The Analogy is that of the fountainhead of a spring and the lake or stream it forms.
There are three parts to the Analogy … all of which relate to a believer’s life - according to the Bible’s Gospel.
- The Fountainhead: The hidden source of the water.
- The water: Coming out of the fountainhead, it forms the lake or stream.
- The Mudpits near the stream: A place where animals frolic. Mud from these pits will dirty the water.
The water relates to the life. The fountainhead, the water source, gushes out water to fill the lake/stream …
what we do flows out of who we are.
What the life looks like, depends on the quality and quantity of water coming out of the fountainhead and on the amount of dirt or mud 'dragged' into the water.
The two problems in the analogy relate to the two universal sin problems:
- Sin Problem #1 relates to a large dead animal, caught in the fountainhead, and decaying; it is corrupting the water coming out.
- Sin Problem #2 relates to the mud coming into the lake/stream, which makes the water dirty.
The corrupted, dirty water is actually two problems; every person, except Jesus, has been born with both problems.
- Having corrupted water is not my fault … but all are born with this problem: Who I am is broken.
- Having dirty water is often my fault since I make bad choices - What I do is broken - and stir up the mud and get me/others muddy, which is then dragged to the lake/stream.
- Believing he Bible’s Gospel both fixes the fountainhead and cleans up (redeems and justifies) the hidden life of the believer.
- God exchanges, in each believer, the dead-in-Christ sin nature for His Righteousness.
- God fixes everything we could not see or correct from our old life's sinnings, like bondage, corrected by redemption and guilt, corrected by justification.
- Yet, the Bible’s Gospel does not clean the water that had already come out … that water is still corrupted and dirty.
This makes sense with the analogy: the water in the lake/stream is not automatically made clean when the corrupting, dead 'animal' is removed.
As we experience, using the nearby mudpits dirties the water more (or keeps it dirty).
- Solving the 3rd Sin Problem is the way for the new believer to clean up the life, which can take some time.
In the analogy, there are two ways to clean up what remains of the old life. Each believer is responsible.
- Increasing the flow rate of pure water from the fixed fountainhead - our new nature: God’s Righteousness.
This happens as the new spiritual life matures.
- Also, on the foundation of God's transformation of the believer, the believer makes better life choices: avoids the mudpits, etc.