Gospel & Eschatology: The World's Living Water

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Gospel & Eschatology: The World's Living Water

November 27, 2022

The Kingdom of God does not grow overnight. This episode, Bryce and I walk through Ezekiel 47 depicting how the new covenant temple (the church), will emanate living water that continually grows until it covers the whole earth! We hope this edifies you. For The King!

Key Text:

* Ezekiel 47:1-12

* John 4:7-29

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Transcript

(music) Don't think I will even ask you to make Jesus Lord of your life. That's the most preposterous thing I could ever tell you to do. Jesus Christ is Lord of your life.

Whether you serve him or not, whether you bless him, curse him, hate him, or love him, he is the Lord of your life because God has given him a name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and tongue confess that he is Lord. Some of you will bow out of the grace that has been given to you and others will bow because your kneecaps will be broken by the one who rules the nations with a rod of iron.

(music) And I'll not apologize for this God of the Bible.

(music) Hello, friends. Welcome to the For the King podcast where we proclaim the edicts of the king, namely in chief, we, that Yahweh reigns. I am your host, Rocky Ramsey, and I am joined once again on these Sunday series episodes with my brother, Bryce Ramsey.

Hey, Bryce. How's it going? Salutations. There he is.

So we are going to continue our look into eschatology and our beloved position of post-colonialism, and we're really honing in on just dominion eschatology in general. Is the view eschatologically of the church and specifically of the gospel one of dominion? So we are going to look into a text today that we hope continues to prove upon this point, and that is going to be Ezekiel 47 verses 1 through 12. I'm going to read the text and then Bryce and I are going to get into it.

So Ezekiel 47, 1 through 12. "Then he brought me back to the door of the house, and behold water was flowing toward the east, for the house faced ease. And the water was flowing down from under, from the right side of the house, from south of the altar.

He brought me out by the way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate by way of the gate that faces east. And behold water was trickling from the south side. When the man went out toward the east with a line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits.

He led me through the water, water reaching the ankles. Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching the knees. Again he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching the loins.

Again he measured a thousand and it was a river and I could not ford, for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be forded. He said to me, 'Son of man, have you seen this?' Then he brought me back to the bank of the river. Now when I returned, behold on the bank of the river, there were very many trees on the one side and on the other.

Then he said to me, 'These waters go out toward the eastern region and go down to the Arabah.' Then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea and the water of the sea become fresh. It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes will live. And there will be very many fish for these waters go there and the others become fresh.

So everything will live where the river goes and it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it. From Ngedi to Nogon, there will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds like the fish of the great sea, very many.

But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh, they will be left for salt. By the river on its bank on one side and on the other will grow any kinds, sorry, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail.

They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. Whoo! Okay. So reminder, this is the prophet Ezekiel that is receiving a vision from God.

And the house is the temple that is what this house is. And flowing from the house is this water. So what do you think, Bryce, about this text? What is this? How does this apply to us as the church of God's people now? Yeah, so obviously we're not dispensationalists.

So we recognize that the true antitype or the prototype, the end of what Jerusalem actually is or what the temple actually is, is the church. That's why Paul says in Corinthians that ye are the temple of the living God. Yeah.

So the church, the assembly of the saints, we are the temple. We are the mountain of the Lord in which the nations flow to. So we see this text, what it has in mind is a river that starts from the sanctuary and it goes out and ultimately we see it covers the globe.

It turns even the salty sea into fresh water. And this is a symbolism of life. No longer is it a salt sea, but it is fresh water which produces fresh life.

Yeah. So this passage has in its end the conquest of Christ through the giving of life to all the world. Yeah.

This reminds me of the parable of the woman at the well. Sorry, not the parable. The story of the woman at the well.

When she meets with Jesus and she's drawing up water, the disciples that went into the city to receive food, Jesus is by himself with this woman. And she's asking him questions and he's even questioning her and actually drawing things out of her. And he basically says, if you're going to continue to come back to this well and you will always thirst from this water, but I have living water and you will never thirst.

Again, that is this kind of water, this fresh water that Bryce is talking about is depicted in this passage. That's Christ. And that's why he's teaching the Son of Man here, Ezekiel, these things.

And even Ezekiel himself is a type of the one to come, which is Christ. Yeah. So one point that I think is really unique when we think about the progression of covenant theology and this understanding of the water, the life giving water.

James Jordan and his book Threw New Eyes. And I'm curious if Bryce, if you even agreed with him on this point, I thought it was fascinating. In the time of the patriarchs to get fresh water, you had to dig a well.

That's why whenever they would go somewhere and God would deliver them or save them from something and there was a there was a landmark to be made, they would take a well. And these wells would be how they would receive life giving water. And then when the tabernacle is made, there was a small lover, a labor, a labor, labor that was basically like a bowl that would hold water.

So now you didn't have to dig water to find life giving water when you would build these altars. Now there is water there in the temple. And then when the actual the temple that Solomon built was made, then there was a larger pool of water.

So the water is increasing here. And now in Ezekiel forty seven, we have this view of the temple even increasing even more so in terms of how much life giving water is there present. And now we know that this temple is the church, which was the point of the temple all along.

If the temple was not a temple, if the Israelites weren't there, God's people. So the temple was always connected with God's people being present. Now that symbolism is now fully realized in the new covenant of grace, where now the life giving water of Christ comes out of us, the house of Israel, which is now the believers that have been brought into God's family, Gentile and Jew.

And now we go to the ends of the earth proclaiming the gospel. So do you think that's some good covenant theology, Bryce, or do you think that's off base? Yeah, I think it's fundamentally helpful because water is always seen in scripture as that will purify. Yeah.

You saw locally, Israel was baptized into Moses for Shmintians 10 when they passed the Red Sea. Yeah. Now you see not only the baptism of the people of Israel and their redemption out of Egypt, but you also saw on the priesthoods with these water basins, the water for purification as these priests were baptized.

Yeah. Now you see the end of it all. The scope is now waters to be given to all the nations of the earth.

And hence Jesus has commanded to baptize all the nations. Right? All the nations need to be immersed in water in a symbolic flood again so that the wicked are judged in their flesh by putting their faith in Christ when their sin was mailed to him. Yeah.

Now they're raised to new life in Christ. So that's the water, the purifying that now goes over the entirety of the globe. And that's what you have the aim of this passage.

So I definitely think that's not off base by any means. Also, you see the focus is it's out of the sanctuary. Right? So this is the advancement of, we've already dealt with this passage, but when Jesus says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

Right? The church is Christ's sanctuary. We go to the temple every Sabbath day to worship the living God. And that is the battering ram by which we thrust into the gates of hell so that we conquer Satan.

Yeah. Amen. So this passage, when it talks about the river flowing out of the sanctuary, the only method for the salvation of the whole world is through the church.

Yeah. And then what is the pose of godly families? Yes. So many different spheres combined together.

And the church influences the state. But the church is Christ's battering ram. And we can't.

Yeah. The pillar and buttress of the truth in 1st Timothy. It has been the church has been given the keys of the kingdom.

It is the institution God has put on earth to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to the ends of the earth is through the church. God's people. So, yeah, it's a gospel driven institution that God has created for us to worship him in spirit and truth.

So I mean, that is our that's our battle cry every single Sunday when we meet on the Sabbath to celebrate the earth shattering victory of Christ over sin and death. I mean, that changes nations right there. Just the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

So the fact that we get together and celebrate that in the sanctuary, that is the healing for the nations there that we see at the end in verse 12. There are leaves for the healing. And we know in Revelation that it's for the healing of the nations, every people to know Christ and even the sea, which is indicative of the Gentiles to not be salty any longer, but to be fresh.

Exactly. Yeah. And also what you notice in this passage to which we've continued to harp on is this is progressive.

It's not something it's decided at the cross. Christ has formally conquered and won and has gained a victory over all the nations formally. But it hasn't actually been conquered yet.

It's Joshua before the land of Canaan. Right. There's Canaanites in the land that need to be killed and slaughtered.

So when Christ conquers the principalities and powers and triumphs over them in the cross, they're disarmed. And now we see the conquest of Christ going into the land, riding on his white steed with his with his sword drawn and him going across the nations and conquering. It's progressive.

So we don't see as of yet, we don't see all things in subjection to him. Yet that is going to occur because Christ is all authority in heaven and on earth. So yet we don't see the rivers flowing to the ends of the earth and freshening the salt sea.

We have not yet seen that. But that is the great hope of what it means to be a Christian and the hope and the promises of God is we hope against hope. We don't believe just based upon what we see just because we have tyrants and these dragons in the land who try to devour us and swoop us in with their tails under their wings and cause us to only nurse on them for life.

Even though that happens in many, many countries on our planet right now, that does not negate the promises of God and our hope is in God's promise not in what we see. We don't have newspaper exegesis. Yeah.

Amen. Now I think, I mean, that's that's pretty much the gist of what we wanted to articulate here. I can aim in that we can we can leave it there.

Is that cool with you? Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

Thanks, Bryce, for all your help. And that's good word, brother. Appreciate that.

So let's continue to press forward as God's people. And remember a text like this that there is life giving water that comes out of the sanctuary whenever we gather on Sunday. So I'm going to release this on a Sunday when you gather today.

We got to remember that through your praises and your proclamation of the gospel, not only to each other out of that sanctuary, you are taking part of watering the earth. And God is the one that gives growth, obviously, but you are taking part in watering the seeds that are sown that life giving water of the gospel. So remember that.

Remember that this text in Ezekiel forty seven one through twelve is teaching that. And you can always come here for hope if you're kind of distraught about why the wicked prosper. Remember the remember the promises here.

So thanks again, Bryce. You can check me out for the king podcast dot com. I have a website there and I blog a little bit.

Check out some of the social media. I'm trying to give life giving water through my social media on Twitter and yeah, check out a board pod. And that's it, guys.

So the ages of mortal invisible. Only God, honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

So the day out. The day out.