Of the Spirit (part 7)
John explains in John 7:39 what Jesus meant by the “streams of living water” that would be “flowing from within” people. He meant the Holy Spirit “whom those who believed in him would later receive” – because “Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
But why hadn’t the Spirit been given to them before Jesus was glorified? It would surely have saved a lot of agony and misery for Israel, and maybe for Jesus too, if the Israelites had been given the Spirit from day one of being rescued from Egypt. And couldn’t we say the same thing of ourselves too, that if God had given us the Holy Spirit when we were born, we wouldn’t have made such a mess of our lives – nor would we have trouble relating to God now either.
Instead, the Father set things up so that the Spirit would only be given to those who “believed in” his Son. So belief had to come first. But how could we believe without the help of the Holy Spirit? – the Israelites being a classic example of that, because without the Holy Spirit, they could never place their full confidence in God.
It’s the great cry of parents too, the constant struggle with their kids not trusting them. So why did God set it up that way in families too, then? Surely, if everyone, parents and children, were all given the Holy Spirit from birth, what a wonderful world we would have, of not only loving and trusting each other, but loving and trusting God too.
But Jesus was promising the Holy Spirit to these descendants of Israel after he’d gone through centuries of “Their hearts always going astray, and never understanding what he was doing and why,” Hebrews 3:10. And we know how angry that made him, at one point telling Moses he’d kill off the Israelites and start again through him (Exodus 32:10).
But here was Jesus, roughly 1500 years later, still calling out to them and promising a marvellous blessing too, just like parents never giving up on their wayward children, and still wanting to set them up with whatever they need for their future too. Why? Because, as John writes, “We love because he first loved us,” 1 John 4:19…(more on this tomorrow)
Buck To Basics 