Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Well, if you had the opportunity to write down every question you have about the Bible, how long would your list be? I know mine would grow to multiple pages.

Well, today we have the opportunity to hear Bible teacher, author, and pastor Mike Fabarez address a question that you might be curious about yourself right here on Focal Point. Welcome to a special edition of Focal Point with pastor Mike Fabarez. I'm Dave Drouy. Glad to have you with us today.

On today's program, we'll sit down with pastor Mike to address some fascinating issues. And if you'd like to pose a question of your own, you're invited to do so by visiting focalpointradio.org. I'll share these details again later, but right now, let's step into the pastor's study with the executive director of Focal Point, Jay Wortin.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dave. I am here with pastor Mike. Pastor Mike, today we have an interesting question from a listener who asks, what is the significance of the water coming out of Jesus side when he was pierced by the spear on the cross?

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's a great question. And I gotta admit, I went many years as a Christian, just kind of toeing the party line that I had heard early in my Christian life about what was going on there. And that was the traditional answer I heard from the books I read and the sermons I heard about the crucifixion: that when that spear went through his side, that spear penetrated the pericardium of the heart, and that has clear fluid in it. And that came out and, you know, it looked like water and it looked like blood also, of course, because he was bleeding. And so that's the water in the blood.

And then on I went. And I was satisfied with that, I guess, until one day I sat down with my doctor and I asked him about that. I said, "Tell me about..." And it must have been coming close to Good Friday, you know, tell me about that. If someone's heart was pierced, would you have a visible clear fluid from the pericardium of the heart? And the doctor laughed and said, "No, no way."

And so I went back to that passage in John 19 and had to kind of look at it afresh and say, well, wait a minute, I read some other things that say, no, that's not possible. I talked to my doctor who said, no, that wouldn't happen. And so I looked again at that John 19 passage, and I realized that the way he says this in verse...

Speaker 4

35, after he speaks of the water.

Speaker 3

And the blood coming out, he says he who saw it, speaking of himself in the third person, has borne witness. His testimony is true. He knows he's telling the truth.

So that you may believe, made it sound like this isn't just a medical description. This is some kind of.

Speaker 4

I swear I saw this.

Speaker 3

I testified to it. It's the truth. And I'm thinking, what's the big deal if it's just a medical thing that's happening that got me thinking and looking through the Scripture to figure out what's going on here?

If this is a miracle, what does this miracle speak of? And that's what took me back to the Old Testament to revisit that picture of water coming out of the rock in Exodus 17.

And it made me think, this is not just some medical description. This is a symbolic throwback to that scene of providing water for the people of God in the desert through the rock.

Speaker 2

One of the other things that comes up is it could be asphyxiation, that water formed in the lungs and got pierced as well. So you don't think that medical description works here either? There's something more miraculous going on in this regard?

Speaker 3

I do. And I do think that, because I've read those theories, and I think John has said it in such a way to make us think this is not normal, this is abnormal, and it's not just some abnormal medical thing. Why were we wasting parts of Scripture that have no, you know, significance to the event? I mean, I think whether it's his beating or his crown of thorns or the statement over his head on the cross, all of those have important meanings and theological connections.

Well, what's the water coming out of his side? I think this is something significant. And then one thing that got me going in this direction is just looking at how often water is used symbolically, not only in the Old Testament, but throughout the New Testament and even in the Gospel of John. John has already talked so much about Jesus's statements regarding water and being the living water and satisfying people and all these things.

I think, okay, just trace the symbolism of water, the analogy of water through the Bible, and you start to go, wow. I think John's making a statement about something that physically happened. It did physically happen. It was a miracle on the cross that there was water flowing from him, not just blood. And that picture is a picture, I believe, fulfilling an important, significant image of the water coming from the rock in the desert, which is in First Corinthians, chapter 10. Christ himself is called the rock in the desert.

It's just all of these images start to connect for me. And now I know I can't, you know, pound the pulpit with a fist and be emphatic that I'm absolutely sure this is what it means. But certainly in my own study, I've come to this conclusion after having this passage be a baffling one in my mind for many years.

I think I've come to a conclusion that I think is reasonable and defensible based on how the Scripture presents water, how it's presented in the Gospel of John, and how Christ is presented as the rock in the desert in 1 Corinthians 10. I think John's making these connections for us, as he often does in his Gospel.

Speaker 2

I noticed that John is the only one that records this particular event. And you just talked about the significance of water. What are the various things that water tends to mean as we're looking through Scripture?

Speaker 3

Well, it certainly is a basic human need that we have physical water. And so water becomes spiritualized early on in the scripture as something significant, certainly in reference to the coming of Jesus Christ.

I think about Zechariah, chapter 13, that speaks about a fountain being opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from their sins. I think of the New Covenant promise of Jesus coming to cleanse us. And water is the symbol. He's going to sprinkle us with clean water.

Jesus with Nicodemus in John 3. You got to be born of the Spirit and the water and the blood. I'm sorry. By the Spirit. These things have to do with our cleansing. They have to do with our forgiveness. It's the granting of the forgiveness and the washing away of our sins.

This symbol is early in the scripture. It's repeated in the Scripture, and it's prophetic in pointing to Christ in many Old Testament passages.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I trust this conversation is informative to our listeners. And we're going to continue our time here with a message you gave called Water from the How One Friday, Christ provided all we need.

Speaker 4

That was Pontius Pilate, as you know, who sanctioned that Jesus of Nazareth was executed by Roman soldiers. It was the jealous religious leaders who called for it. And it was a near riotous crowd that was demanding it on the streets. Crucify him. Crucify him. And yet, if you read your Bible carefully, it makes painfully clear that all of this was orchestrated by God. It was all orchestrated by God.

Here's how Peter preached it in the same city not long after his crucifixion, as he preached to those who actually crucified him. He said, "Men of Israel, hear these words. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God." Now, because everything about the death of Christ was according to the definite plan of God, it behooves us as students of the Word to take note of every detail of it.

As we read the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we need to carefully go through every part of it, realizing nothing is there by chance, nothing is random. Now, there is a small detail that's always given me some trouble. I've often wondered what exactly is going on here in this text. I've had lots of people try to explain it to me. I've read several books that give me medical explanations, biological explanations, even practical explanations.

The text I have in mind comes from John's gospel. John 19:34, 35. Of course, Jesus is hanging on the cross, and one of the soldiers pierced his side. John writes, "with a spear, and at once there came out blood." Here's the interesting part now.

Speaker 3

And water.

Speaker 4

John says, he who saw it has borne witness. That's him, John. His testimony is true. He knows that he is telling the truth. That you may also believe John's saying, I'm not kidding, water came out of his side.

Now, some people try to say, well, this is perhaps the spear impaling the pericardium around the heart, and that's a clear fluid. And so that must have been what it was. Others have said, well, it's, you know, a penetration of the stomach by the spear or maybe some other chest cavity fluids. It's all kind of gross. But they say, well, some of it's clear. Maybe that's what they saw. None of that is quite satisfactory the more you look into it. I mean, this seems to be a real visible, obvious flow of water.

Now, to figure out this mystery, we should just go back to thinking through water. In the Bible in general, it's all over the scriptures. Beginning in the first chapter of Genesis, we read about water playing a significant role in creation and life on the planet as God designed it. It is in desperate need of regular intake of water, which obviously led to a very natural symbol in the scripture, because, of course, God is trying to communicate to his creation that he is essential. You better have a relationship with the living God or you're never going to face eternity and survive. Just like water, it's not optional. Got to have it.

Speaker 3

It's essential.

Speaker 4

You can't live on this planet without it. If you don't have it, you start to recognize what a problem it is. The news calls it a water crisis. I couldn't help but think of the first water crisis in the Bible. Near the base of the Sinai Peninsula, when Moses and the Israelites first encountered this land, these guys had marched through the desert following their fearless leader, and they were thirsty.

Here's what the text says. In Exodus 17, the people of Israel camped at Rephidim, the place of rest. But there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled, as they like to do with Moses. They said, "Give us water to drink." The people thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt? I mean, we had ample water there to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst. Is that what this was all about?"

See, this water symbolism that runs throughout the Bible suggests that God is really nothing to us until we start to get thirsty for Him, to the place of saying, "I."

Speaker 3

Cannot live without this.

Speaker 4

And they were thirsty in the desert. They needed water. Moses, of course, not feeling real good about the dilemma, cries out to the Lord, "What shall we do with this people? They're almost ready to stone me. They're going to kill me." But God says this to solve the water crisis.

Next verse: The Lord said to Moses, "Take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. I got a plan for you, and it's going to involve that staff." Now, remember the staff? When he struck the Nile, it was during the ten plagues. What happened to the Nile when he struck it? It turned to blood.

Now, notice this. I've read this passage multiple times, as have you, and I've often missed the juxtaposition of what's happening in this next verse. Note it carefully: "I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, and the people will drink."

The way I read that, and I've read it hundreds of times—dozens of times at least—in my Old Testament reading every year, I get to that and think, okay, they needed water. Moses is thinking, they're going to kill me. They're hungry, they're crying, they're complaining. He goes, and God tells him to strike the rock, and water comes out. But that's not what it starts with.

Here's what the text says: "I will stand before you there on the rock." Now, there's an interesting line because already throughout the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, 17 times we have a phrase that plays a prominent role in all of this. His name is the angel of the Lord. If you were with us in our Christology study, this is a mysterious figure.

It's not like Gabriel or Michael or someone announcing something from heaven. The angel of the Lord starts talking as though he is God. It's as though when God wants to manifest himself and speak to the people of Israel, he does so in the person of this angel of the Lord. When God calls Moses from the burning bush, it is in the person of the angel of the Lord. That's how the passage starts.

So now I can assume some personification of God in some human form, in mind or in figure or vision or whatever. He says, "I'm going to stand on the rock." And then he says, here's the juxtaposition I was talking about: "Now strike the rock."

Now, I don't know if Jesus shows up at our church tonight and he says, "I'm going to sit on that stool over there." The last thing I'm going to do is hit the stool, right? I wouldn't do that. I'm going to look for a plan B here. I don't want to strike it. If you're there, please don't make me strike. I don't want to hit you.

Speaker 3

That'S precisely what's being said here.

Speaker 4

You strike the rock and I will be there. And when you strike it, I'll provide you with what you need, with what the people are desperate for. You're going to have to strike me, and I'll give you what you need. Now, put all this together in your mind. The drink that they drank was not naturally provided. It wasn't like Moses kind of moved a rock off the top of some aquifer or some fountain. And then it's, whoa, there it is. We didn't see that water there under the rock. Strike the rock. Supernaturally provided. God did a miracle that day in Rephidim, and it came from a rock that wasn't supposed to produce water. And they drank it.

Oh, and by the way, the whole angel of the Lord there, standing on the rock, it's not like he was standing on the rock. It was like he was the rock. And what did Moses do to the rock? He struck it. Strike it. Strike Christ. God's will to strike Christ. That doesn't sound right. And yet that's exactly what the prophets had predicted about Christ. It's what they said would happen. God himself speaking.

For instance, look at this text through Zechariah in chapter 13. Check this out. Matter of fact, let's start with the second line here in the middle of this. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. You remember Christ quoting that when he talked about his disciples all scattering after he got arrested. You strike the shepherd and the sheep go running. That's how it is. They need Christ. But notice how the verse starts. This is God speaking. Not about those false shepherds, those selfish shepherds. He's talking about his shepherd, the shepherd. This is quite a few years after David. So this is not David, a man after God's own heart. This is the perfect shepherd. This is who stood up in John 10 and said, I am the good shepherd. This is Christ he's speaking about.

And how is he going to be struck? With a staff? Look at what God says. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. Now I'm thinking, if he's your shepherd, you don't want him struck. It is God's will to strike the shepherd. Well, that's odd, but familiar, because that is how Isaiah put it. This is how the paragraph starts. In verse number one, on that day that sets up the paragraph, there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That's where he was crucified to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. Water here not just as sustenance. Water here as cleansing. I need to be washed. I got a problem with the Holy God. I'm never going to get past the threshold of this life into the next life.

Speaker 3

I'm never going to make that.

Speaker 4

I'm never going to survive that. I'm going to encounter the wrath of God because I'm sinful and he's holy.

Oh, wait a minute. Here's the thing. I can wash you. I can clean you. I can make you acceptable before God. I can do that.

If the shepherd gets struck, strike the shepherd. I know. The sheep will scatter. He'll collect them again.

Speaker 3

One day.

Speaker 4

They'll go actually all over the earth. But it's a sword, it's not a staff. And it will strike. Or better yet, as he says later in the book, it will pierce him. And from that piercing of the shepherd will come a fountain that will cleanse. Isaiah talked about this.

Any time you see language about new in the prophets, you've got to know they're looking ahead to this time. Where there would be a new arrangement, the Old Testament, the old covenant. That's what Testament means. There was a looking forward to a new covenant, a new Testament, a new arrangement.

Jesus, it's me always talking about this water coming from me. You might remember one when he sat with a woman at a well in John 4, asked for a drink. And in all this talk about water by a well, you remember this statement, Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God, the ultimate thing in the Bible that we're working toward, the whole deal about him getting you what you need, the gift of God, grace. And you knew who it was that.

Speaker 3

Was saying to you, give me a drink.

Speaker 4

You would have asked him and he would have given you living water. I mean, that confused her, right? I mean, she wanted to know, well, if it means I don't have to drink here to draw, sure. Where is that? Where do I sign up for that water service?

No, you don't get it. It's about me. Jesus is always talking about, it's about me. From me will come what you need in terms of sustenance and cleansing back to the desert. And maybe you'll start to see why. John says, I saw water come out. I'm not lying. And maybe with me you'll start to agree.

This may not be some small amount of clear pericardium fluid. Perhaps this was one of the miracles, like the tearing of the curtain in the temple or the earthquake. Here's another touch of miraculous from God. Not many in the Bible, but the biggest rash right here in Christ's ministry apexed with a bunch of them happening when he dies.

Maybe God provides something miraculous, much like.

Speaker 3

He did in the desert.

Speaker 4

The Lord says to Moses, hey, take this staff in your hand, the one you hit the Nile with. Remember that. You made it bleed. You made the Nile turn into blood.

Speaker 3

Take that staff.

Speaker 4

Now I want you to go and I'm going to stand before you there on the rock. Paul says he was the rock. He was the rock that was struck. He was the shepherd that God promised he would strike. Strike the rock and water will come out of it and the people will drink.

I'd like you to see the mountain of Golgotha from the rocks of Rephidim, where there was really no permanent rest. And I want you to picture Moses taking that rock and striking the rock with his staff and watching water flow. And I'd like you to see in that that this was really Christ, the pre-incarnate Christian who knew the plan from the beginning, orchestrated from eternity past that on a hill outside of Jerusalem, water would flow miraculously, I believe, from Christ's side, along with blood, because the blood was a symbol of the wrath we deserved.

And the propitiation in the blood of Christ made us people that no longer had a debt to pay. It is finished, he said. Water, the ubiquitous, central, powerful theme of the Bible, flowed from his side. How long, how much, I don't know. But John seems to make a big deal about it. That on that hill when Christ was crucified, water flowed from the shepherd.

The forgiveness and cleansing that comes from that water was providentially and ironically pinned into a famous hymn. Augustus H. To play wrote a hymn in 1776 of all years that talked about the blood and the water. Rock of Ages, maybe you've heard it, that from the cross came all that we need.

Note these poignant words. Rock of ages, cleft for me it was struck. Let me hide myself in thee. I need this. Let the water and the blood from thy wounded side which flowed be. Look at this, the best line. Be of sin, the double cure. Save me from the wrath and make me pure.

Speaker 1

You're listening to Mike Fabarez unpacking the miraculous detail of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. Well, today's message was part of our regular Ask Pastor Mike segment on Focal Point. You know, the more we learn about what happened on that cross, the more we see God's provision for us. Today's study may leave you wondering what else is in store. According to the Bible, we have so much to anticipate in the life beyond. And it's all because of the cross.

Joni Eareckson Tada was curious to learn more about life after death. Her personal study in the Bible later evolved into a full-length book. It's called *Heaven, Your Real Home*. This page-turner will captivate you with a glimpse into the Christian's true home, a place where suffering ends and joy is never-ending. And we'll send you this book right away when you offer your financial gift to Focal Point today. Give your donation by calling us at 888-320-5885 or by connecting with us online at focalpointradio.org.

Focal Point is a nonprofit ministry located in Southern California. We're truly encouraged by the faithful generosity of our listeners. In fact, it's the gifts from people like you that make it possible to bring these Bible studies to your station every day. And when you give today, we'll send you the book called *Heaven*. We'll also include an in-depth CD message from Mike Fabarez called *Getting Excited about Our New Destiny*. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Call 888-320-5885.

One final comment: to submit your Bible question to Pastor Mike, just go online to focalpointradio.org and click the tab marked Connect, and then click on Contact Us if you need answers. Right now, we've posted helpful and fascinating Bible Q&A videos right on our website, featuring answers on cultural, personal, and biblical topics. Check them out at focalpointradio.org.

Remember to start your week on Solid Ground Monday, when we'll continue to gain a new perspective on life's problems with Mike Fabarez right here on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Sam.