Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns (Part 2 of 5)

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Fount of Living Water
Another theme that is prominent in both the Bible and this passage in Revelation is that of Christ as the source of living water. In the context of Revelation this could either be an attributive genitive (“fountain of living water”) or a genitive of apposition (“fountain of water, which is life”).¹

Beale further argues that the fountain of living water is in the context of a covenantal cursings and blessings formula. Revelation 21:7-8 certainly gives this connotation in light of the “I will be their God and they will be my people” concept, which runs through 21:3-8. Further, the blessings of 21:7 seems to be juxtaposed with the cursings of 21:8 in a way most intentionally drawing the reader back to these notions in Deuteronomy 28.

Revelation 22:1 sets forth Christ’s throne, sovereign rule, as the source of the river of life, the very fountain itself. The living water idea is found in John 4, where Christ identifies himself as source of the living water, which is conceptually that which will eternally and perfectly nourish the Syro-Phoenician woman so that she never thirsts again. That is to say that the living water is that which is true and eternal nourishment. John 6 conceptually equates that with Christ himself, who is the living bread or bread of life. That is the nourishment of life. That is to say that Christ is fulfilling what the Prophet Isaiah revealed:

8 Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favor I have answered you,
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages;
9 saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways,
on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;
10 they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them (Isa. 49:8-10, NRSV).²

In addition to being “resonant with the echoes of the Beatitudes,”³ the fountain of living water being Christ Jesus himself is the source and the sustenance of eternal life, that is life that does not die. In the context of the Bible as a whole, Christ, the Last Adam, offers freely (dwreavn) to the progeny of the First Adam the life source, which Adam the First failed to obtain (c.f., Romans 5:12-21). Adam was overcome. Christ overcame. This New Testament contrast echoes the very problem endemic to post-Edenic humanity which is found in Jeremiah 2:13:

13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13 NRSV).

Here again, the Lord equates himself with the fountain of living water (מְקוֹר מַיִם חַיִּים), which his people forsake and then in His place erect idolatrous cisterns which cannot do what covenant breakers desire. This source of life idea ultimately returns us to the Garden in which Adam the First failed to obey God, having chosen instead disobedience by eating the fruit of the tree which was not a source of life but which brought death into the world.


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¹ Beale, 1056.
² See also, Genesis 16:7; Genesis 24:13; Genesis 24:43; Exodus 15:27; Numbers 33:9; Joshua 15:19; 1 Kings 18:5; 2 Kings 2:21; 2 Kings 3:19; 2 Kings 3:25; Psalm 107:33; Psalm 36:8-9; 107:35; 114:8; Song of Solomon 5:12; Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 41:18; Isaiah 49:10; Isaiah 58:11; Jeremiah 2:13; 9:1; Joel 3:18; John 4:10,14; 7:38; Revelation 8:10; Revelation 14:7; Revelation 16:4.
³ Caird, 267.