They say everything’s bigger in Texas , and having recently spent a week
there, I think we would agree. One evening, after a riverboat ride and a long
stroll along San Antonio ’s Riverwalk and the Alamo , we were all craving a little late night snack. We
found an all night café famous for its cinnamon rolls. But we soon discovered
that one of those cinnamon rolls was big enough to feed a small army – it
weighed three pounds and was bigger than my head. We did all we could do to it,
and it was delicious, but we only ate about two-thirds of it. It satisfied our
hunger, and then some. We started offering it to people sitting around us, and
finally we suggested that the server share it with her coworkers. We left there
so full that we could barely walk, but as is so often the case, we awoke hungry
again the next morning. I was thinking, “Man, we should have kept the leftovers
of the cinnamon roll!” Similar to that cinnamon roll, in our text today, Jesus
offers the world something that will satisfy us and then some. He offers to
provide living water that will satisfy the thirsty soul, and then some. It will
flow forth from within us to spill over into the lives of others. But unlike
that cinnamon roll, which fills for a while and then leaves us hungry again,
the living water that Christ provides satisfies the thirsty soul forever. Drink
of it and never thirst again.
The setting of Jesus’ words here is important to understand.
Verse 37 says that it was “on the last day, the great day of the feast.” We
have to go all the way back to verse 2 to remember that the feast here is the
Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles as it is more commonly called. This
was the most popular of the three festivals in which it was expected that all
Hebrew males who were physically and financially able must make a pilgrimage to
celebrate the feast in Jerusalem .
During the weeklong feast, pilgrims would dwell in crudely built shelters
around the city, reminding them of the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites
as they left Egypt
and prepared to enter the Promised Land in the days of Moses. It was the most
joyous of the Jewish festivals, as it celebrated the great acts of salvation
and provision in the past and anticipated the coming of the Messiah, the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the ingathering of the nations in the
future. During the week of celebration, more animals were sacrificed than
during any other time of the year.[1] The
Mishnahs depict this season as a time when every road leading to Jerusalem would be thronged with festively clad
worshipers, singing the songs of Zion ,
and bringing their gifts and offerings to the Lord.[2]
Over time, traditions and rituals developed apart from the
Scriptural instructions surrounding this feast, and one of the most popular was
the daily ceremony of drawing water from the pool of Siloam and the pouring out
of that water on the Temple
altar. For six days, one of the carefully chosen priests would take a golden
pitcher to Siloam, accompanied by a great throng of worshipers playing
instruments and singing the Psalms, and returned to the temple, where he would
circle the altar one time as the multitude chanted the words of Psalm 118:25,
“O Lord, do save, we beseech You; O Lord, we beseech You, do send prosperity.”
The plea for salvation was voiced with the Hebrew word, Hosanna, “Save us now!” The final day of the festival, the “great
day” as John calls it here, was known as the Hosanna Rabbah, “the great Hosanna,” because on this day, the
priest circled the altar with the water of Siloam, not once, but seven times,
accompanied by the repeated chants. It was a joyous demonstration of the
prophecy in Isaiah 12:3, “You will joyously draw water from the springs of
salvation.” With this outpouring of water, they remembered how God had provided
water from a rock in the wilderness to satisfy the deadly thirst of the people.
They also did this as a prayer for the Lord to pour out rain on a dry and
thirsty ground, to prepare the soil for plowing and planting in the season to
come. The Hebrew Mishnah said that “he who has not seen the rejoicing at the
place of water-drawing has never seen rejoicing in his life.”[3]
But on this particular day of the festival, something
unusual, something very out-of-the-ordinary happened. Hear the words of a Messianic
Jewish scholar describing the unusual events of that day:
Picture this scene … It was Hoshana Rabba, on the last and greatest
day of the Feast. See the crowds in the temple courts, watch the white-robed
priests as they climb the steep ascent from Siloam to the Temple . They are carrying a golden vase of
the water they just drew with joy from the well of Siloam. The water was poured
into the basin near the altar. Then as the priest stood with his empty flask, a
Man who had been watching cried with a loud voice: “If a man is thirsty, let
him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said,
streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37-38). These were
strange words to say, anywhere, at any time. But in the Temple on Hoshana
Rabba, they were not just strange, they were audacious.[4]
That audacious Man who spoke these audacious words was none
other than Jesus, the Christ. In just two sentences, Jesus takes a ritual that
spoke of the slaking of physical thirst and the saturating of hardpan soil and
radically reorients it to point to a greater need, and a greater means of
satisfaction. More than any weary desert pilgrim needs water to drink, more
than a farmer needs rain to soften the hard dirt of his fields, every human
being needs the living water that Christ supplies to satisfy the longing of our
desperately thirsty souls. While the priest’s golden flagon has gone dry here
at festival’s end, and the pilgrims will have to wait another year to see the
water poured on the altar, the Lord
Jesus speaks of an inexhaustible supply of living water that He can provide,
which will satisfy the aching thirst of our souls and spill over onto others as
His life works itself through us. Here in His brief words, we find a gracious
invitation and a glorious promise. And this invitation and promise are the core
of the Christian gospel.
I. Christ’s Gracious Invitation to Thirsty Souls (v37)
When I was preparing for Seminary, I got a book from the student
life office on campus about scholarship opportunities. As I looked through
there, I noticed that some of the funds were very limited in scope. Some of
them said things like, “you must be a United
States veteran living in the Pacific
Northwest pursuing a degree in Nouthetic Counseling.” I was
scouring through the book with a red pen, crossing out ones that did not apply
to me. It was a discouraging process. But when it comes to the living water
that Jesus has to offer us, His invitation is universal.
Notice in v37 that Jesus stood and cried out. He put Himself
in a position for all to see and spoke out so that all could hear, and He
announced, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” There are no
limitations on the offer. It is available to anyone who is thirsty. Now, there may have been some in the crowd
who thought, “Well, He’s not talking to me, because I am well hydrated; I’ve
had plenty of water to drink today.” But Jesus is not talking about physical
thirst. He is talking about a spiritual thirst, and that, my friends, is
something that every person has. Each one of us has a gaping hole in our lives
that nothing but God Himself can satisfy. Some of you know from experience:
you’ve tried to satisfy your soul’s deepest longings with money, material
possessions, education, career, relationships, and a host of other pursuits;
and none of it satisfied. And all around us every day are multitudes of people
who are chasing after empty promises, and who, if they were honest, would say
that the theme song of their life is the Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get No
Satisfaction.” But to a world of spiritually thirsty people, the Lord Jesus
graciously beckons saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and
drink.” It doesn’t matter who you are: Jew, Gentile, young, old, rich, poor,
man, woman, child, religious, unreligious, the invitation is given to anyone
and everyone. Come to Jesus, and drink, and you will be satisfied. The only
limitations on the offer are that you must be thirsty – and we all are; and you
must be willing to admit you are thirsty – and that is something many people
are unwilling to do. The late James Montgomery Boice wrote,
I never stand to preach the gospel
but I am made aware of the fact that there are many who do not understand the
gospel, and who, even if they do understand it, will not receive the Savior. To
such we preach soul-satisfaction. We share Christ's invitation. But they,
although they are in the midst of a spiritual desert of their own making, will
not drink from this fountain. We warn them of their danger, and they dismiss it
lightly. We speak of the Law's condemnation, and they laugh at such
old-fashioned notions. The mass of men never thirsts after salvation. Do you
thirst?[5]
You do. But will you admit that you do? Will you come to Him
and drink? But what does it mean to come to Him and drink? First notice that
the invitation is to come to Him,
that is to a person. The invitation is not to come to a place – like a church
building – or to come to a ritual that you must do. In America today there are multitudes
who have come to church, they have come to be baptized, they have come to the
Lord’s Table, and so on, but they have never come to Jesus! How can we come to
Christ? Is He not in heaven, and are we not cut off from that place because of
our sins? Indeed, but Christ has come all the way to you, being made flesh and
coming as a man to live among us, to die as the sacrificial substitute for our
sins, and to conquer sin and death through His resurrection. He has come all
the way to you, so that the steps you have to take to come to Him are minimal.
It is a decision of the heart to turn away from sin and turn toward Him.
And when we come to Him, we are invited to drink. What does
He mean to come and drink? He tells us in the next verse: it is to believe in
Him. It is to turn to Him in recognition of your spiritual thirst and in faith
that He alone can satisfy that need in your life. To believe in Him is more
than just to acknowledge the historical facts of His existence and the
truthfulness of His claims. It is to personally trust in Him – to make a
personal appropriation of the salvation that He has accomplished in His life,
death and resurrection for you. It is to believe that He alone can save you
from your sins and make you right with God, and to trust Him alone to do so.
To come to Him and
drink, to believe in Him, is not a means to seeking God; to believe in Him is
to lay hold of God Himself. Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to
me and drink.” This is the same promise that God had declared centuries before
through the prophet Isaiah: “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And
you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money
and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages
for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And
delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you
may live” (Isaiah 55:1-3). In making this announcement, particularly at the
place and time at which He made it, Jesus is saying, “The God whom you seek is
here in your midst in the flesh. Come to Me, drink, believe and live.” So, have
you come to Him? Have you drank? Have you believed? The invitation is there to
all who are thirsty. It is a gracious invitation, and it is coupled with a
glorious promise.
II. Christ’s glorious promise to all who come believing (vv
38-39).
Sometimes, when we are presented with an offer of something that seems too
good to be true, we wonder what the catch is. We think there has to be a hook
hidden in that bait and we are skeptical to fall for it. Jesus says here that
all who are thirsty can come to Him and drink. So, what’s the catch? Where’s
the hook? No hook, and no catch. Only a glorious promise. And what is the
promise? “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost
being will flow rivers of living water.’”
This is a glorious promise of everlasting satisfaction. That
spiritual thirst that every person has in their heart will be quenched with
living water. The words that Jesus speaks here are reminiscent of those that He
said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. There, beside the historic
well of Jacob, Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst
again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing
up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). Just like Jacob’s well, it could be said of
every would-be fountain in life that promises us satisfaction apart from the
Lord Jesus: “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.” If any
satisfaction can be found at all there, it is fleeting and temporary, and only
leaves us thirstier than we were before. But the Lord Jesus promised that
Samaritan woman, and all of us as well: “Whoever drinks of the water that I
will give Him will never thirst again.” The aching thirst of our souls is
satisfied in Him, in Him alone, and in Him forever. This living water that He
supplies becomes a “well of water springing up to eternal life.” Your greatest
need in life is to be reconciled to the God who made you and before whom you
will stand at life’s end to give an account. Jesus Christ, and Him alone, has
met that need through His life, death, and resurrection. Come to Him and
believe, and you will never have that need again. He will save, and save to the
uttermost. Having redeemed you from the curse of sin, He has bound you to
Himself in covenant love that can never be severed. Should life bring you
rejection, you have acceptance before God in Him. Should life bring you sorrow,
you have joy in Him. Should life bring you alienation and loneliness, you have
in Him a faithful friend who will never leave you nor forsake you. Should life
leave you an orphan or a widow, you have through the Lord Jesus Christ a Father
and a Husband who will be with you forever. If you have come to Him to drink of
His living water, believing and trusting in Him, you can say with the Apostle Paul,
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” No, nothing “can separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 39). He
gives you the promise of everlasting satisfaction.
But the promise is not just that your thirst will be
satisfied and your longings fulfilled. It is even greater. In addition to the
promise of everlasting satisfaction, Jesus promises to those who believe in Him
overflowing supply. He says that the living water will not just fill you, but
will flow out from your innermost being.[6] So
abundant is the supply of living water that Christ endows to those who believe
on Him, that it sloshes out and gushes forth from within us and begins to
impact others. What Christ has put in you, you will not be able to contain
within yourself. It will spill over into the lives of those around you. My kids
really enjoy swimming; I really do not. When I go to a swimming pool, I like to
just sit on the edge, maybe get down in the water a little bit, and just relax.
But there’s always some kid in the pool – sometimes its my own kids – who are
not content to swim around in the water, they want to make sure that everyone
else gets thoroughly saturated as well. They are cannonballing, splashing and
flailing about, and ruining my attempt to remain predominantly dry. That’s kind
of the idea here. The Christian in the world is like that kid splashing about
in the pool getting everyone else wet. The blessings of God are overflowing and
splashing onto the people you interact with and encounter. The living water is
not just for our own enjoyment; it begins to flow into the lives of others as
the life of Christ works within us and through us.
Now John gives a word of necessary explanation in verse 39. He
says, “But this He spoke of the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in Him
were to receive.” This living water of which the Lord Jesus speaks is the
divine Holy Spirit, that third person of the Triune Godhead who would be poured
out upon all who believe upon Christ.[7]
But the time of this indwelling had not yet come on God’s timetable. Though the
Spirit was active and present in the world, and particularly in the life and
ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself, there was coming a day when all believers
would be baptized of the Spirit and indwelt by Him. God had purposed that this
should not occur until Jesus had “been glorified.” In speaking of Jesus being
glorified, the Apostle is looking ahead to the death, resurrection, and
ascension of Jesus, by which He returned to His Father having completed His
mission to rescue humanity from sin, and whereby He received “the glory which”
He had “before the world was” (17:5). Some
ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven, Pentecost came, and on that day the
Spirit came upon all who believed upon Jesus. Not only were they filled with
His power, but the Spirit began to work mightily through them as they
proclaimed the Gospel message on that day, and three thousand more were saved
and received the Spirit. And from that day forward, the Spirit continued to work
through believers far and wide, filling them with the living water, and flowing
forth through them to impact multitudes wherever providence directed them. And
He continues to do so through the lives of believers today.
The Spirit’s indwelling presence in your life is not a
matter of mere personal satisfaction, though He certainly does this! He does
more, not less, than this. He flows forth through us into the lives of others.
He is one Spirit, yet He flows forth from us as “rivers (plural) of living water,”
bringing blessing and refreshing to all we encounter. He does this through the
gifts with which He endows every believer, and the fruit that we bear as a
result of His presence within us. As you read the New Testament letters, you
will note that the fruit and gifts of the Spirit are not inwardly focused on
the self, but they are “other-focused.” In Galatians 5, the Apostle Paul says
that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. What are these but divinely
manifested qualities that affect how we interact with others? When we act with
love, patience, kindness, and all of the other attributes that the Spirit
produces in us, the rivers of living water are flowing through us and spilling
over into the lives of others. And the gifts that we have because of the
Spirit’s work within us are not a means of self-fulfillment. In 1 Corinthians
12:7 we read that “to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the
common good.” As we serve the Lord in
the power and gifting of His Spirit, others are blessed and edified. The waters
flow through our innermost being and pour onto others. So you see that Jesus
saves us, yes, for our own good, but we are also redeemed for the well-being of
others. Your life, no matter how you estimate it, or how others do, is valuable
to God and He has a purpose to use you in the work of His Kingdom. He desires
to work through you to bring the living water to other thirsty souls. He
desires to use your gifts within His church to strengthen and bless others. Are
you living a life of isolation, cut off from the fellowship of fellow
believers? If so, you are blocking the flow of living water that He desires to
pour forth through you into the lives of others. You are depriving your
brothers and sisters in the faith of the blessing that God uniquely wants to
use you to deliver to them through your specific giftedness. He will do this,
both within the church and outside of it, as His Spirit works in you and through
you. He has not given you this Living Water to keep to yourself. You will never
exhaust the supply. So let the river of living water flow through your life
into the lives of others. Do not let the water of the Holy Spirit stagnate in a
heart of self-centeredness. Others are in need of the water of life that Christ
has promised to channel through your life as you live for His glory, with a
heart that is fully satisfied in Him and Him alone.
So, in closing, allow me to ask a few pointed questions:
1) Have you recognized and acknowledged your thirst for that
which only Jesus Christ can satisfy?
2) Have you come to Him in faith and trust, to drink, as it
were, from the fount of Living Water? He bids you come, all who are thirsty,
and never thirst again. Find the satisfaction that your soul desires in Him if
you never have before.
3) For those who have, to whom, and in what way, will you
allow the Spirit of God to work through you to bring blessing to others today?
This week? And in the days to come? To whom in your circle of acquaintances
will you show the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control of the Holy Spirit? Is there anyone in the church
who will be blessed and refreshed as you exercise the gifts that the Holy
Spirit has imparted to you for the common good? Will you let the Spirit of God
flow through you into the lives of others?
[1] Mitch
and Zhava Glaser, The Fall Feasts of Israel
[2] Daniel
Fuchs, Israel’s Holy Days in Type and
Prophecy (Neptune, NJ; Loizeaux Bros., 1985), 76.
[3] Sukkah 5:1. Cited in Fuchs, 78.
[4] Fuchs,
78.
[5] James
Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John (An
Expositional Commentary; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 2.585.
[6] Jesus
says here that this promise is “as the Scripture said.” Yet, there can be found
no Old Testament passage that corresponds precisely with this promise. No one
in recent times has surpassed the explanation offered during the Reformation
era by John Calvin on this potential problem: “I think that Christ is not
referring to any one scriptural passage but takes a testimony from the common
teaching of the prophets. … Therefore all the predictions about living waters
are fulfilled in Christ, who alone has opened and revealed God’s hidden
treasures.” John Calvin, John (Crossway
Classic Commentaries; Wheaton ,
Ill.
[7] John knows this when he composes this Gospel, but
like everyone else present when Jesus spoke these words, he was likely
oblivious to the cryptic statement that Jesus declared. So, how did John come
to know that Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit? In the Upper Room
Discourse, recorded in John 13-16, Jesus taught the Twelve much about the
forthcoming ministry of the Holy Spirit, including the promise that the Spirit
would empower the Twelve to compose and oversee the composing of the New
Testament canon (14:26; 16:13). After Christ’s ascension, the Spirit came at
Pentecost. By the time John wrote this Gospel, he had experienced the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit for over half a century. Therefore, he is able to
insert commentary here in the text to inform the reader of information that was
not yet known at the time Jesus spoke these words.
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