Message 43
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Scripture Reading: Exo. 17:3, 6; John 7:37-39; 4:10, 14; 1 Cor. 10:4; 3, 12:13; Rev. 21:6; 22:1-2, 17; Acts 2:17, 21
In the Bible the basic principle concerning man’s relationship with God is that man needs to eat and drink of God. Because eating and drinking are so common in our daily life, they have not been given much consideration by the great teachers and scholars of the Bible. Nevertheless, in the Scriptures eating and drinking are basic and crucial.
After the record of the creation of man, there is mention of the tree of life and of a river which “went out of Eden to water the garden” (Gen. 2:9-10). The tree of life was for man’s eating, and the flowing river was for man’s drinking. Hence, at the beginning of the Bible, eating and drinking are presented with respect to the relationship between God and man.
At the end of the Bible we also read of eating and drinking. In Revelation 21 and 22 eating and drinking are emphasized strongly. According to Revelation 21:6, the Lord will “give to him who thirsts from the spring of the water of life freely.” In 22:1 we see the “river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and in verse 2 we are told that “on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life.” The river of water of life flows out of the throne, and the tree of life grows in the river. In Revelation 22:14 there is a promise related to eating, and in 22:17, a call related to drinking. Verse 14 says that those who wash their robes have the right to the tree of life, and verse 17 says that whoever wills may take the water of life freely. In verse 14 we have the promise of eating the tree of life, and in verse 17 we have the call to drink of the water of life. Therefore, we may say that the Bible concludes with a word about eating and drinking.
In the Gospel of John, the Gospel that emphasizes the deity of Christ, there also are references to eating and drinking. According to this Gospel, God was incarnated so that we may eat and drink of Him. Chapter six covers the eating of Jesus as the heavenly manna, as the true bread, the living bread, the bread of God. In verse 57 the Lord Jesus speaks a clear, strong, and definite word concerning eating: “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” Chapter seven goes on to speak of drinking the living water. On the last day of the feast of tabernacles, the great day of the feast, the Lord Jesus stood up and cried, “If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink” (v. 37). Chapter three of John covers regeneration, and chapter four, the drinking of the living water. In this chapter a thirsty Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water. At the well she meets the Lord Jesus, who talks with her and tells her that living water is to be found in Him. At a certain point He says to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (v. 10). Then in verse 14 He says that the water He gives will become in the one who drinks it a “spring of water welling up into eternal life” (v. 14). These words about living water are weighty and of great significance.
We should not consider the eating and drinking spoken of in the Bible as commonplace. On the contrary, these matters are crucial. It is by eating and drinking that we, God’s chosen people, take Him into us. Throughout the years, we have pointed out repeatedly that God’s intention is to work Himself into us to be our life and our everything. But we still need to be impressed with the fact that the way God works Himself into us is through our eating and drinking of Him.
When I was in mainland China more than thirty years ago, I did not see the light on eating and drinking the Lord as clearly as I see it today. In the early years of my ministry, I did a lot of gospel preaching, often preaching on the subject of God as the living water to satisfy us. I even translated the song, “Never, Never Thirst Again,” from English into Chinese. I loved this song, was deeply impressed by it, and used it in my gospel preaching quite frequently. However, although I preached on God as the living water to quench man’s thirst, I myself did not know how to drink of this living water. How ridiculous for me to preach on drinking the living water when I myself actually did not understand how to drink! We Christians often do ridiculous things such as this. Most believers know that Christ is the heavenly manna; however, not many know how to eat Him.
The first message I delivered on eating Jesus was in 1958. Before that time I did not know the way to eat and drink Him. But having been enlightened by the Lord concerning this matter, I began in 1958 to speak on our need to eat Jesus. After I gave the first message on this subject, a brother who was a professor at Taiwan University approached me and told me that it sounded crude to talk about eating Jesus. (The Chinese word I used means to eat up, to devour.) I reminded this brother that I was not the first to speak of eating the Lord. I pointed him to John 6:57, where the Lord Jesus says that the one who eats Him will live by Him. I told him that I was simply following the Lord and repeating His words. When the brother heard this, he had nothing further to say.
Throughout the centuries, Christians have talked about eating and drinking, but hardly anyone has known how to eat or how to drink. Christians have written many “how-to” books, books on subjects such as how to pray, how to overcome sin, and how to be victorious. But do you know of a book which tells us how to eat Jesus or how to drink the living water? But as we have pointed out, eating and drinking of Jesus are extremely crucial matters.
When I was young, I was told that those portions of the Word which speak of eating and drinking the Lord are merely parables or metaphors. I was taught that we could not actually eat Jesus, that this is simply a figure of speech, a metaphor. But recently as I have been considering the eating and drinking of the Lord Jesus, I have been impressed by Paul’s word in 1 Corinthians 10:4. Here Paul does not say that the rock was a type of Christ or a symbol of Christ; he says clearly that the rock was Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10:3 and 4 Paul speaks of the spiritual food, the spiritual drink, and the spiritual rock. Lacking Paul’s boldness, we may weaken the force of his declaration by saying that the rock typifies Christ. Formerly I did not have the boldness to say that the water flowing out of the rock was spiritual. To my understanding, that water was physical, not spiritual. Furthermore, I did not dare to say that the rock from which the water flowed was a spiritual rock. But Paul says boldly and plainly that it was a spiritual rock which followed the children of Israel in the wilderness. Then he goes on to say, not that the rock was a type of Christ, but that the rock was Christ Himself. If we were to say this without Paul’s word as a basis, we would surely be condemned as heretical.
We should not regard the eating and drinking of Jesus as parables or metaphors. I wish to declare strongly that these are facts. Daily, even hourly, I eat and drink the Lord Jesus. In John 6 the Lord says that He came from heaven to be our food. This is not a parable or a metaphoric utterance; it is a divine fact. Christ is our food and our drink. In John 7:37-38 he goes on to say that whoever thirsts may come to Him and drink and that out of his inner being will flow rivers of living water. This is a heavenly fact.
Although eating and drinking are very common in our daily living, in the Bible they are matters of crucial significance. As we have pointed out, it is by our eating and drinking Him that God works Himself into us. By eating and drinking we take the Lord into us, and He becomes one with us organically. As we eat and drink certain elements, those elements are taken into us and become one with us in substance and in essence. For example, how can the meat and vegetables on the dining table become one with us? The only way is by our eating them. As we eat and drink, our food becomes one with us organically and, when it has been digested and assimilated, it actually becomes part of our being, our very fiber and tissue. Realizing this will help us to see the importance of eating and drinking in the Bible. Eating and drinking the Lord are of tremendous significance. Oh, how we need to eat Him and drink Him!
According to the biblical record, drinking is more important than eating. Revelation 22:17 does not say that whoever is hungry may come and eat; it says that whoever is thirsty may come and drink the water of life. This indicates that in the divine concept drinking is more crucial than eating.
In Genesis 2 the tree of life is mentioned first, then the river. But at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22, the water of life is mentioned first, then the tree of life. According to Revelation 22:1 and 2, the tree of life grows in the water of life, a fact that clearly indicates that it is the living water which conveys the tree. This implies that eating is included in drinking and that drinking is more basic than eating. This is also proved by the fact that in our physical life we can survive longer without eating than without drinking.
According to the sequence in the Bible, food is presented first and then water. This is true both in the book of Genesis and in the book of Exodus. Exodus 16 speaks of food, the heavenly manna, and then chapter seventeen goes on to speak of the water flowing from the smitten rock. The same sequence is found in the opening chapters of Revelation. Revelation 2:7 says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” The water of life is not mentioned until Revelation 7:17, where we are told that the Lamb in the midst of the throne “shall guide them to springs of waters of life.” At the end of Revelation, however, the order is reversed. We all know that both in speaking and in writing the final word is decisive and conclusive. The concluding word of Revelation, even of the whole Bible, puts drinking before eating. The unveiling of God’s basic thought concludes not with eating, but with drinking. Revelation 22:17 tells us that those who are thirsty may come and drink. On the one hand, the Bible is profound; on the other hand, it is practical. In its practicality the Bible concludes with a call related to drinking. By this we see the vital importance of drinking.
If we do not know how to drink, we cannot be proper Christians. When some hear such a statement, they may wonder about all the believers who have gone before us, most of whom did not know the way to drink the living water. Nevertheless, many of them did drink of the living water. In much the same way, people who lived centuries ago did not know about vitamins. This does not mean, however, that they did not take vitamins into them. They took vitamins without realizing it. In the same principle, many of those Christians who have gone before us had many experiences of drinking the living water. However, it is nonetheless a fact that they did not know how to drink. They enjoyed drinking, but they did not have the science of drinking.
In this message and in the message which follows, I am burdened not simply with drinking itself, but in particular with the science of drinking. Daily I take vitamins purposely and knowingly, unlike those who take vitamins without having any knowledge of them. Likewise, if we know the science of drinking, we shall be able to drink knowingly and purposely. We shall have both the knowledge of how to drink as well as the actual drinking of the living water.
Even the psalmist in the Old Testament had the experience of drinking. Psalm 36:8 says, “Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” The one river includes many pleasures, many joys. Even before the Lord Jesus came, the Old Testament saints experienced the joy of drinking. But when God came in the flesh, He sent forth the clear call to come to Him and drink (John 7:37). Drinking is vital to our Christian life.
The New Testament was written by a number of different authors, including Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James, Jude, and Paul. In Colossians 1:25 Paul says that he “became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God.” Paul was commissioned with the ministry of completing the word of God. Without the writings of Paul the divine revelation in the Bible would not be complete. If Paul’s writings were not included in the Scriptures, the Bible would be like an incomplete sentence. Thus, the Epistles of Paul are necessary for the completion of the word of God.
John’s ministry is a ministry of mending. After the divine revelation had been completed through Paul, there was an amount of breakage. John came in to mend what had been broken. The Bible closes with Paul’s completing ministry and John’s mending ministry. As we know, the book of Revelation, written by John, is the last book in the Bible.
In both the ministry of Paul and the ministry of John, that is, in both the completing ministry and the mending ministry, the matters of eating and drinking are strongly emphasized. Paul covers both eating and drinking in the book of 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 3:2 Paul says to the believers in Corinth, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food.” This word implies eating. Then in 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul goes on to say that we have all been made to drink of one Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 10:3 and 4 Paul covers both eating and drinking: “And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ.” Paul ministered spiritual food and drink to the saints. His ministry was a ministry of feeding and of supplying water to quench the thirst of God’s people.
The Gospel of John was written at least twenty years after the last of Paul’s writings. Since John’s ministry was a mending ministry, his Gospel is a mending Gospel. Problems had been caused by certain ones who called themselves Christians but did not believe in the deity of Christ. In his Gospel John mended the damage caused by this lack of faith in Christ’s deity. His Gospel reveals clearly that Christ is God. Furthermore, we have pointed out that in the very Gospel which emphasizes the deity of Christ the eating and drinking of the Lord are also emphasized. We have also seen that in the book of Revelation we find reference to both eating and drinking. This indicates definitely that John’s ministry, like that of Paul, stresses the importance of eating and drinking the Lord. Without eating and drinking, there is no way for us to be proper Christians. It is of vital importance that we learn how to drink the living water. There is the need to give our attention to all that the Bible reveals concerning how to drink the Lord.
