LIVING WATER FROM CHRIST

Wednesday 13 November

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. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of HIS belly shall flow rivers of living water. (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.) John 7:37-39 (KJV)

If you look closely at the passage above you will notice something. The emphasis of the word HIS in relation to what ‘the scripture has said’. The King James Version gets it right here. When we see the scriptures Jesus was making reference to, we will understand exactly what He was communicating. There are two instances in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20 about ‘water from the rock’.

When the Jews celebrated the feast of Tabernacles they performed a ritual. The priests would fill a pitcher of water from the spring of Gihon and then pour it out on the altar. This was done in remembrance of the rock that Moses struck in the wilderness that brought life giving water to the thirsty Israelites in the dry desert.

Knowing this clarifies a powerful truth. It is not out of your ‘belly or innermost being’ that the living water flows. It is from Jesus’ spirit. How do we know this? One of His names is ‘the Rock.’ Sorry Dwayne. What is the living water that comes from this rock? Salvation. Now we realise that it is not referring to Christians possessing this living water directly but indirectly, because the one who is salvation, resides in them. It’s like saying all the power of God is in you because Christ is in you.

Christ is the rock from whom salvation flows to all mankind. The Bible says ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 12:13).

Jesus said in John 4:14 ‘but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.’

Jesus was expressly speaking about receiving salvation by the Spirit which produces eternal life. He even tells us plainly that the water was merely a physical representation of a spiritual reality. He tells us in John 7:39 that the ‘water’ would be made redundant and be replaced with the ‘Spirit’ after He was glorified. Baptised in the Spirit is another way of saying baptised into Christ, born of the Spirit or saved. Question: has Jesus been glorified? Why then are we still baptising in water?

The Apostle Paul then makes a striking statement in 1 Corinthians 10:4 where he explains ‘And they all drank the same spiritual (supernaturally given) drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock which followed them [produced by the sole power of God Himself without natural instrumentality], and the Rock was Christ.

Did you catch that? This confirms what Jesus said about Himself in John 7:37 in reference to the water from the rock in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. Beyond the natural elements of rock and water was a spiritual personality who was following Moses and making these miracles happen and it was Christ Himself!

Our God, Jesus Christ, the Rock, is still saying the same thing to you today. ‘If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink’. The offer is for every thirsty soul. The guarantee; salvation that is eternal life. Drink of this water of His salvation and you will never thirst again!

APPLICATION

Study John 7:37-39 (Jesus on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles) and John 4:7-13 (the discourse of Jesus and the woman at the well) to understand the living water of baptism into Christ through salvation.