The City of Water

There has been a thread on the lake of fire.
There should be a more positive one on the other "sign" in the closing chapters of the book of Revelation - a city of water.


These two signs should be set as contrasting destinies. For they are.

Now to open this discussion a passage on what I call the city of water.

" And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. (22:1)

And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." (v.2)

What does the "water of life" mean ?

A lake of fire and a city of water.

The fire issues from the throne of God in the book of Daniel.
And the water issues from the same throne of God and of the Lamb in Revelation.


The pours forth from the seat of administration of God.
And the water of life proceeds from the seat of the administration of God.

It seems that whether one receives the fire or the water has to do with one's relationship with the adminstration of God.

Two Old Testament passages:

Daniel shows the fire of God's judgment pouring forth from the throne of God, a throne made of fire flames:

" I watched until thrones were set, And the Ancient of Days sat down. His clothing was like white snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool;

His throne was flames of fire, Its wheels, burning fire.

A stream of fire issued forth and came out from before Him.

Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousands of ten thousands stood before Him. The court of judgment sat, And the books were opened." (Daniel 7:9,10)

And a city of water is also alluded to in the Old Testament:

" There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she will not be moved; God helps her at the dawn of the morning." (Psalm 46:4,5)

I want to be in the city gladden by the stream that flows through the city of God.
I do not want to be in the flow of the fire coming from the judgment of God.

Originally posted by sonship
There has been a thread on the lake of fire.
There should be a more positive one on the other "sign" in the closing chapters of the book of Revelation - a city of water.


These two signs should be set as contrasting destinies. For they are.

Now to open this discussion a passage on what I call the city of water.

[b] " And he showed me a ...[text shortened]... the healing of the nations." (v.2)

What does the "water of life" mean ?[/b]

The book of Revelation is often viewed as depicting the outcome of of satan and his followers... evil in general, and what will become of them. I must admit, I have not considered the closing chapters of this book nearly as much as the rest of it.

I believe the river of life represents the Holy Spirit, who is life giving.

Rev 22:3-5
No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Originally posted by leunammi
The book of Revelation is often viewed as depicting the outcome of of satan and his followers... evil in general, and what will become of them. I must admit, I have not considered the closing chapters of this book nearly as much as the rest of it.

I believe the river of life represents the Holy Spirit, who is life giving.

Rev 22:3-5
No longer will ...[text shortened]... ight of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Fantastic post !!

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am off this morning to enjoy this river of water of life right now.

Thanks for you contribution, and share more, share more. They have been giving me the silent treatment lately - tired of my monologues. lol.

Revelation 21,22 is a climax of the entire divine revelation. It is a window into the fulfillment of the eternal purpose of God. It is 98% all positive. There is no death, no curse, no sin, no sorrow, no disease, not ungodliness.

There is man mingled with God for eternity - in short the mass producing of sons of God.

How many streets does the book of Revelation say the New Jerusalem has ?
I ask this because so many songs speak of the golden streets [plural].

This is symbolic. This is a sign and symbolism. How many streets does the Bible say this city of water has ?

There is ONE river and ONE street. Am I right?
There is ONE way to live for those who are in the city of water.

There is ONE street of gold, This is a sign of the divine nature of God. Man, in the New Jerusalem WALKS ... and LIVES ... by the divine nature of God.

There is no Western way to live.
There is no Eastern way to live.
Let alone a Baptism, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Lutheran way to live.
The only way to live and walk is by the divine nature of the Father.

We have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)

There is no Black way to live verses a White way to live.
There is no American or Chinese or European or Korean or African way to walk and live.
There is the ONE street with the ONE flow of the Holy Spirit flowing the same way the street goes. That is the street [singular] of the divine nature of God.

Incidently, absolutely, what the New Jerusalem is is a further consummation of what the normal Christian church must be.

The seven churches are seven golden lampstands in chapters 2 and 3. The city of water is the golden mountain city of one lampstand.

We will continue our fellowship latter. Praise the Lord.

The life giving water is the Goodnews of Gods Kingdom which makes those who hear it and abide in it, possible for salvation, of which Christ himself stated to the Samaritan women at the well,

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - John 4:13

How incumbent upon Christ's footstep followers it is to declare abroad the excellencies of the one who brought us forth out of darkness into his wonderful light! The apostle asks 'how will they put faith in him who they have never heard' unless someone is sent forth, how comely are the feet of the one declaring Goodnews.

Christianity was never about the self, it was about self sacrifice and giving our time and resources to help others take, 'life's waters free',

"Come!" And let the one who hears say, "Come!" Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. Rev 22:17.

Christianity without a practical application is dead and I reject the neo platonic Calvinism which emphasises airy and ethereal elements because of a disdain for flesh and blood.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Christianity was never about the self, it was about self sacrifice and giving our time and resources to help others take, 'life's waters free',

Do you consider traipsing around door to door giving away copies of your organization's magazines to be "self sacrifice"? Or is the fact that you've done it for twenty years or so ~ without being able to state categorically that you have recruited or converted even just one single person ~ the element of "self sacrifice" you mention?

Originally posted by FMF
Do you consider traipsing around door to door giving away copies of your organization's magazines to be "self sacrifice"? Or is the fact that you've done it for twenty years or so ~ without being able to state categorically that you have recruited or converted even just one single person ~ the element of "self sacrifice" you mention?

I consider anyone that freely gives up their time and resources to help anyone learn about Gods Kingdom in whatever capacity they are able, whether that is teaching or preaching (they are not synonymous but you don't seem to know the difference) as being engaged in an act of self sacrifice. The fact ts that you have no experience of it as is self evident from your ill conceived one dimensional description, In fact your ignorance of Biblical matters after spending an alleged twenty years as a Christian is possibly the most chronic I have ever come across and here you are once again attempting to turn what is a rather interesting subject into one of your thoroughly banal, anti spiritual, anti intellectual personal tirades that has marred your entire time at this on-line community.

If you are unwilling or unable to address the subject matter, that being the city of water instead of your predictable and dreary routine of contorting the subject matter into a vehicle for personal attack then perhaps this is not the thread nor the forum for you?

If you will not desist from personally attacking not only myself but others then I would be pleased if you refrained from attempting to engage me in correspondence because quite frankly I am uninterested in that type of thing because its appears to me not only to be quite empty of understanding if I am brutally honest but rather dull and ignorant as well.

Subject matter is the city of water.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I consider anyone that freely gives up their time and resources to help anyone learn about Gods Kingdom in whatever capacity they are able, whether that is teaching or preaching (they are not synonymous but you don't seem to know the difference) as being engaged in an act of self sacrifice.

You aimed your "Christianity without a practical application is dead" and "self sacrifice" comments, presumably at sonship, as some kind of inter-Christian holier-than-thou sneer. So, just to be clear: you see your door to door give-away-magazines thing as an example of this [1] "practical application" and [2] "self sacrifice" that you are on about? And you reckon this sets you apart - as a Christian - from another poster's supposed "neo platonic Calvinism"? Just to be clear: your touted "practical application" is, in fact, the "teaching or preaching" you claim to do, right?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Subject matter is the city of water.

I am responding to these words of yours:

Christianity was never about the self, it was about self sacrifice and giving our time and resources to help others take, 'life's waters free', [...] Christianity without a practical application is dead and I reject the neo platonic Calvinism which emphasises airy and ethereal elements because of a disdain for flesh and blood.

Originally posted by FMF
I am responding to these words of yours:

[b]Christianity was never about the self, it was about self sacrifice and giving our time and resources to help others take, 'life's waters free', [...] Christianity without a practical application is dead and I reject the neo platonic Calvinism which emphasises airy and ethereal elements because of a disdain for flesh and blood.[/b]

you have nothing of interest to say about the subject matter, please spare me your nothingness.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
you have nothing of interest to say about the subject matter, please spare me your nothingness.

I am asking you about your use of the words "practical application" and "self sacrifice" on the 6th post on this page. They are words you introduced into the conversation, not me. If you just bandy them about [while alluding to a kind of Christianity that you see as being "dead"] without rooting the words in reality, then they run the risk of being little more than "airy and ethereal" terms.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie

The life giving water is the Goodnews of Gods Kingdom which makes those who hear it and abide in it, possible for salvation, of which Christ himself stated to the Samaritan women at the well,

The river of the water of life is God Himself as the Spirit.

John wrote Revelation before he wrote the Gospel of John. In John rivers of living water referred to "the Spirit" which His disciples were about to receive:

" Now in the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink. (v.37)

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. (v.38)

BUT THIS ... He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified." (v.39)

The Spirit is the Third of the Triune God reaching man to dispense God as divine life into man. The Holy Spirit is the resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ in a form in which He as God incarnated, can be dispensed into man.

In chapter 7 "the Spirit" that the believers are going to receive into their innermost being is that of the resurrected and glorified Jesus. In chapter 4 He is spoken of again as a gushing up spring from the innermost being of man, as a fountain gushing up into "eternal life".

There the Spirit is not only a matter of a thirst quenching beverage the means of worship of the Father:

"God is Spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in reality." (v.24)

" Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, (v.13)

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life." (v.14)

In the city of water God dispenses Himself into man.
In the city of water man's thirst is quenched by the Spirit gusing up to saturate the entire being of man ushering his whole being into eternal life.

The living in the Spirit is spontaneously also the worship of the Father.
The worship and the living are one.

God Himself dispenses His life and nature into the constituents of the New Covenant. Their destiny eventually is to walk by the Spirit which is simultaneously to walk by the divine nature of God dispensed into them.

This is why the river of water of life is in the middle of the golden street.
The believers know that they are walking in the divine nature by the flow of the Holy Spirit. Where the street goes the water flows.

And eternally God administrates by means of His living within His saved people. So John's Gospel has the flowing from within the innermost being of the saved. But Revelation has the flowing river from the throne of God pouring down the middle of the one street of the city of water.

" And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street.

And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Rev. 22:1,2)

The Triune God finally reaches man as the Spirit, the life giving Spirit which dispenses God Himself into our being.

So the DRINKING of the Spirit was mentioned in the epistles of Paul where the Christians DRINK of the Spirit into Whom they have been baptized.

" For also in one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink of one Spirit." ( 1 Cor. 12:13)

God is a divine "beverage' which we believers in Christ are plunged into and also is dispensed into us, into our innermost being.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
you have nothing of interest to say about the subject matter, please spare me your nothingness.

I have something of interest.

How can I prove that the Spirit is a Person ?
How can it be demonstrated that the Spirit in Revelation is not just a thing or information or even merely good news, but a living Person ?

The Spirit SPEAKS -

" And the Spirit and the bride SAY, Come ..." (Rev. 22:17a)

SAYING is the activity of a living person and personality.
The collective - the church SPEAKS.
And the Spirit within her also SPEAKS.

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who is thirsty come; let him who wills take the water of life freely." (Rev. 22:17)

The eternal COUPLE is the Bridegroom Jesus Christ and the Bride, the New Jerusalem.
But here Revelation emphasizes the the Bridegroom Jesus Christ is the very living Spirit within the city, the Bride of the New Jerusalem.

So the Bridegroom and the Bride here is "the Spirit and the Bride".

Christ is the Spirit that dispenses God as divine life into man because Christ became a life giving Spirit.

"the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)

The water of life which eternally quenches the thirst of man is Jesus Christ in a form in which He can come into His saved people and even MARRY His saved people.

Here the Spirit and the Bride speak together to proclaim the invitation for all to COME to the city of water to drink of God Himself.