Note: This article is adapted from a speech delivered at the 2026 Convocation ceremony.

Life-giving water that was ankle deep… water that was knee deep… water that was waist deep … water that was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 

You graduates have reached this significant point in your history. Congratulations, my friends! My charge to you today from Ezekiel 47 is “Wade even deeper.” 

This is Ezekiel’s vision of a temple that far outstrips the temple of Solomon whose destruction had been described at the beginning of this book. In chapter 43, the shekinah glory has fallen on Ezekiel’s temple. A first interpretation of these temple visions must be that they gave hope for the exiled people of God that they would return to their land. But the post-exilic temple they would build would not come close to the size and grandeur of that in Ezekiel’s vision.

There is no doubt in my mind that the greatest fulfilment of his vision is in Jesus, who speaks of himself as the temple (John 2:19). And Paul speaks of Christ as the One in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9), and Christ, who chooses not to be without his people, unites his church to be the temple with him (Eph. 2). The ultimate fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision is found in John’s vision of the new creation, which echoes the temple-like structure of the first creation (Rev. 21–22).

The Source of the Waters

Coming now to our passage in Ezekiel 47, this vision of a river flowing from the altar in the temple is no leak—no need to call for a plumber. This water has serious eschatological intentionality. It is going to cleanse the temple; it is going to regenerate people and creation; it is going to make fresh water out of briny depths; it is going to multiply fish stocks; it is going to nourish trees… it is, in other words, going to bring shalom and more, it is going to bring about the flourishing of a new humanity in a new creation.

Let us begin with the source of the waters.     

The water was seeping from the south side of the altar just outside the temple, and it was flowing towards the East. In the early history of Israel, the tabernacle contained a laver where the priests washed and sacrificial blood was cleansed. In Solomon’s temple, the laver was replaced by something called the "Great Sea", symbolic of the primeval waters now subdued and used for ritual washing (2 Chron. 4:6). In Ezekiel’s vision, however, the water does not merely cleanse—it gives life. The basins give way to a life-giving river.

But how are we to interpret this vision? Christopher Wright cautions that this is “a symbolic vision, not a literal production of any future event.”¹ Likewise, Joseph Blenkinsopp notes that no amount of exegetical refinement can transform this poetry into a strictly literal geographical or ecological description.² So what does the symbolism mean?

The relationship between the altar and the water is instructive. The river is flowing from the altar. In John 7, Jesus speaking at the feast of Tabernacles, says in a loud voice:

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink; whoever believes in me as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them".

John explains that Jesus spoke of the Spirit, whom believers were to receive after his glorification (John 7:37–39). Just as the river in Ezekiel came from God, Jesus as God, with the Father, is the source of the life-giving river of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, when he was “glorified” on the altar of the cross, and in his ascension, becomes the source of the giving of the Holy Spirit upon the church. The ultimate fulfilment of this passage is in Jesus and the Spirit whom he poured out upon his church. 

Yet John 7 is only the fulfilment of a consistent wider biblical imagery which came before and after Ezekiel. This prophet is fond of Edenic echoes and a river flowing out of Eden in Genesis, suggesting that Ezekiel’s river of life anticipated the new creation.³ Psalm 46 affirms that “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” Joel’s prophecy in a Spirit context states that, “in that day …all the ravines of Judah will run with water. The fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias” …note the mention of trees here as in Ezekiel 47. And Zechariah 14 says, “On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem.” Most significantly of all, there is in Revelation 21 and 22, a similar vision of the river of life in the city of God and the new creation.

The life-giving river of Ezekiel 47 is personified in the life-giving third person of the Trinity, the blessed Holy Spirit. This outpouring is grounded in the atonement accomplished by Jesus at the altar of Calvary, the central act of redemptive history, and that the outpouring of the river of the Spirit occurred after Jesus ascended and sat down at the right hand of God. As such, the Spirit is not just an amazingly Gift to us, he is the Giving Gift, giving to us things only God can give, some immediate and some progressive. 

The Effects of the Waters

My friends, if you wade and swim in the Spirit as depicted here, each of you will be perpetually fruitful trees nourished by the waters in a way that echoes Psalm 1. Persons who will thus also be  fishers of people of every nation. As you wade into the deep life of God, the missio Dei, you will participate by the Spirit in the wide mission of God, comforted by the fact that we don’t do mission for God but with him.

You will be missionally engaged until the ends of the earth are drawn into the life of God: briny waters being made fresh, and brimming with life, drawn by the prospect of humanity and the whole creation being filled with shalom and flourishing. In your churches, paddling, wading and swimming in the deep waters of Word and Sacrament and community, and so sharing widely in the mission of God, bringing people of every nation into the waters of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, and humanization.

Go deep  and your life—whatever your vocation—will have wide influence though not in ways you may always see.  Wade even deeper … and your life will speak even wider. Above all, exalt Christ as Lord of everything. For Christ has no rival, Christ has no equal. 

The progress of the waters

But this does not happen all at once.

Ezekiel experiences the river, progressively. From toe to knee to midriff to total immersion. Puritan scholar, Matthew Henry, interprets this immersion in God in a cerebral way, yet enabled by the Spirit: 

If we search into the things of God, we shall find some things very plain and easy to be understood, as the waters that were but to the ankles, others more difficult, and which require a deeper search, as the water to the knees or the loins, and some quite beyond our reach, which we cannot penetrate into, or account for, but, despairing to find the bottom, must, as St. Paul, sit down at the brink, and adore the depth, Rom. 11:3. It has been often said that in the scripture, like these waters of the sanctuary, there are some places so shallow that a lamb may wade through them, and others so deep that an elephant may swim in them. 

Here are some ways in which we can wade as elephant.

Wade Even Deeper in Spiritual Formation.

Just as the water from the laver was a cleansing agent, what it means to wade even deeper as the new covenant people of God, is lifelong confession and in depth repentance. Not only of sin, but its roots in our disordered affections, in our brokenness.

For many, including myself, Regent involved a bandaging of brokenness, a journey of the healing of emotions, of trauma, pain and anger, arising from the past, but causing relational blockages in the present. Yet, our repentance must always be evangelical and not legal, but it must be deep. It is through the power of the Spirit that spiritual transformation occurs: “If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).

Wade Even Deeper into the Spirit’s Life

The Spirit does not merely help us to mortify our sinfulness, he vivifies us, he creates life and graces in us. Wading even deeper with the Spirit is about constant daily submission to him, being continually filled, walking, keeping in step with the Spirit in such a way that the resurrection life of Christ is formed in us. Romans 8:10 also says, “the Spirit gives life because of righteousness”.

Your generation is going to need more moral metal than mine ever did. But it starts with your own moral formation. Wait even deeper into God if you want to know yourself deeper, as Calvin said. Wade even deeper in Christ if you want to upend the culture but still love the people in it and woo them to the God who is for and not against them. By the Spirit, see deeply into the culture to affirm and support its image-bearing elements but also expose the narratives that run contrary. Wade even deeper into being culture-makers arising from our theological heritage, the Great Tradition. 

Wade Even Deeper into Scripture

The Holy Scriptures, brought to us by the Holy Spirit continue  to bring us into all truth and life. Jim Houston used to say there are not many Bible readers in the church. You have been formed into Bible readers in these years. Some of you have been shaped deeply by your Hebrew and Greek reading of the Bible that has made it come alive; you have all heard about the biblical story and intertextual and canonical reading of the Scriptures, almost ad nauseum. Give yourself a pat on the back! But you have merely dipped your toes in. Be a Bible reader for the rest of your life.

Wade Even Deeper Theologically

Wade into the great mysteries of the incarnation and the triune being of God, recognizing of course that like the  uncrossable river, there will be a point at which mystery must be invoked and where deep worship must be evoked. Be a lifelong theology reader, perhaps choosing one major person to invest in, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzus, Theresa of Avila, the list is a mile long. Speaking of theology, avoid the tendency in evangelical scholarship to neglect ontology, in ethics, in atonement theology, in theology of the arts and the sciences. The incarnation and the Trinity are not merely doctrines but ways of seeing. 

Wade Even Deeper in Experiential Life with God

Paddle in God’s grace, wade in his mercy, stand in his love, and swim in his infinite glory. In a remarkable prayer by Paul in Ephesians 3 that begins first with a request for the strengthening of the Spirit, Paul says: “I pray that according to the Father’s glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit (NB!) in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell “make his home” in your hearts through faith.” Bishop Moule, commenting on the seeming incongruity of seasoned believers still needing the fresh strengthening of the Spirit, and fresh residence of Christ in their hearts, writes, “At whatever stage of the Christian life, we are all always in need of that fresh realization, a “new arrival and entrance” of the presence of Christ within us… Local images are always elastic in the spiritual sphere; and there is no contradiction thus in the thought of the permanent presence of one who is yet needed to arrive.” Paul goes on to say, ”And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” That my friends, is swimming.