The river of life.
In this noble vision we have a prophecy of that great redeeming power which Jesus Christ should introduce to the world, and we have some insight given us of its triumphs in the far future. Of this wonderful river we have to inquire into
I. ITS DIVINE SOURCE. The river flowed "from under the threshold of the house"—from the very dwelling-place of Jehovah. The river of life has its source in the Divine, in God himself, in his fatherly yearning, in his boundless pity, in his redeeming purpose. The heavens themselves pour down the rains, which feed the springs, which make the rivers of earth; but from above the clouds, from one whom "the heaven of heavens cannot contain," comes that river of life which a wasted and despoiled world is waiting to receive. It is a Divine mind alone that could conceive, a Divine heart alone that-could produce, such a benevolent force as this.
II. ITS SPIRITUAL CHARACTER. The river of the gospel of Christ is the river of Divine truth. The kingdom of God is to be established by purely moral and spiritual agencies. When violence is used to promote it, there is a miserable departure from its essential spirit, and there is a serious injury done to its final triumph. For it wins by other and better means. And as water is itself composed of two elements, so the truth of God in the gospel of Christ is twofold. It includes the truth we most want to know concerning ourselves—our nature, our character, our position before God, our possibilities in the present and in the future; and also the truth we most want to know concerning God—his character and disposition, his purpose of mercy, his supreme act of self-denying love, his overtures of grace, his summons to eternal life.
III. ITS TWO SOVEREIGN VIRTUES.
1. That of renewal. All kinds of fish live in its waters (Ezekiel 47:9, Ezekiel 47:10); many trees grow and thrive on its banks, nourished by its streams (Ezekiel 47:7); "everything lives whither the river cometh" (Ezekiel 47:9).
2. That of cleansing. Such are the virtues of this river that, flowing into the Dead Sea, it sweetens even its salt waters and cleanses them of their bitterness, so that fish once more live therein: "Its waters are healed" (Ezekiel 47:8). Such is the gracious and beneficent action of the truth of the gospel of Christ.
IV. ITS GLORIOUS ABUNDANCE. (Ezekiel 47:3-5.) Once a small stream, it is now a broad, deep river, whose course nothing can check, whose waters are inexhaustibly full, whose beneficence nothing can measure. It has come down these many centuries, it has girdled the whole earth, it will flow on and on until all the nations have been renewed.
1. Have we partaken of its life-giving waters?
2. Are we gaining therefrom the healing and the growth they will yield?—C.