Pictures from the Old Testament: the Rock

Our ongoing series on the pictures in the Old Testament (the Hebrew scriptures) that point to Christ, takes us to a lot of humans; but today, to another object, not a human but a rock.  In the history of the newborn nation of Israel, fresh out of Egypt, Moses twice asks for water from a rock for the thirsty people. 

First, in Exodus 17:1-7, the thirsty people ask for water and blame the lack of water on Moses.  God tells Moses "I will stand before you on the rock...Strike the rock, and water will come gushing out. Then the people will be able to drink."  In Numbers 20:1-13, the people are thirsty again (and cranky as usual), so God tells Moses to speak to the rock, "and it will pour out its water."  Instead of speaking, Moses yells at the people, then strikes the rock with his staff.  The water comes out anyway but God corrects Moses and doesn't allow him to take the people into the Land of Promise because he "did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel." 

Normally, water ran down the riverbeds during rainy season, or there were pools in the wilderness from springs deep underneath the earth.  These sound like truly supernatural events, with water coming from an unexpected spot. In one story the rock is to be struck, in another Moses is to speak to the rock but strikes it instead.  What's it all mean?

These symbols are interpreted for us in the New Testament, primarily in two passages.  In John 7:37-39, Jesus says "anyone who is thirsty" can come to him and drink, and John interprets that as meaning the Holy Spirit. So the physical water given to Israel was just a picture of the greater reality, the Holy Spirit, given from Jesus, the true Rock.  In 1 Cor. 10:4, Paul writes, as part of a warning not to take God's provision lightly, that the Israelites ate and drank "spiritual" food and drink in the wilderness, drinking from the "spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ."  The manna pictured Christ's body given for us, and the water from the rock pictured the Holy Spirit to be given, so we should read "spiritual rock" as being a picture of Christ, not an actual rock dragging itself around in the desert sand.  God's faithfulness was with them, as it would be later in sending his Son -- who was "struck" in order to provide life for us.  (Some have read this verse as indicating that the second Person of the Trinity is 'the one' who accompanied the Israelites; but let's remember, God is one, not divided in any way, so "all of God" was there, not just one Person.) 

So, Jesus, the Rock of our salvation, is also the source of the promised Holy Spirit, whom he sent to be with us.  The Hebrew Scriptures agree perfectly with the Greek Scriptures, that the plan and purpose of God is fully presented in his Son Jesus, whom we know as the Christ.  Salvation and reconciliation with God through Christ is the main theme of the entire unity of Scripture.  Will you accept what he has worked so hard to offer you?