Gospel of John [16:28-31]. Implications of the glorification of Christ. Joh 7:37-39; 4:5-26.

Title: Gospel of John [16:28-31]. Implications of the glorification of Christ. JOH 7:37-39; 4:5-26.

 

The implications of the victory of Christ and His return to the Father in glory are immense. On the last day of the feast Christ gives a hint of this in a prophecy of the coming Holy Spirit.

 

JOH 7:37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.

 

JOH 7:38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" 

 

JOH 7:39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

 

The last day of the feast of Tabernacles, the eighth day, was a holy convocation and a solemn assembly according to the Law. When the people thanked God at the celebration of Tabernacles for all the fruits of the past year - vine and olive as well as barley and wheat - they did not forget the gift of rain, apart from which none of those crops would have grown. At dawn of the first seven days of the festival, a golden pitcher was filled with water at the pool Siloam and carried to the temple as the morning sacrifice was being offered. The water was then poured into a funnel at the west side of the altar and the temple choir began to sing the Hallel (Psa 113-118). However, this ceremony was not enacted on the eighth day, although a prayer for rain was recited. And so, Jesus on this day, asks if any man is thirsty. If no material water was poured that day then the emphasis, plainly meant by the Lord, is of spiritual, life-giving water.

 

In the same chapter of Isaiah where the Lord states that His ways are not man's ways, He begins with this:

 

ISA 55:1

"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.

 

The Lord changes this: Anyone who thirsts, come to Me.

 

The usage of water and the slaking of thirst is a common theme in God's communication to us.

 

The implications of the victory of Christ and His return to the Father in glory are immense. It means no more thirst to those who believe. It means no more hunger. It means complete fulfillment of a person within and thorough refreshment.

 

Living water was a phrase known to depict a stream. It is always running and its source does not run dry. In the believer it is God the Holy Spirit.

 

To the Samaritan woman:

 

The gospel of John, the last gospel written, informs us of more of the ministry of Christ, especially His several trips to Judea. His first trip to Judea as an adult would seem to be when He was baptized by John the Baptist. He returned to Galilee where He performed His first miracle and not long after He returned to Judea for about 8 months. Upon His return to Galilee this second time He encounters the Samaritan woman, which is on the way to Galilee. Upon entering Galilee He would have a 17 month ministry in Galilee, which much of the synoptic gospels express.

 

Jesus journeys to Judea to begin His ministry (baptism) picks up His first disciples.

 

Returns to Galilee, performs first miracle.

 

Soon returns to Judea for about 8 months and then returns to Galilee. On the way He encounters the Samaritan woman.

 

JOH 4:5 So He came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph;

 

JOH 4:6 and Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

 

This well known well was fed by an underground stream, thus living water, as they described it as opposed to stagnant water that is from a cistern.

 

JOH 4:7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 

 

JOH 4:8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

 

JOH 4:9 The Samaritan woman therefore said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

 

JOH 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." 

 

JOH 4:11 She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with [a Jew would never drink from a Samaritan jug] and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?

 

JOH 4:12 "You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?"

 

JOH 4:13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again;

 

JOH 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. " 

 

The Spirit of God, imparted by our Lord to His people, dwells within them as a perennial wellspring of refreshment and life. The soul's deepest thirst is for God Himself, who has made us so that we can never be satisfied without Him.

 

Since He is the source of life, I doubt that He can make a soul that cannot be satisfied without Him.  

 

The question a believer has to honestly answer is if he has ever been refreshed and felt alive in this way, and if he has, what was the source? Was he thinking in terms of God’s word? Was he submitted to God’s will? Was he doing things God’s way? Had he rejected the habits of his sin nature and the ways of the world system? If he can answer yes, even to one instance, then he can confidently say that God the Holy Spirit within was responsible.

 

Php 4:8

if there is any excellence [arête - virtue] and if anything worthy of praise [commendation or adoration], let your mind dwell on these things.

 

This would begin by being told or taught what is excellent and worthy of praise or adoration, but that must progress to a clear self-realization that the things of the Spirit are just this. In other words, I must experience the spiritual life for myself and clearly see in my own heart that these things are excellent and fully worthy of my adoration.

 

It’s a wonderful thing to have a quenched thirst. Most of us have not felt physical thirst to the extreme that it can be felt by people in other parts of the world. Palestine, especially in this time, is one such place. Once I slake a thirst, it does not mean that I won’t be thirsty again. We always thirst for the things of God and the Holy Spirit always slakes that thirst. Like we have it here in most parts of America, there is always a clean supply of water.

 

"Christ satisfies a man not by banishing his thirst, which would be to stunt his soul's growth, but by bestowing upon him by the gift of his Spirit an inward source of satisfaction which perennially and spontaneously supplies each recurrent need of refreshment." [G.H.C. Macgregor]

 

The fountain of living waters is a constant source of joy to the believer who continues to draw from the grace gifts of God.

 

ISA 12:2-3

"Behold, God is my salvation,

I will trust and not be afraid;

For the Lord God is my strength and song,

And He has become my salvation."

Therefore you will joyously draw water

From the springs of salvation.

 

Salvation is not a cistern of stagnant water but a living water, constantly flowing, constantly refreshing and quenching the thirst of the believer.

 

JOH 4:15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty [which she has undoubtedly experienced in drought], nor come all the way here to draw."

 

A similar response was given by the Galileans because their minds were on the mundane as well.

 

JOH 6:34

They said therefore to Him, "Lord, evermore give us this bread."

 

JOH 4:16 He said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 

 

Jesus would have known that this conversation was going nowhere if this woman kept her eyes on the mundane or ordinary. He changes the subject knowing that His prophetic gift would open her wonder.

 

Knowing Him to be a stranger she thought she could put Him off the subject that she was likely sensitive about with a bare statement.

 

JOH 4:17 The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband';

 

JOH 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly." 

 

A deeper meaning could be that this woman has tried many husbands and whether through death or divorce, none of them were able to fulfill her. Through hatred for the Jews as well as pagan influence from the Assyrians who conquered them long ago, the Samaritans adopted other rituals and beliefs that they blended with the Tora [first 5 books] and believed that salvation was in them and not the Jews and that the holy mountain was Gerizim and not Zion. So then, the reference to her past 5 husbands could be a reference to her past idolatry and the fact that she's shacking up with someone who is not her husband reveals just how alone and lost she is, as is all of Samaria. Through Christ, to her as well as all who believe, a divine and eternal husband is given, Rom 7.

 

JOH 4:19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet [same conclusion as many Jews].

 

Insight into Samaritan beliefs can give us a better feel for this woman's heart. The Samaritans did not recognize the canon of post-Mosaic prophecy which forms the second division of the Jewish Bible. In their belief, the statement of DEU 34:10 was absolute and final.

 

DEU 34:10-12

Since then no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, for all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. [Yet God didn’t say that there would be no prophets, but that none of them would be like Moses.]

 

This remained absolute and valid until the rise of the second Moses, the Taheb or great prophet of the new age, to whom they looked forward. Between the first and second Moses no prophet could be expected. If therefore the woman meant the term 'prophet' seriously, she was already on the brink of the great discovery about this stranger's identity at which she was shortly to arrive: a man who could tell her all that she ever did could be no less that the Coming One himself.

 

As the conversation now turns to the religious, the woman does what most religious people do when confronted with a person of a different persuasion and that is to bring up differences.