“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water. ” (Jer. 2:13, NKJV)
This teaching marks the point where we systematically start examining all the traditions that have over the ages been seen as truth. Remember – these perversions originated because the spirit of perversion gained access to us, and misled not only man, but especially the church. In this light Paul’s words in Gal. 1:6-7 are then more clear – “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.”
Sometimes people who are outside the religious system notice these falsehoods long before you or I who have are caught up in the myths and dreams of a certain manner of doing things in the church. Even though the theologian Kart Barth, who opposed the reigning theology of his time, said “The revelation of God is the abolition of religion,” he himself did not escape it. Winston Churchill, the famous politician, stubborn as he was, always rebelling against all that conforms and tries to fit into an accepted tradition, aptly stated, “Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened.” This is alas the truth.
This teaching is about Jeremiah’s beautiful metaphor in the Scripture stated above – religion creates broken cisterns that cannot hold any water, whilst God offers us streams of living water that flow from within (John 7:38). In his mission to “come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), “his stated goal of offering salvation to the world … also included the abolition of religion as a competing system” (Bruxy Cavey: The End of Religion, p. 23).
This powerful image is found across Scripture – the life is in the spiritual water that flows from God, and not in the containers we want to keep it in. See for instance Isa. 43:18-20: “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field will honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen.”
The prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah both use this image of waters that flow from the temple to the rest of the world. It is important to realise two things. Firstly: the waters actually do not flow towards the temple. Differing from the old covenant, the temple was not the place to which you travelled to get your living water, no – it flows from there.
Secondly – the temple from which they prophesy is not the so-called third Jewish temple that must still be built, neither is it a church or cathedral. “ … (T)he Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands …”, Peter makes clear in Acts 7:48. Read the prophetic promise in Zech. 14:8-9: “And in that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea; in both summer and winter it shall occur. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be— ‘The Lord is one,’ and His name one.”
In Ezek 47:9 & 12 the same image is used, but with more definitive descriptions: “And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes … Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”
Take note – it is not only the Tree of Life, Jesus Christ (Rev. 2:7) that is referred to here, but “all kinds of trees”. As in the garden of Eden here will also be found “trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord” (Isa. 61:3). In Gen. 2:9 it is stated: “And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” These trees prototypically existed even before the fall! Selah, please. This mystery speaks of what Heb. 11:23 in a different context refers to as “the spirits of just men made perfect”, something we will examine later in greater detail.
In other words, at the end of times the fountains of believers will be restored, and together these fountains form the endtime temple. Rev 22:21 makes it clear: “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof.” Based on Rev. 21:9 we know that this also includes “the wife of the Lamb”, the Bride of Christ. Corporately they form the end-time temple from which healing water will start flowing over the entire earth, with the sound of “many waters” (Rev. 19:6).
With this we address Myth of Tradition #1: the building as temple in the new covenant. Many believers associate their spiritual life with what we today refer to as a “church”. Over the years we have started referring to the church as “the house of the Lord”, and often believers esoterically muse about “going up” to the house of the Lord, as David for instance states in Ps. 122:1 – “The Joy of Going to the House of the Lord. A Song of Ascents. I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’”
We are familiar with the long Old Testament narrative of how the Israelites in the desert had to make a “place” for their ritualised sacrifices – first the tabernacle, later the temple. After the first temple was destroyed, the second temple was built, and it too was destroyed in 70 CE. Since then the Jews have no formal “place” where their rituals of faith can be performed.
Within a type of replacement theology where Christians are seen as a grouping that en masse replaced the Jews, there are various kinds of these inaccurate likening elements – the circumcision of the Jews is replaced by the baptism of babies; the priestly garb is replaced by Christian togas and colourful mantles (found for instance in the Roman Catholic church, and other groups); the prophetic leader (like for instance Moses or David) is replaced by the reverend, pastor, pope, bishop, or whatever his title may be within a particular denomination). And likewise the temple/tabernacle/synagogue is replaced by the church building. Almost all of these traditional replacements were instated by Constantine in his institutionalising of the Christian church, and has since been upheld. “ … (B)ut from the beginning it was not so,” to quote Jesus (Matt. 19:8), originally used in another context but just as relevant here.
There is a very good reason why we started this teaching by speaking about the broken cistern versus the fountain of living water. There were three main festivals that Israel celebrated each year (explained in detail in the teachings of Day 379-394): the feasts of Pesach (Passover), Pentecost and Tabernacles. Each of these feasts prophetically point to the fulfillment of God’s prophetic agenda in the New Testament dispensation, and therefore the first two main festivals were already prophetically fulfilled by the Pesach Lamb Jesus Christ’s (1 Cor. 5:7) slaughter and the pouring out of the Spirit of God (Acts 2; 1 Cor. 16:8).
The third main festival of Israel, the feast of Tabernacles, is not yet prophetically completed, even though this process started taking place during the time Jesus walked the earth. During this time Jesus, the Son of the living God, and Creator of all things, who came to “tabernacle” among us (John 1:14), said the following heart-rending words: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” (Matt. 8:20).
Here Jesus speaks of a homecoming in a very broad metaphoric sense – not only a place to sleep for the night, not only a house where one is protected by the natural elements and wild animals, not only a place one can call one’s own, but also a spiritual space where He could feel at home. How many times was He not chased from the temple of the Jews? “Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” (John 8:59).
The Babylonian exile of the Jews marked the origin of the concept of the synagogue. In Greek the word means gathering place. Apart from the second temple (which was without the ark of testimony, thus typologically devoid of the presence of God), there were various synagogues. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia provides the following historical information about it: “After the exile the synagogue remained and even developed as a counterpoise to the absolute sacerdotalism of the temple, and must have been felt absolutely necessary for the Jews of the Dispersion. Though at first it was meant only for the exposition of the Law, it was natural that in the course of time prayers and preaching should be added to the service. Thus these meetings, which at first were only held on Sabbaths and feast days, came also to be held on other days, and at the same hours with the services in the temple. The essential aim, however, of the synagogue was not prayer, but instruction in the Law for all classes of the people. Philo calls the synagogues ‘houses of instruction, where the philosophy of the fathers and all manner of virtues were taught’.”
The synagogues were built at will by influential people who strived towards the Jewish ideal. We see it in the Jews pleading with Jesus to heal a specific man: “And when they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving, ‘for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.’” (Luke 7:4-5).
Although this clearly looks like the origin of the church as we are familiar with it today, it is important to take this entry in Fausset’s Bible Dictionary into account: “The want of the temple in the Babylonian captivity familiarized the exiles with the idea of spiritual worship independent of locality. The elders often met and sat before the prophet, Ezekiel to hear Jehovah’s word.” It is then especially insightful that Acts 16:13 notes that “on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there”.
The feast of tabernacles, or the feast of huts, was celebrated for seven days, the last day being the culmination of this glorious feast (Lev. 23:34-36). It is on this feast day of tabernacles that the following important prophetic act took place: “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38).
This was obviously a very specific prophetic action. According to Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible the Jews had a traditional ceremony. The priest used water from Siloam in the ritual – “The priest filled a golden vial with water from the fount of Siloam … (John 7:9), which was borne with great solemnity, attended with the clangor of trumpets, through the gate of the temple, and being mixed with wine, was poured on the sacrifice on the altar. What was the origin of this custom is unknown. Some suppose, and not improbably, that it arose from an improper understanding of the passage in Isa.12:3 – ‘With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.’ It is certain that no such ceremony is commanded by Moses.”
In the next teaching we will explore this important action in greater detail, and what it can teach us about the first Myth of Tradition – the building as temple in the new covenant.
- Selah: Do you believe that religion is a system that competes with having a true relationship with God?
- Read: Deut. 5-13
- Memorise: Deut. 6:4