Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #15 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are continuing to look at Revelation 21:6:
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
In our last study we were looking at the last part of verse 6 where God says, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” It was pointed out that the context of Revelation 21 is the last day, the end of the world, according to verse 1 of this chapter. The first earth and first heaven are passed away and a new heaven and new earth are seen. It is the time when tears are wiped away and there is no more death, crying or pain. God has made all things new. Then He introduced this statement, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” There is water for our thirst and we are to drink and the context dictates that it is the point of the end of this world and the creation of the new heaven and new earth because that is the time when all things are made new. God’s elect are brought into that creation in their new resurrected spiritual bodies and they begin to enjoy all the promises of God regarding the land.
Yet, God speaks of giving “unto him that is athirst” and this makes us wonder, as we saw this in our last study in John 7:37:
In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
This refers to the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. The phrase “last day” is found eight times in the entire Bible. Six times we read things like, “I will raise him up at the last day,” or “It will judge him in the last day,” and so forth, and it has to do with the last day of earth’s existence. Twice the phrase is used in association with the Feast of Tabernacles and God connects the “last day” of Tabernacles to the end of the world, so that would be the spiritual fulfillment of that third and final feast that God had instituted. He had commanded all the Israelite males to appear before Him three times in a year in the place He would choose:
We have talked about this before and we know that God spiritually fulfilled Passover at the time of the Passover in 33 AD when Christ, the Lamb of God, hung on the cross. We also know that God also fulfilled the Feast of Pentecost at the time of Pentecost in 33 AD, in Acts, chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit was poured out and the firstfruits (all those saved during the church age) began to be gathered. That left only the third feast and its spiritual fulfillment would not be until the “last day” at the end of the world. That is one of the reasons why October 7, 2015 is such a good candidate for God to complete the judgment and it would be the 10,000th day of overall judgment. It would spiritually fulfill the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles that falls on that day and that would be the day the world is destroyed or passes away and the time when God would create the new heaven and new earth. It would match what we are reading about in Revelation, chapter 21.
But, how can God speak of quenching thirst in this context? He says, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” What would that have to do with a new heaven and new earth? Would it not rather have to do with a sinner still in their sins that desires salvation? Yes, it does, on one level, but that is not everything that the Bible has to say about “thirsting” or being “athirst.” Remember what it says in Psalm 42:1-2:
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
Here, we read of the desire of a soul. It is the desire of the soul that is born again, which is the new soul that God has given to the one He has saved. There is an ongoing desire not only to do the will of God, but a desire for God Himself and a desire to appear before God.
You know, that was the original situation at the time of creation. God created man in his image and He would commune with him. God would “walk amongst the trees” with them. It was not until Adam sinned that man hid himself at the presence of God and that has been the situation ever since. Man has been running from God and fleeing to the darkness. Man cannot abide the Light – it is too much for us in our sinful condition.
But when God saved a sinner, the original relationship is restored and there is a desire to be with God. This is why the child of God reads the Bible and prays and spends time alone with God. It is because we desire to be with Him and it is why we look forward, with good expectation, to the time of fulfillment of all things and the day when we can be with God and He will dwell with us in the new heaven and new earth.
It says in the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5:5:
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
The “meek” are those that God saved and they are the heirs of promise. The promise was that they would inherit the land for an everlasting possession, as God told Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If we are saved, we are that spiritual seed in Christ and this is a promise to us and, therefore, we are the heirs of the earth.
Then notice what God says next in Matthew 5:6:
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
God is speaking to His people. The blessed ones are those He has saved and given the gift of eternal life and these will “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” That is why Christ said that His body was “meat indeed” and His blood was “drink indeed.” The Bible also tells us that Christ is “Righteousness.” He is the personification of it in His very Being and it is by the righteousness of One that many were made righteous. They are all those God had determined to save and He imputed Christ’s righteousness to them. We were made righteous.
God did place a desire (or a hunger and thirst) in the life of a sinner that He was drawing in salvation during the day of salvation when God was still actively saving people. There could have been an elect person that was chosen before the foundation of the world and, therefore, God had obligated Himself to save that individual. In time, that person was born, but not yet saved, and at some junction in that sinner’s life, God began to draw him to Himself or to His Word, which are the same thing. Yet, the person was still in their sins, but they were drawn to the Bible and they saw that perfect standard of God’s holiness and how they failed to measure up to it. They learned about Christ and how He is “the end of the law” and they learned about His righteousness and how it is only through Him that their sins could be forgiven. They began to desire and hunger after that righteousness or after Christ. Again, this would have been during the day of salvation, but they would have been encouraged by the Bible and by God’s people to go to the Lord and seek Him while He could be found. They would have cried for mercy. Why? It was because they desired and they “hungered and thirsted after righteousness.” They realized they were not right in the sight of God, so they were beseeching God for that righteousness.
So, yes, the people of God had hungered and thirsted after righteousness as they sought salvation, but it does not end there. Once you become saved you do not stop hungering and thirsting after God and after that righteousness. The Apostle Paul was moved by God to say in Romans 7:19-24:
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Notice the language. Paul is being moved by God to express the struggle that exists in the life of one that God has saved because God has saved that person in his soul existence, but his physical body continues as it was in its unsaved condition. So the soul now has “righteousness” and it is made perfect through the new heart and new spirit, but the body is impure and sinful. The soul has the desire to do the will of God, but the body desires sin, so there is a struggle. As a result, there is another desire born. In the day of salvation, the sinner could have gone to God and cried out, “Save me, O God!” He had in mind the salvation of his soul and if he were one of God’s elect, God would at some point have saved him during the day of salvation. After salvation, the struggle that Paul is describing in Romans, chapter 7 begins to develop and it continues throughout the physical life of the child of God. The true believer is led to the point of desiring more. He is grateful that God has saved his soul, but now he desires the completion of this salvation. He desires that his body be transformed and delivered from the physical body because the body is sinful. Just as God placed that desire within the individual to become saved, He has also placed a desire within this individual for the completion of salvation. The good work that God began will be performed on the day of Jesus Christ on the last day. The new spiritual body will be given to every one that God had saved, but the child of God learns to desire to cry out for the redemption of their bodies.
Notice what is says in Romans 8:22-23:
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit…
In other words, when it says “firstfruits of the Spirit,” it means we are already saved, but it goes on to say in Romans 8:23:
…even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
There is a “groaning” or a “desiring” for the redemption of our bodies: “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” The people of God are not satisfied with partial salvation. They desire the completion of their salvation and the perfection of their salvation, in both soul and body. Even the saints in heaven long for this. God gives us that glimpse of the souls under the altar and they are saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” It is a cry asking how long before the judgment will be complete because at the completion of the judgment, they will receive their resurrected bodies. There is an ongoing desire to be clothed with “immortality,” as it says in 2Corinthians 5:1-4:
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
Do you see the strong and intense desire that is expressed in these Scriptures by the people of God? It is a hungering and a thirsting after righteousness for our bodies – we want our bodies to be made righteous and we want that in an eternal, righteous creation. We do not want to live in a corrupt place like this world. We want it all to be “made righteous.” We desire it all to be finally purified and made holy.
Let us go to 2Peter, chapter 3, where God speaks of the destruction of this world and the promise of the new earth. It says in 2Peter 3:12-13:
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
What do the blessed ones seek after, according to the Beatitudes? It said in Matthew 5:6:
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
God says that in the new heaven and new earth there “dwelleth righteousness.” There is Christ, who is Righteousness and there is also sinless perfection, where there is no more sin and no more death because all has been made righteous. This is why God says, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.”
There is something I think is true, but I have no way of knowing if it is true of all of God’s people, but I know it is true of me and other people I know that have expressed this desire. Since May 21, 2011 when we entered into this prolonged period of Judgment Day, the people of God have been longing and expressing a desire to depart and be with the Lord. They have been expressing a desire for this world to end, but it has not been something that people are desiring for any other reason than an overwhelming weariness, tiredness and sadness with the increase of sin in this wicked world and with our own condition in our physical bodies and living in this evil world during this period of time after May 21, 2011.
Maybe it is because we had thought we would be going home on May 21, 2011. We had thought it would be the day of the rapture and the day we would receive our new resurrected bodies. God’s people looked for that time and we were disappointed, but God had other plans. He had plans to further test His people and a lot of other things we have learned from the Bible for this (likely) 1,600 day period of Judgment Day. Yet, there is still this longing that will not go away and this strong thirst and desire to appear before God and to find ourselves in the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
It so happens that God brings up this thirst at the point when He ends the world and at the point when He does bring in the new creation and when He brings in His bride, the body of believers, and they have all been made new creatures in body and spirit: “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” Now you may drink of righteousness for evermore. Now you can learn of the Righteous One forever into eternity future. Now righteousness dwelleth with you and you can drink of it freely. That is what God is saying and it is nothing short of amazing that the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles has that sort of language attached to it, as it does in John 7:37. Christ is not doing what some think; He is not calling out to sinners still in their sins and inviting them to drink and be cleansed from their sins. He is not talking to the ones that never experienced salvation, but He is speaking to the ones that have partial salvation. They are the ones that have experienced the salvation of their souls and have experienced the first resurrection: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” Now there is total and complete salvation with the salvation of your bodies.