Perspective: What Is Living Water?

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What Is Living Water?

On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted,

"All who are thirsty should come to me!
All who believe in me should drink!
As the scriptures said concerning me,
Rivers of living water will flow out from within him."

John 7:37-38 (CEB)

That's how it is with God's love
Once you've experienced it
You spread His love to everyone
You want to pass it on

From "Pass It On" by Kurt Kaiser

In the Gospel of John, we read that one day Jesus and the Disciples stop in the Samaritan city of Sychar.  While the Disciples go to the market to buy food, Jesus sits by a well to rest.  When a woman from the city comes to the well to draw water, Jesus asks her for a drink.  Because there are tensions between Jews and Samaritans, the woman asks Jesus why He, a Jew, would ask her, a Samaritan, for water.¹

Jesus the says to the woman, "If you recognized God's gift and who is saying to you, 'Give me some water to drink,' you would be asking him and he would give you living water."  The woman asks Jesus how He can give her water when He doesn't even have a bucket with which to draw it, and He says to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never be thirsty again.  The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life."²

So what exactly is the "living water" Jesus describes, and how does it permanently quench a person's thirst?

On another occasion, while Jesus is attending a festival in Jerusalem, He stands up and announces to everyone around Him, as He previously said to the Woman at the Well,

All who are thirsty should come to me!
All who believe in me should drink!
As the scriptures said concerning me,
Rivers of living water will flow out from within him.³

Evidently drinking "living water" not only quenches a person's thirst permanently but also causes springs of the same "living water" to flow out from a person.

The Gospel writer tells us that Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom His followers will soon receive.⁴

Later on, while Jesus and the Disciples are gathered for dinner, He warns them that He will soon be leaving them,⁵ but He also promises them that He will not leave them alone.  He says,
I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion, who will be with you forever.  This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can't receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him.  You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you.⁶

That night, Jesus is arrested.  The next day he is put on trial, sentenced to death, and executed by crucifixion.⁷  A few days later, Jesus appears to the Disciples alive and well, saying, "Peace be with you."  He shows them the scars from His crucifixion and says, "As the Father sent me, so I am sending you."  He then breathes on the Disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit."⁸

The "living water" Jesus offers us permanently quenches our thirst because the Source remains with us.  Not only does it quench our thirst, it flows out from us so that it may benefit other people as well.  The Companion whom Jesus sent to dwell with us, the very Presence of God, ministers to us and empowers us to minister to others.


Notes:

1. John 4:4-9
2. John 4:10-14 (CEB)
3. John 7:37-38 (CEB)
4. John 7:39
5. John 13:33
6. John 14:16-17 (CEB)
7. John 18-19
8. John 20:19-22 (CEB)

The painting of Jesus and the Woman at the Well was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in the late 1800s.