Last week I spent a little while trawling the Internet in search of an out of print book.  I did find one or two copies available, but exceedingly expensive!  It was the title of the book that prompted my interest, it is called “Christ the Fountaine of Life” and was written almost four hundred years ago by John Cotton a Puritan minister who, after a period preaching and serving in Lincolnshire sailed across the Atlantic to New England where he and others like him had liberty to declare the gospel as they had come to understand it.  Perhaps the quaint spelling ‘fountaine’ catches our eye but it should be the importance of the whole phrase that captures us.

However, even in the midst of this failure another Adam has come and He is the last one, there is no need for any other ‘Adams’ because this one has accomplished the Father’s will and has in all things been well pleasing in His sight.  The first man was of the earth and earthly but the second man is from heaven and is the life giving spirit.  (1 Corinthians 15v46&47)    Looking at the unfolding of the Old Testament story the prominence of Abraham is undeniable. More than sixty times his name is to be found in the New Testament.  However, where did his faith come from, whence the fountaine?  Did he have the fountaine in himself so that he believed God from some origin within his own being?  Jesus answers our questions clearly when, closing an argument with a group of racially proud men who rejoiced that they could trace their blood line right back to Abraham, He says “Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.” (John 8v56)   Among other things, Jesus is surely telling us that He Himself was fountain of the faith that enabled Abraham to become “the father of us all.”  Abraham is not the fountain, Jesus is.  The fountain of life is not to be found in a particular race, if this were the case then pride of race could be justified but Jesus slew that idea stone dead in His words to these men.  The New Testament begins with a genealogy of Jesus and Abraham is significantly mentioned there, but so too is David; how essential to the kingly line of Israel he is.  Yet where lay the fountainhead of his life and service to the nation?   Again, it did not lie in himself but in the Son that came from him who was greater than he and Who was also his root.  In the Book of the Revelation Jesus is called “the root of David,” (5v5) and “the root and the offspring of David.”  (22v16) These things are not so easy for us to grasp. 

There are those who teach and write as though the fountain father is Abraham and the fountain of the kingly line is David, but, as we see, behind both these men is the true fountain Jesus although He had not yet been made flesh.  It was the Jesus who had not yet come who made these men what they were; their greatness came from Him, not from themselves or their family line.  We must not allow anything to eclipse the Lord Jesus, no person or race, or doctrine should take the prominence and obscure Him.  Israel, the earthly offspring of father Abraham was sometimes called a vine, planted by God but which became wild and did not produce good fruit.  (Jeremiah 2v21)  In time, Jesus came, and as He drew near to the time of His crushing at Calvary He declared, “I am the true vine.”  (John 15v1)  He told his disciples that they were branches in Him, not He a branch come out of Abraham.  He was rooted in the Father; every branch, from whatever race they come, must be grafted into Him, for the life giving sap comes from Him.  It is saddening to contemplate the way the church has sometimes thought of itself as replacing Israel in God’s affections and purposes. 

The idea that God has finished with failed Israel; plucked them up and cast them aside because they broke the covenant He made with them has led to a certain subtle pride among those that believe such things, and also a carelessness towards the Jew.  Some have the idea that Israel is in the days of its exile from God and there is no restoration.  We want to answer that notion by saying that the restoration of Israel began two thousand years ago when He who is the fountaine of life was raised from the dead.  He is Israel, the suffering servant that the nation was meant to be.  In Christ is their restoration to be found, His resurrection was the restoration of Israel, back from the exile of Calvary and the grave.  God has not forgotten His people whom He foreknew.  He sends His gospel to them first, always, and always there has been a remnant that have believed as there have also been those from among the nations who have believed the gospel preached unto them.  The church has not replaced Israel; every branch must be grafted in to Christ by faith from whatever race they come.  None come into Christ on any other ground; in Him there is a new creation.  He has made in Himself one new man from both Jew and Gentile.  The church does not replace the Jew, for the church are those from both backgrounds made one in Christ.  Some, reading this, will know that these few sentences are based on some verses in Ephesians chapter two and chapters nine, ten and eleven of Romans.  Note carefully the repetitious use of the word ‘mercy’ when you read these. 

The statement in Ephesians is “But God, who is rich in mercy…” (v4)  and the whole doctrinal argument in Romans reaches its climax with the words “God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all,” (11v32) after which Paul is carried away with praise as he contemplates the plan of God, His wisdom and knowledge and His judgments and ways.  It seems to be all too easy to subtly push Christ to the side when we try to understand these things.  Racial pride and even a kind of pride of grace can surface and cause unnecessary tension. We should always push further back in our thinking, even in the doctrine of the olive tree which some would say is Israel whilst others put forward the idea that it is not so much Israel that is the tree but Abraham the father of Israel.  There can be no doubt, that in these verses of Romans eleven the wild olive tree with its branches is the gentile and the natural olive tree with its branches is the Jew, but keep firmly in mind that the fountain of the faith of Father Abraham was Jesus and it is He who is the fountaine of life to whosoever believes from whatsoever background they come.