankind have been totally depraved. All noble aspiration, all unselfish love, all self-sacrificing service, all the fragrance, bloom, and fruitage of the spiritual life, on earth to-day, are the gift of the spiritual water.

To some extent, this water beautifies every life. It "lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." But only those who yield themselves fully to its enfolding waves in that spiritual baptism of which the physical baptism is a beautiful symbol, can be wholly transformed, and wholly glorified thereby. Instead of remaining a moral desert, that heart becomes a garden of spices from which the fragrant breezes blow out. See Song of Solomon 4:12-16. The desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose, and "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." Wonderful are the transformations of the spiritual life. Their counterpart in nature—God's yearly proclamation of this Gospel—is the transformation of the earth from the death of winter to the fragrance and fruitage of the summer time.

Christ became incarnate to reveal God, and to show that He is Emmanuel, God-with-us. It was not merely during the incarnation that He was God-with-us, but He is that all the time. He was not a future Christ to the ancients, He is not a Christ of the past to us. He is ever present. There is no need to ascend into the heavens to bring Him down, or to descend into the deep to bring Him up; He "is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart." It is this ever-present Christ that makes salvation possible in every land wherever an honest soul fully opens the heart to the living water. It was this present Christ that saved in past ages. The people then were not saved by virtue of the future incarnation, but by virtue of the ever-present power which that incarnation revealed,—a power ever capable of making that divine life flesh in them and in us.

This eternal sacrifice of Christ,—the divine gift of the living water,—had been revealed in many ways before the incarnation. It was human blindness and hardness of heart that paganized every revelation that God made and left out of them the saving truth that the incarnation was necessary. "Last of all He sent His Son also," and now, "by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, His flesh," we enter in by the same saving knowledge by which others, in other ways, had entered in before us. The very fact that Paul speaks of a "new-made way," shows that there were old ways. Still these old ways were only other revelations of the same everlasting Christ who is "The Way," and the only way.

By all this we see that the religious ceremonies of the past age were not simply types of a future Christ. The divine Spirit, foreknowing all, gave them in such a way that they were types; but primarily, they were glorious present proclamations of the everlasting Gospel. The promise to Adam meant, first of all, that if the children of that wicked woman Eve, who had sinned so grievously, would but yield themselves to it, the power would come into their lives to triumph over sin and bruise the head of the old serpent under their feet. This power was the living water already flowing from the throne.

What is it to confess Christ? It is a much greater thing than merely to testify in social meeting. It is to confess all the time, not only to others, but most of all to ourselves in our inmost souls, that all the good in us, all the spiritual bloom and beauty manifest in our lives, is not of us at all, but the gift of Christ, the living water. "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory." It is because we fail thus to confess Christ, and instead, often take the glory to ourselves, that Christ dare not supply us with the living water, as He gladly would, lest it minister to our self-righteousness, and so to our destruction. It is not that God is sparing of His blessings, but it is we who make it impossible for Him to bestow them as blessings.

There is no limit to what God can and will do for one who fully yields himself to the incoming tide of the spiritual life, and who at the same time ever acknowledges, above all to his own heart, that all the goodness manifest in his life is not of self, but of Christ. To him heaven's fulness is opened up, and all the spiritual blessings in heavenly places are freely bestowed. Only such know the meaning of the scripture: "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him."

It was such a confession of Christ as this that brought the Pentecostal shower of the living water. During the years of the ministry of Jesus, the disciples never really saw Christ. Far less did they truly confess Him. This was no fault of Christ's ministry, but only an evidence of their blindness. Their minds had been intent upon the glory of the earthly kingdom they expected soon would be set up. They were ambitious to share this glory with Jesus, and they supposed He was actuated by an ambition akin to their own. How could they then, for one moment even, catch a true glimpse of the real Christ, who was giving His life for His enemies, even with no thought of earthly reward? Jesus spoke sadly of this that last night in the upper room: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?" In the beginning of His ministry, could they have known Him as He was, they would have denied Him rather than confessed Him. They were looking for a King, and they could not yet comprehend the kingliness of unambitious, self-sacrificing, serving love. But when Jesus was crucified upon the cross, every ambitious earthly hope they had built upon Him, perished. They, too, were crucified in Him. Arnold well says, "Ah, never yet lay Love so wingless, or Hope so quite forlorn, as on that dread day, on guilty Golgotha."

Then came the resurrection, and the ascension, and a restudy and a meditation on the Scriptures concerning the Christ. Then first they saw Him as He was. The glory of His divine self-sacrifice melted their hearts. They, too, were surrounded by those who sought their life, but they boldly confessed their faith in the crucified Christ, and rejoiced to have this fellowship with Him in His suffering. Self had perished in the flame of trial, and Christ was all and in all. Then came that mighty baptism of the Spirit which started the infant church on its triumphs.

It was when the church grew self-conscious once more, and denied Christ by seeking worldly power, that the dearth began that transformed God's fair garden into a desert. With this dearth came those who lorded it over God's heritage,—the priests, and bishops, and archbishops, and popes,—that army of spiritual locusts and cankerworms that completed the destruction. But, praise the Lord, there is to be a latter rain, a new and greater Pentecostal shower of the living water. As by persecution we are brought nearer together and become more brotherly; as we are crucified with Christ, and rejoice in the fellowship of His sufferings; as we confess Christ fully in our hearts and in our lives, so that God can bestow His blessing fully, the rain will fall,

"And there shall be showers of blessings."

Says the Lord: "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, My great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be ashamed."

In its glorious consummation, the Gospel will be as tho there had never been an apostasy, but as tho instead, the truth had gone on and on from that Pentecostal beginning, with ever accelerating majesty of motion, and with cumulative power and glory. Yea, the earth shall be "lightened with His glory." This is the divine promise. Who will confess Christ fully, and so receive the baptism of this living water?

That living water is the "Spirit of Truth," given to "guide us into all truth." Those who truly receive it will not be deterred by any creed from yielding their hearts and lives fully to the dawning light of truth. They will not be defiled by the woman (the apostate church), but will "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." "For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."