Slices
Prepare
What do you long for? Bring those longings to the Lord. Listen to his invitation: ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink’ (John 7:37).
Bible passage
Eden restored
22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
John and the angel
6 The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’
7 ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’
8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, ‘Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!’
Explore
Do you ever finish the day acutely aware that in the busyness of the day you have forgotten God? If so, then take heart from today’s passage. One day we will serve God face to face and serve him in creation as he originally intended (v 3).
The river coming from God’s throne is a picture of the presence of the Holy Spirit (see also John 7:37–39) giving abundant life to everyone and everything in the city (vs 1–3; Ezekiel 47:1–11). John’s readers knew about crop failure due to irregular water flows in their hot climate. This picture of continuous provision and year-round fruitfulness is the first sign of the reversal of the curse in Genesis (Genesis 3:17–19).
The next sign is the healing of relationships between peoples (v 2; see Genesis 3:16). The Holy Spirit will continually empower us to obey God’s rule in our communal life (v 2). The final sign is a fully restored relationship between God and humans (v 4). Today we may struggle to understand what God wants and struggle to obey. In his new creation he will be everything we long for and we will know how to serve him because he will guide us (v 5).
Respond
The Spirit has already begun his work. Pray Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:16–21 for yourself, your church fellowship and the wider body of Christ.
Deeper Bible study
Give me once more this water of life, that I will never again be thirsty.’1
This is the first time within John’s tour that he makes explicit mention of ‘the throne’, the singular seat of ‘God and of the Lamb’ (v 1); Jesus and the Father share their unhindered reign of grace and life over the whole city. Where the visions of the throne-room of God became ever more complex and cluttered in earlier chapters, here is direct focus on the reign of God.
The ‘river of the water of life’ that flows from it has many antecedents in scripture – the stream that gives life to the righteous in Psalm 1, the streams of renewed Zion in Isaiah 33:21, the stream flowing from the Temple in Ezekiel 47. This river represents not merely what God gives, but the gift of God himself;2 in the absence of any other mention, this must surely be a symbol of the Spirit of God who brings life to his people.
The servants of God in the city are the very ones for whom this vision and auditory message were given in the first place.3 They were marked with the ‘seal of the living God’,4 which is ‘his [the Lamb’s] name and his Father’s name’5 and the counterbalance to the mark of the beast.6 As they perform priestly duties in this giant, cube-shaped holy of holies in God’s holy presence, having God’s name on their forehead makes them look, not just like a kingdom of priests (which was God’s intention from the beginning7) but like Aaron himself.8 We are not there yet; even John is prone to error, mistakenly worshipping the angel; like us, he is on a journey to perfection. This vision, however, gives us hope of a wonderful future.
What helps you to grow in excitement at the future that God has for his people? What helps you grow in patience as you journey towards it?
1 Modified from John 4:15 2 Cf Jer 2:13 3 Rev 1:1 4 Rev 7:2 5 Rev 14:1 6 Rev 13:16–18 7 Exod 19:6; Rev 1:6 8 Exod 28:36
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: 2 Kings 1–3; 2 Corinthians 2
Pray for Scripture Union
The small staff team which works on our Bible reading guides is supplemented by a much wider team of freelance editors, writers, copy editors, designers and proofreaders. Please pray that they will know God’s enabling and that their combined skills will lead to many meeting God in fresh ways.
