Rivers of life so free

In John 4, a weary Jesus Christ sits at Jacob’s well and asks “the woman at the well” to give Him something to drink while His disciples have gone into the city to buy meat.

Verse 9 reads, “Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.”

Jordan explains, “The Lord Jesus Christ broke two of the taboos of His day. One, He spoke to a strange woman (someone He didn’t know) in public, which was something they didn’t do and two, worse than that, she was a Samaritan and the Jews didn’t have dealings with them. But Jesus Christ wasn’t one who was bound by religious tradition and social custom. His life and ministry isn’t controlled by those things.

“When she says, ‘How is it that thou, being a Jew?’ she doesn’t have any insight into what’s going on here other than just seeing the physical things that are happening. She hasn’t any perception. She’s just as ignorant about spiritual things as Nicodemus was in chapter 3. She’s without the Jews’ religion but she’s just as far away from God.

“Christ is going to begin to deal with her and try to whet her appetite for something more than just looking at the physical things.

“Verse 10 says, ‘Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.’

“ ‘If thou knewest the gift of God’--that’s an interesting way of saying that. The assumption is God demanding and requiring and what Jesus is saying is, ‘God really wants to give you something. He wants to enable you to have something and if you had perceived the gift . . .’ That’s what she needed.

“If she had perceived her need AND who it is that said to her; who He was. Those two things are inseparably connected. The gift and the provider.

“You see, she thought that she was going to do the giving and what she needed was for Him to become the giver. She misunderstood what He was talking about.

“Verses 11-12 reads, [11] The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
[12] Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

“When she says ‘living water’ she’s not saying the same thing He’s saying. She thinks He’s talking about running water; instead of it sitting in a pond, it’s running.

“Now I imagine when she said, ‘Art though greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well . . . ?’ she kind of drew herself up to her full 4’ 10” height and said, ‘By the way, do you realize this is Jacob’s well? He’s our father.’

“She begins to claim antiquity and heritage and so forth. She claims the greatness of her own family and descent. I mean, this well goes way back to the beginning. She’s saying, ‘Who in the world do you think you are anyway saying what you’re saying?!’

“So He answers her in verses 13-14: ‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
[14] But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’

“You see, He brings her to the place where now she’s not looking just at this water; now she’s going to think about a water that’s not the water in the well. He brings her all that way around to the place where she is conscious and interested in what He’s got to say to her.

*****

“What He says is extremely important because He’s going to make an allusion to some things in the Old Testament. Whether she picks up on it or not in the moment, it’s still what He’s doing. He’s not just using an illustration out of nowhere, is the point. He’s going to use the Scripture.

“He knows if He sends the Word out it won’t return void. God’s Word does its work.

“That expression ‘living water’ is not a new expression in Israel. Jeremiah 2:12-13, for one example, says, [12] Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
[13] For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

“Notice how the Lord describes Himself to Israel as 'the fountain of living waters.’ That’s a description of what Israel has done as they’ve gone into apostasy; they’ve left the Lord, the source of life-giving water and gone into Baal worship, the broken cisterns—all the things that have polluted Samaria.

“If you go down to Jeremiah 17:13, it says, ‘O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.’

“When He says in John 4:10 that He has a gift to give her and it’s a well springing up into everlasting life, and it’s going to be LIVING water, He’s talking about the restoration of Israel into her kingdom--the Messiah coming and producing everlasting life, kingdom life, for the nation.

“How’s that going to be accomplished? John 7:37-39 says, In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
[38] He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
[39] (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

“It’s the same thing He was telling the woman at the well, but now He’s in Jerusalem talking to the Jews. This term ‘living water’ is a figure of speech, a metaphor from the Lord, and it’s talking specifically about the giving of the Holy Spirit.

*****

“The coming of the Holy Spirit is associated with the redemption of Israel, the regathering of Israel, the redeeming of Israel, the inauguration of that new covenant in Israel.

“Talking about the kingdom, Isaiah 12 says, ‘Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. [3] Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.

“Jacob’s well was designed to be the well of salvation. So as Christ sits there at Jacob’s well, talking to a woman who’s made that well into just what Jerusalem had made the temple into (just an outward external exercise with no real spiritual truth) Jesus is talking about bringing the wells of salvation; the living water; the real issue, one that’s going to bring everlasting life.

“It’s going to be the gift of God. It’s interesting, the gift of God in the Bible is never described as faith. Ephesians 2:8 says, ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.’

“The gift of God is always salvation; the issue of eternal life, the issue of doing for you what you can’t do for yourself. If you do for yourself, you’ll thirst again, but when He gives you the strength, you never thirst. It quenches the thirst spiritually.

*****

“The night before Jesus dies, He tells His apostles in John 14:16, ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.’

“What that’s describing is the kind of relationship He’s going to have with the Believing Remnant under the provisions of the new covenant. He begins to educate them into the relationship their going to have now when the Spirit of God is placed IN them, regenerates them and then indwells them and becomes the animating force of life for them. So much so that Ezekiel 36 says, ‘I put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my judgments.’

“That is, He will supernaturally empower you to accomplish this. ‘I’ll write my laws into your heart.’ By the way, people often take that and say that’s what is happening with us. But the difference, in II Corinthians 3, Paul talks about God doing some heart writing in us by His Spirit. But He doesn’t write His law in our hearts. He writes Christ in our hearts. He says we’re epistles, not of the law, but we’re the epistles of Christ. What He writes in our hearts is grace, not the law.

“But what He’s talking to the apostles here is about what’s going to be theirs in the new covenant and the ministry of the Spirit there.

“Well, that’s what He’s talking to this woman at the well about. Because the only hope for Israel was regeneration, the life of the Spirit being given to them and this living water that never allowed them to come up thirsty again; the Holy Spirit indwelling them and being that powerful, animating force that brings everlasting life.”

To be continued . . .