Jesus’ Invitation To Drink
(John 7:37-39)
A man walks into a library and asks for a bottle of water. The librarian says, “This is a library.” So, the man whispers, “Sorry, a bottle of water, please.” You can’t overestimate the significance of water to life. A website lists no less than sixteen benefits of drinking it. Among them, it helps create saliva which aids in taste and digestion. It regulates your body temperature through perspiration. It helps to lubricate and cushion your joints, spinal cord and tissues. It helps you lose weight. It improves blood and oxygen circulation. It helps fight off illnesses. It helps boost energy and improves cognitive function. And it is said to even improve your mood! No wonder we’re encouraged to drink plenty of water! It’s as essential as air. While we can go a long time without food, we can survive only a few days without water. But the truth is, even our food-supply depends on an ample amount of water. Without it life would not be possible. That’s why scientists search for the presence of life on other planets by looking for evidence of water. Without water there can be no biological life. That helps to understand this passage.
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
While it is true that without H2O we would die, the fact is that in sin we are already dead . . . “separated from the life of God.” (Ephesians 4:18) And without the water Jesus offers we can never live. The need for water was very obvious as Israel traveled through the desert on their way to the promised land. That experience lies in the background behind this invitation of Jesus as we’ll soon see.
Context (verse 37a)
According to verse 37 it was “on the last and greatest day of the festival.” The particular festival was the Feast of Tabernacles. (verse 2) It was the third of the three pilgrimage feasts in which all adult Jewish males were expected to come to Jerusalem. It was also referred to as Sukkoth, the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Ingathering. It commemorated two things . . . the ingathering of the harvest and Israel’s forty-year journey through the desert. To celebrate, the Jews built brush booths in which they lived for an entire week. In this way they relived the experience of their ancestors. The booths (or tabernacles) were made of natural materials, reminding them of God’s provision and protection during that ordeal. The feast lasted a full week and included two special ceremonies. The first of those ceremonies was the Illumination of the Temple which happened each evening. The lighting of a lamp symbolized the shekinah, the divine glow that originally emanated from the Temple. It may have been during one of these lighting ceremonies that Jesus announced, “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12) The second ceremony was the Drawing out of Water which also took place each day at the time of the morning sacrifice. A priest went from the Temple, through the Water Gate to the Pool of Siloam where he drew water with a golden pitcher. He then carried it to the Temple where he poured it out on the Great Altar. The feast this particular year was a time of controversy in Jerusalem. And Jesus was the object of that controversy. The last time he was there he’d healed a lame man on the Sabbath. (chapter 5) The “stir” this act generated spilled over into his next visit to the city. His brothers, who didn’t believe in him, had encouraged him to go up to Jerusalem for the feast in order to “go public” with his claims and signs. But because it was not his “time,” he waited until his brothers had already gone. And he went secretly because the Jews were seeking to kill him. The city was abuzz about this man who’d healed the lame man at Bethesda. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others insisted, “He deceives the people.” (verse 12) Halfway through the feast he began to teach at the Temple. The Jews asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” (verse 15) When he accused them of trying to kill him they said, “You are demon-possessed.” (verse 20) The leaders’ failure to silence him caused some to ask, “Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah?” (verse 26) Some declared, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” (verse 40) “Others said, ‘He is the Messiah.’” (verse 41) The leaders even sent out the Temple guards to arrest him, but they returned empty-handed. When asked why they’d not brought him in they said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.” (verse 46) So, it was a day of controversy. Who is Jesus of Nazareth? That’s what the people were asking. Well, it is very possible that while the priest was pouring out the water from Siloam onto the Great Altar that Jesus extended this invitation to drink.
Call (verses 37b-38)
Jesus got the worshipers’ attention by standing and calling out in a loud voice. Teachers normally sat when they taught. But to attract more attention Jesus stood. And he “cried out.” That is to say, he shouted his words. He said, “Let anyone who is thirsty . . .” The words, "Let anyone who is thirsty” recall the water-stories in the accounts of the Exodus from Egypt and journey to Canaan. In those cases it was the people who cried out, “We’re thirsty!” First, when they came to the Wilderness of Shur they found a body of water, but it turned out to be undrinkable. The water was bitter. So, the people grumbled against Moses for bringing them out into the desert to die of thirst. Moses threw a piece of wood into the pool, and it turned the water sweet. (Exodus 15:22-25) Then, on two other occasions they complained that there was no water at all . . . not even bitter water. The first time this occurred the Lord had Moses take the elders of Israel to the rock at Horeb which he struck with his staff. When he did it produced water enough for all the people. (Exodus 17:1-7) The second occasion took place much later after they arrived at Kadesh. Once again, the people complained that there was no water. This time Moses was told to speak to the rock. But instead, out of anger with the people, Moses struck the rock. Although this act of disobedience cost Moses his ticket into the land, God still sent water. (Numbers 20:1-13) But Jesus isn’t speaking of thirst for H2O. There was actually plenty of that in Jerusalem. There was the Gihon Spring which fed the Pool of Siloam via Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Rather, he’s speaking of the universal human thirst for God, for hope, peace, joy, purpose, direction, security, etc. It’s why Nicodemus came to Jesus in chapter 3. He was thirsty. The old stale Jewish religion had left him dry and parched. It’s why the Samaritan Woman listened to Jesus as they sat by Jacob’s Well in chapter 4. She was thirsty. None of the men she’d had in her life had quenched her thirst. Here Jesus says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” To come to him and drink means, first, to listen to his words. Earlier in the feast he’d said to the crowds who were struggling to decide who he was, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17) It’s still the case today. If you’re willing to follow God’s will for your life, you will know that Jesus’ words are God’s words. To come to Jesus and drink also means to obey his instructions. And it means to trust his promises . . . in particular the promise to satisfy your thirst . . . your soul-thirst. At this point Jesus cites Scripture. “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (verse 38) There is no passage in the Old Testament that says this . . . at least that says it verbatim. But it is the gist of the promises of the prophets, especially of Isaiah. (cf. Isaiah 55:1-3) Whatever passage or passages Jesus is referencing, the gist of the prophets has to do with God’s offer of “living water.” Now, ordinarily, by the phrase, “living water” the ancients meant running water. There was a time in the history of the church when some insisted that baptisms must be in “living water.” They meant running water as opposed to stagnant water. That’s how the Samaritan Woman took it. She loved the idea of a constant source of refreshing water in her home. She would no longer have to come out to the well. But Jesus isn’t speaking of running water in one’s home. He’s talking about something else, as we see in John’s clarification.
Clarification (verse 39)
John goes on to explain just what Jesus meant by his offer of “living water” . . . something he may not have understood at the time Jesus said it. "By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified." By “living water” Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit. Paul had this in mind when he wrote, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13) John points out that when Jesus said it “the Spirit had not been given.” That would not happen until the Day of Pentecost. The reason “the Spirit had not been given” was that “Jesus had not yet been glorified.” He would be “glorified” via his death, resurrection and exaltation. He would send the Spirit from his exalted position of authority at the right hand of the Father. That was Peter’s explanation of the strange phenomena on Pentecost. He said of Jesus, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” (Acts 2:33) Now, before we move on, let’s compare what John says about “living water” here with what Jesus said about it in John 4. It happened about noon one day when he and his disciples were returning to Galilee from Jerusalem. They stopped at Jacob’s Well near the village of Sychar. Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well while the disciples went into the village to buy food. It was then that a woman of Samaria came out to draw water. This was unusual for a woman to come during the hottest part of the day. But this woman was probably not welcome among the town’s other ladies. So, she came at midday. When she arrived Jesus asked her, “Will you give me a drink?” (verse 7) The woman was surprised that a Jewish man would speak to her, a Samaritan woman. As John explains, “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” (verse 9) That’s when Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (verse 10) Well, she assumed he meant he could draw water from the well for her. “Sir . . . you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?” (verse 11) She asked, “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself?” (verse 12)
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
So, is “living water” the Holy Spirit (as in John 7), or is it eternal life? (as in John 4) It’s the Holy Spirit who is the power than animates eternal life. He, the Spirit, gives the new life we receive in Christ. He is the Breath of God. The metaphor is slightly different, but the point is the same. When we were born we took our first breath of air and began to live outside the womb. That was “the breath of life.” (cf. Genesis 2:7) When we were born again our first breath was the Holy Spirit. He is the breath of “eternal life.” And when we received him we began to experience just that . . . eternal life. When King Hezekiah realized that Jerusalem was vulnerable to an Assyrian siege he had a tunnel dug from the Gihon Spring, which was outside the city walls, through solid rock under the wall to the Pool of Siloam. This provided life-giving water for the city’s residents within the city itself. Jesus is promising the life-giving Spirit to all who will come to him in faith! “Rivers of living water will flow from within” that person! The water Jesus gives “will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
