O God, Thou art the source of life

1
O God, Thou art the source of life,
  Divine, and rich and free!
As living water flowing out
  Unto eternity!
2
In love Thou in the Son didst flow
  Among the human race;
Thou dost as Spirit also flow
  Within us thru Thy grace.
3
Though we in sin and wickedness
  Went far from Thee apace,
Yet in the Son Thou didst redeem,
  Bestowing life and grace.
4
Though we have often slighted Thee,
  Thy Spirit often grieved,
Yet Thou dost still as Spirit come
  As life to be received.
5
Thou as the Spirit in the Son
  Hast mingled heretofore;
Thou wilt thru fellowship anoint
  And increase more and more.
6
The love of God, the grace of Christ,
  The Spirit’s flowing free,
Enable us God’s wealth to share
  Thru all eternity.
7
The Father, Son, and Spirit—one,
  So richly care for us;
Thy love with one accord we sing
  And e’er would praise Thee thus.

Copyright Living Stream Ministry. Used by permission.

26
Jaymee

Newington, CT, United States

Our Triune God richly cares for us! Hallelujah!


Baljeet

Dingalinga, Punjab, India

This is such a thru eternity moment!


Harmeet Singh

Ludhiana, Punjab, India

Praise is the Lord Hallelujah, Amen


Christopher Burk

Seattle, Washington, United States

The Father, Son, and Spirit-one

Amen! Three-in-One. The Triune God. So mysterious, but amen nonetheless!


Gloria Park

Pago Pago, American Samoa

The Father, Son, and Spirit—one,

So richly care for us;

Thy love with one accord we sing

And e’er would praise Thee thus.

The triune God, three in One!


Richard T. Taylor

Siloam Springs, AR, New Zealand

Wonderful


Sanjay Massey

Delhi, India

O God you are the Source of Life.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.


Jaime Barbosa

Acworth, Georgia, United States

Love, light, life in the spirit in the churches.

The house of God...


Ana Lara

Storrs, Connecticut, United States

The writer of the music for this hymn was Charles Hutchinson. Born in 1792, Glasgow Scotland and died January 20, 1860, Glasgow, Scotland.

Hutchinson was a merchant in Glasgow, and a member of Saint George’s Parish Church. An amateur composer and founding member of the Glasgow Dilettanti Society, he published an essay on church music and a number of hymn-tunes in Christian Vespers (1832).


Ana Lara

Storrs, Connecticut, United States

Stanza 6 of this hymn is the blessing of Paul as seen in 2 Corinthians 13:14–“the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”:

The love of God is the source, since God is the origin; the grace of the Lord is the course of the love of God, since the Lord is the expression of God; and the fellowship of the Spirit is the impartation of the grace of the Lord with the love of God since the Spirit is the transmission of the Lord with God for our experience and enjoyment of the Triune God— The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with Their divine virtues.

In the blessing of the apostle Paul, the Triune God comes to people for their enjoyment; Paul not only brought people into the presence of God but also brought God into them.

Love, grace, and fellowship are the three stages of God for our enjoyment—love is within, grace is love expressed, and fellowship

(the application of love) is the transmission of grace into us.

In Numbers 6:22-27 we see a pattern of blessing by the priests; this blessing is neither an Old Testament blessing nor a New Testament blessing; rather it is the eternal blessing of the Triune God which is the Triune God dispensing Himself in His Divine Trinity into us for our enjoyment:

“Jehovah bless you and keep you" can be ascribed to the Father—(v. 24). The Father blesses us in every way and in every aspect in His love (Eph. 1:3) and He keeps us in every way and in every aspect of His power.

John 17:11

“Jehovah make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you” can be ascribed to the Son—(v. 25) The word face signifies presence, as One whose face shines upon us, Christ the Son is the visible presence of the invisible God—2 Pe. 1:16-18.

"Jehovah lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace" can be ascribed to the Spirit—(v. 26)The countenance denotes the expression of the person; to lift up our countenance upon a person means that we confirm, assure, promise, and give everything to that person.

Jesus came as the face of God, and the Holy Spirit comes as a countenance of God; if we grieve Him, His countenance will drop, but if we obey Him, He will be happy with us, and He will lift up His countenance to confirm us, assure us, guarantee us, promise us, and give us everything.

Crystallization-Study Outlines

In Psalms 23:6 we also have the blessing of the Triune God. “Surely goodness and loving- kindness will follow me. ” This is the fifth stage of Christ’s shepherding which is the lifelong enjoyment of the divine goodness and lovingkindness in the house of Jehovah.

Under the organic shepherding of the pneumatic Christ, goodness and loving-kindness “follow us all the days of our life” referring to the present age. Goodness refers to the grace of Christ, lovingkindness to the love of the Father, and follow implies the fellowship of the Spirit.

Psalm 23:6 footnote 1.

...Hymns, #12 speaks of God as a flowing fountain. God flows first in the Son. Then He continues to flow as the Spirit to reach us and to dispense Himself as the life element with the tree of life to quench our thirst and to satisfy us. The water quenches; the tree satisfies.

In Revelation 22:1 we see the flow of the divine Trinity— God, the Lamb, and the water of life (the Spirit). According to John 7:38-39, the water of life refers to the Spirit. God was the One who purposed, He became the Lamb who redeemed (John 1:14, 29), and finally became the life-giving, flowing Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). God flows in the water of life, the Lamb flows in the water of life, and the Spirit flows as the water of life. Thus, this is the Triune flow, the flow of the divine Trinity as the very life supply.

This should not be taken as a theological teaching. According to our daily experiences, we Christians should experience the flow of the divine Trinity every day. Every morning after rising up we need to say, "Lord, thank You for a new day for me to take You as my Lord. I subject myself under Your headship for the whole day. Lord, set up Your throne in my life. Set up Your throne in the center of my being. Lord, bring my whole day with my daily life under Your throne." If you would offer such a prayer to the Triune God every morning, from that moment you would have the living water flowing within you. This living water flowing is the flow of the Triune God. It is not a small thing that the Triune God flows in you today. He flows in you as the One who purposed, as the One who redeemed, and as the One who is the life-giving Spirit. This One is the very consummation of the Triune God reaching us as the living water.

Such a subjective revelation has been missed by many of today's Christians. I hope we all would realize in our experience that whenever we subject ourselves to the Triune God, taking Him as our Head, we enjoy a flow within us. Thank the Lord that in the Lord's recovery, day after day, month after month, year after year, and time after time, what is stressed is the unique flow. We have given message after message which tells us that the Triune God is flowing. There are also many hymns in our hymnal concerning this subject...

After someone calls a hymn on life, there may not be the adequate prayers to follow it. When we sing about the love of God or the greatness of God, we have much to say, although this concept of love may not be spiritual but natural. When we sing about life, however, our mouths may be shut. This is our shortage. Hymns, #12 begins, "O God, Thou art the source of life, / Divine, and rich, and free! / As living water flowing out / Unto eternity!" This is altogether against our natural concept. Twenty-five or thirty years ago this was a foreign language to me. I did not know what this meant. If we have no concept of what that hymn means, we will not be able to offer a prayer to follow it. Stanza 2 says, "In love Thou in the Son didst flow / Among the human race." We may know a little bit about love, but we may not know what is meant by Thou in the Son didst flow. In this case, we will not be able to follow the hymn with prayer, because we do not have this kind of concept and understanding. From now on, however, we will learn more and more. Then when we announce and sing this kind of hymn, right away we will have many prayers to follow it and to analyze, enlarge, and develop its meaning.

The Father is the source, the Son is the course, and the Spirit is the flow within the course. I do want you to be impressed by this concept. Hymns, #12 says, "0 God, Thou art the source of life." This source of life flows out in the Son and as the Spirit. Eventually this flow of living water—the Triune God in three persons—flows into us, the man of spirit, soul, and body. In Genesis 2:10 the river in the garden divided and became four branches. Four here represents man, meaning that this one river flows to this man and into man. From Himself as the source, God flows out and flows into man. This flowing out and flowing in eventually issues in a universal mingling of God with man. It is by this flow that God is brought into man, and it is also by this flow that man is brought into God. Therefore, the Lord said, "Abide in Me and I in you" (John 15:4). Who is this "Me?" It is God. To abide in Me means to abide in God. Who then is this "I?" It is also God. John 14:20 says, "In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." This is the mingling of God with man by the flow. I wish to make this very clear to you. This is something very basic concerning the inner life and the church life.

Piano Hymns