God's blessing of Himself is in every way like a fountain. Blessing
pours forth from His presence in man as a abundant gushing up
spring. In discussion the hymn with the first line on There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emanual's veins it occurred to me so many blessings of God including Christ's redemption, subjectively are like a fountain.
I will review some of these from the Bible.
So many blessings pour forth from God like fountain when we receive Christ - God incarnated as Lord. The revelation of this starts in the Old Testament.
"Be appalled at this, O heavens, And be horrified; be very desolate, declares Jehovah.
For My people have committed two evils; They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:12,13)
God says it is appalling, horrifying what men have done. They have committed two evils.
1.) They have forsaken God who is Himself the abundant fountain of living waters.
2.) They have replaced this sufficient supply with broken containers, inadequate vessels which leak and cannot hold the living waters.
He is calling the people to repent of their damaged cisterns which cannot hold the rich blessing that only God can supply and return to Him "the fountain of living water."
It occurred to me why the song about the fountain filled with blood is so much enjoyed by believers. Redemption, grace, forgiveness, empowering, support all come forth from the Spirit of Christ abundantly.
Everything God is in Jesus Christ is for man to receive in abundance, running over, richly. To replace what God is to man in Jesus Christ with inadequate other natural means is like broken cisterns and can even lead to evil.
"For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living water.
To hew out for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns,
Which hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:13 RcV)
To come to Jesus is to come back to God the fountain of living waters.
To drop the cisterns broken is to realize how empty, dark, and vain life is without
God.
In the case of many they realized life apart from God was a black hole of sewage - dirty, filthy, and having been corrupted. The cisterns were broken, meaning the idols that they erected to replace God had no blessing.
I was such a one. I know many others who returned to God the fountain of living waters available to us in the salvation of the Son of God.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who shepherds believers to fountains of waters of life - meaning varied blessings of being one with God now and for eternity.
"They will not hunger anymore, neither will they thirst anymore, neither will the sun beat upon them, nor any heat; For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and guide them to springs of waters of life; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Rev. 7:16,17)
Jesus guide sinners back from the dark and thirsty dissatisfaction of the fall of man into sin to God the fountain of life.
So redemption is to the believer like a fountain.
And so many other benefits of God's salvation are available abundantly to the believer.
Another hymn said "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
1 Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it
mount of God's redeeming love.
2 Here I find my greatest treasure;
hither by thy help I've come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
bought me with his precious blood.
From https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_fount_of_every_blessing
Robert Robinson was born at Swaffham, Norfolk, in 1735. In 1749, he was apprenticed to a hairdresser, in Crutched Friars, London. Hearing a discourse preached by Whitefield on "The Wrath to Come," in 1752, he was deeply impressed, and after a period of much disquietude, he gave himself to a religious life.
@divegeester
After contemplating the objection and the experience of Christians it occurred to me that redemption, forgiveness, and MANY other blessings seem to flow from God's presence.
Then I recalled the verse about God the fountain of living water. And how the thirsty lost Israelites had been told that they had forsaken God and hewn out for themselves inadequate substitutes trying hard to replace the irreplaceable God.
@divegeester
Some celebratory poems down through the ages may exhaust language to express the blessing of salvation. It can be forgiven believers if their word pictures are grounded in biblical passages even though exact wording may not be the same.
This thread is about the "fountain" or "spring" motif in the Bible is found quite often. Not only forgiveness and redemption can be applied to it but all the blessings of knowing God.
Most everyone a little familiar with the Bible knows that the book of Jeremiah the so-called "weeping prophet" has a lot of judgment in it.
God's wrath, chastisement, and punishment are unloaded on wayward Israel after years of warning. This is similar to what is coming upon this world.
Yet we shouldn't overlook the source of the problem. Man has forsaken God to replace God. Two evils have led to this mess:
The source of well being has been forsaken.
The replacements of well being are inadequate to do the job only God can do.
The forsaking of God has led to great dissatisfaction in sinful man.
The idols erected to replace God have often led man to evil doing in addition to
dissatisfaction.
In Jeremiah God is trying to get Israel to return to Himself as the Source of all needed well-being, blessing, goodness and life with God.
God wants to impart His life into us bringing His fulness to supply, protect, and cause our enjoyment. This is why Jesus Christ, God incarnate, came to earth.
It is good to come to Jesus and confess how thirsty you are. Like this:
"Lord Jesus, I am SO thirsty. Lord Jesus I am so dissatisfied. Lord Jesus I feel famished in my life, hungry and thirsty for real satisfaction. Lord Jesus lead me to these fountains of waters of life in Your name. Thankyou Lord Jesus."
Many times the thirst for life leads people to their sinful behavior. They are just so seeking for satisfaction. The cisterns they hewed out for themselves are broken holding no blessing of life.
One famous case like this is the woman of Samaria in John chapter four.
She had been through FIVE husbands. She probably was a beautiful women.
Maybe she was able to get any man she wanted.
But she was so very thirsty.
She came to the well in the hot sun of midday because she probably had a bad reputation in society and wished to be left alone. Jesus met her can helped her confess her sins. Jesus helped her to see that her going astray was do to her thirsty unsatisfied life.
And Jesus said He would be the one to give her living water as a fountain of blessing springing up within her.
Let me get to the good part. You all can read the whole wonderful chapter on your own.
"Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life." (John 4:13,14)
There you go again - God's life to be imparted into man to be a fountain gushing up into blessing, joy, satisfaction and eternal life. What a wonderful Savior Jesus is.