St. Paul is here using a beautiful old tradition of the Rabbis, that
the rock which Moses struck in Horeb followed the Jews through all
their forty years' wanderings, and that on every Sabbath day when
they stopped, it stopped also, and the elders called to it, 'Flow
out, O fountain,' and the water flowed. A beautiful old story,
which St. Paul turns into an allegory, to teach, as by a picture,
the deepest and the highest truth. Whether that rock followed them
or not, he says, there was One who did follow them, from whom flowed
living water; and that Rock is Christ. Christ followed them.
Christ the creator, the preserver, the inspirer, the light, the
life, the guide of men, and of all the universe. It was to Christ
they owed their deliverance from Egypt; to Christ they owed their
knowledge of God, and of the law of God, to Christ they owed
whatever reason, justice, righteousness, good government, there was
among them. And to Christ we owe the same.
The rock was a type of him from whom flows living water. As he
himself said on earth, 'Whosoever drinketh of the water which I
shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water which I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water, springing up to everlasting
life.' Just as the manna also was a type of him, as he himself
declared, when the Jews talked to him of the manna; 'Our fathers did
eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from
heaven to eat.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131