Wells and Fountains

There is a beautiful line in Isaiah 12, one I suspect you’ll recognize just because we hear it quoted often enough to note its familiarity, but not so often that it becomes a memory verse for us.

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
– Isaiah 12:3, ESV

Truly, that is poetic phrasing, and it is accurate, but I want to peek into that word “wells” just a bit.

Fountains & Wells

The word is מַעְיָן (mǎʿ·yān) and it is not a well in the traditional sense that we think of a well. This is not some hand dug opening with a rope and a bucket. This word describes a below-ground source of water that bubbles upward to the surface on its own. It is a “spring” of water rather than a cistern.

Mayan is translated “fountain” more often than it is translated “well,” and this distinction is important. A well is something that has the potential to run dry. A spring does not do this, and this spring, the fountain of salvation, it never runs dry.

The Power of the Fountains

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
– Genesis 7;11, ESV

This is the first time we see mayan in scripture. Imagine “all the fountains of the deep” bursting forth, and then ponder yourself drawing water from such fountains of salvation. Look further at the awe-inspiring power of the waters.

The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.
– Genesis 7:18:20, 22, ESV

The waters prevailed, and they prevailed, and they prevailed. The waters prevail even today, though differently. The same water that has the terrifying power to take life now gives life. The lethal waters have become the living waters.

Living Waters

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
– John 7:37-38, ESV

When Jesus was crucified the soldiers pierced his side with a spear to confirm he was dead.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”
– John 19:32-33, 35-37, ESV

The blood and water flowed from the wound in Jesus side and the cleansing power from that has become a fountain of life for you and for me and for all who will avail themselves of that power. There is a fountain of life bursting forth from the deep wounds of love borne by our crucified King.

The Fountain of Life

Back in the 1980s, while ministering to students at Kansas University, I repeatedly told the students that there is one specific hymn I want sung with roof-raising energy at my celebration of life. It is most often titled “The Fountain Filled With Blood,” and the opening line reads like this:

There is a fountain filled with blood
drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
and sinners plunged beneath that flood
lose all their guilty stains.

And later, the same hymn reminds us of these truths:

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
shall never lose its pow’r,
till all the ransomed church of God
be safe, to sin no more:

E’er since by faith I saw that stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
redeeming love has been my theme,
and shall be till I die!

How can we read and sing such truths and not pump our fists of victory in the air, shouting, “Yes! Yes, it is true! Thank you Jesus!” The blood of Jesus is that fountain of salvation from which we draw with exceeding joy. It is a fountain which never runs dry. It has become a river of life flowing from the throne of God.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
– Revelation 22:1, ESV

But here is the mind-blower, Christ-follower. The river of living water flows not just from the throne of God and of the Lamb of God. That river flows from you. Are you aware of that? Look at what Jesus said in that regard.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
– John 7:38, ESV

Let that river of life flow into you and then out from you. Let it wash over everyone with whom you have contact.

The great theologian, Matthew Henry said it this way: “It is not enough that we drink waters out of our own cistern, that we ourselves take the comfort of the grace given us, but we must let our fountains be dispersed abroad.”¹ And just moments later he says, “Believers shall have the comfort, not of a vessel of water fetched from a pool, but of a river flowing from themselves.”

Don’t dam up your river, my friends. Let it flow!

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life.
– Proverbs 10:11a, ESV

Blessings upon you, my friends.

Victoriously in Christ!

– damon

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1. Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (p. 1962). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers