#DailyDevotion Jesus Gives Us A River Of The Water Of Life
Psalm 46 4There is a river whose streams delight God’s city, the holy place where the most high God lives.
In Jerusalem, where the temple of the LORD was, there was a ditch from the altar of the LORD which led out of the city. This ditch carried the blood of the sacrifices out of the city. That blood was the life of the sacrifices. It carried with it the promises of those sacrifices that God, the LORD, would forgive them their sins, their guilt was atoned for. Anyone seeing the blood flow from the temple out of the city should have been glad knowing the temple sacrifice for their sins had been completed and God was no longer angry at them because of their sins.
That blood and those sacrifices pointed to the Blood and the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He fulfilled all their sacrifices by His one and perfect sacrifice on the cross. In Rev. 22 it is written:
“Then he showed me a river of the water of life bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2and down the middle of the street of the city. On each side of the river is a tree of life, producing twelve kinds of fruit, for each month its own fruit, and the leaves of the tree are to heal the nations. 3There will no longer be anything that is cursed. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city. His servants will worship Him 4and see Him, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5There will be no more night, and they will not need any light of a lamp or of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will be kings forever.”
The river of the water of life is the blood of the Lamb who was sacrificed, flowing from the throne of God, from which Jesus poured out His blood when He entered the heavenly tabernacle. His blood is Life, the Life of the world. The tree of life is the cross of Jesus Christ. bearing its fruit and its leaves healing the nations. Peter tells us, “by His stripes, we are healed.”
5God is in the city — she can’t fall. God will help her when the morning dawns.
As the Name of the LORD was in the temple and the Israelites put their trust in His name, God was there and the city could not fall. The LORD would help her defeat her enemies. More so in the New Jerusalem described above. In the New Jerusalem, there is no more temple because the throne of God and the Lamb are in the city. In Rev. 21 it says there is no temple, “because the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its temple.” In the New Jerusalem, the city gates are never closed. Night never falls there. The roads are safe going into the city as nothing wicked, evil or unclean can ever get on that road.
This city can never fall. The Father and the Lamb are its defense. God continually helps her as it is always day there. This is our promised inheritance. It is promised to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ, who believe He the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, their sin. Their consciences have been made clean by having His blood sprinkled on them in baptism. They have been made participants in the river of life and the tree of life through their participation, their reception in faith of His body and blood given in the LORD’s Supper. We receive the benefits of it by faith now, then we shall see Him face to face.
Merciful God and Father, through the Gospel, through Baptism and the LORD’s Supper, you have made us and preserve us as citizens of the New Jerusalem. Continually grant us faith in Christ Jesus that the river of life may make us glad all our days of pilgrimage here and on the day of Christ’s revelation. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.