Search
According to John 4 we may experience and enjoy Christ as the gift of God, the Messiah, and the Savior of the world.
In verse 10 the Lord Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God...you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” In verse 14 He spoke to her again about the water that He gives. From these verses we see that Christ is the gift of God. Our thirst can be quenched only by the living person of Christ, the Son of God, who has been given to us by God.
Christ has been given to us by God. John 3:16a says that God so loved the world, that is, sinful, fallen people, that He gave His only begotten Son, His expression, that they might obtain His eternal life to become His many sons and be His corporate expression for the fulfillment of His eternal New Testament economy. God’s giving us His Son was not done in a simple way but in His Divine Trinity.
Christ, the gift of God, imparts the living water — the water of life (Rev. 21:6; 22:1). The water of life signifies God in Christ as the Spirit flowing Himself into His redeemed people to be their life and life supply.
In John 4:14 the Lord Jesus said that the water that He gives us becomes in us a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life. This verse indicates that the Triune God flows in the Divine Trinity in three stages: the Father as the fountain, Christ the Son as the spring, and the Spirit as the river. We need to see that the Triune God is flowing through the Father, Christ the Son, and the Spirit into us. Whenever we drink of this water, it becomes a fountain in us. We all should say, “The fountain is in me!” This fountain emerges as a spring, and the spring flows out as a river for the New Jerusalem. As the spring of living water, Christ quenches our thirst, satisfies us, makes us happy, and becomes our pleasure.
According to John 4:14, the flowing Triune God is “into eternal life.” The Greek preposition translated as into is rich in meaning. Into here means issuing in, or to be, to become; thus, it speaks of destination. The eternal life is the destination of the flowing Triune God. A fountain is in us springing up as a river into a destination. This destination is the eternal life as the totality of the divine life. Just as our human life has its totality and a living person is the totality of the human life, so also the eternal life has its totality and the totality of the divine life is the New Jerusalem. The eternal life eventually will be the New Jerusalem. Thus, into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem.
We must have something flowing into the divine New Jerusalem in order for us to arrive there. When God in Christ as the Spirit flows into us, He flows with us. He will flow us into the New Jerusalem to be the New Jerusalem. Thus, the New Jerusalem is the issue of God’s flowing in three stages. All three stages are in us; we have the fountain, the spring, and the river within us at the same time. The Father is the fountain as the source, Christ the Son is the spring, and the Spirit is the flowing river, and this flowing issues in the eternal life, which is the New Jerusalem as the destination of the flowing Triune God.
In John 4 Christ is also presented as the Messiah. The Samaritan woman said to the Lord Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when He comes, He will declare all things to us” (v. 25). Jesus responded by saying, “I, who speak to you, am He” (v. 26).
As the Messiah, Christ came to bring the divine life — the living water — to men (vv. 10, 14). In verse 29 the woman said to the people of the city, “Come, see a man who told me all that I have done. Is this not the Christ?” This indicates that she believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. By thus believing, she received the living water and was satisfied.
The Messiah brought living water to men that they might worship God in spirit. In verse 20 the Samaritan woman spoke to the Lord Jesus concerning the place of worship: “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship.” To this the Lord Jesus replied, “An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (vv. 23-24). In verse 24 God is the complete Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — and Spirit refers to the nature of the complete Triune God, not merely to the Lord Spirit. To worship God, who is Spirit, we must worship with our spirit, which is of the same nature as He is. The Lord’s word in verses 21 through 24 was given to instruct the Samaritan woman regarding her need to exercise her spirit to contact God the Spirit. To contact God the Spirit with the spirit is to drink of the living water, and to drink of the living water is to render real worship to God.
May the Lord impress us with what proper worship is. Proper worship is to continually drink the living water. God the Spirit is the living water, and our organ for drinking the living water is our human spirit. Whenever we exercise our spirit to contact God, the living Spirit, we drink of Him as the living water in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the real and proper worship of God.
Verse 42 speaks of Christ as the Savior of the world. The Lord Jesus is the Savior of fallen mankind based upon His person and His redemptive work. He is the very God who became a man to be our Savior, and He has accomplished full redemption for us the sinners, through which He saves us from God’s condemnation and from our fallen condition. What He is and what He has accomplished make Him competent to be the Savior able to save us to the uttermost. In particular, He is the Savior to save men from sin (vv. 16-18) through life as their salvation (v. 22). In salvation He is not only our Savior objectively; He is also our life subjectively.
Chapter five of the Gospel of John reveals that we may experience and enjoy Christ as the One equal with God, the One who gives life and has the authority of judgment, and the One testified by the Scriptures.
In verses 1 through 9 the Lord Jesus enlivened an impotent man on the Sabbath. Because He worked to enliven an impotent man on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted Him and sought to kill Him. “But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I also am working” (v. 17). In their religious concept, they were resting in keeping the Sabbath, but they did not know that there was no rest for the Father and the Son as long as poor sinners were not saved. While the religious Jews were resting in keeping their Sabbath, the Father and the Son were still working that sinners might receive life and have rest. This not only offended the religious Jews but also caused them to consider that Jesus was blaspheming, because, according to their concept, He “not only broke the Sabbath but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (v. 18). In their consideration that was blasphemy to God, yet the One whom they accused of blasphemy had enlivened the impotent man. Christ’s enlivening of that man testifies that He is equal with God the Father in giving life to people. Actually, the Son and the Father are one (10:30).
In 5:17 the Lord Jesus declared that the Father was working and that He also was working. In verse 19 He went on to say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Here we see that the Son was working with the Father. Although God’s work in creation was finished (Gen. 2:1-3), the Father and the Son were still working for redemption and building. The religious Jews kept the Sabbath. However, they did not know that because of man’s fall the rest of that Sabbath was broken. Neither did they know that the Father and the Son were still working for fallen man’s redemption in order to fulfill God’s original purpose, which is the building of God’s eternal habitation. What God did was the old creation. What the Father and the Son are doing is the new creation through redemption for God’s building. This work includes the Son’s life-giving, which was manifested in the case of the impotent man. In this matter the Father and the Son are one. Whatever the Father wants to do in the matter of life-giving, the Son does it accordingly, working with the Father.
The Son gives life to God’s chosen ones. In John 5:21 the Lord Jesus said, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills.” According to this verse the Son gives life to the dead. In verse 24 we see that whoever hears the word of the Son and believes in Him who sent Him has eternal life and has passed out of death into life. In verse 25 the Lord Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, An hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” The “dead” here are not those who are buried in their graves but the living dead ones; they are not those who are dead physically but those who, in accordance with Ephesians 2:1, 5 and Colossians 2:13, are dead in their spirit. In the eyes of the Lord, all the people living on earth are dead in their spirit. The words an hour is coming, and it is now refer to the very time the Lord Jesus spoke these words. Many at that time heard His living words and consequently were made alive in their spirit. Will live, therefore, means to be made alive in the spirit.
For nearly twenty centuries, from the time that the Lord Jesus spoke these words until the present, thousands and thousands of people have heard the living voice of the Son of God and have been enlivened with life. We also have heard the living word of the Lord and have been made alive. Like those in John 5:2 and 3, we were the impotent ones, for we were blind, lame, and withered. In short, we were dead. Then the Lord Jesus came to visit us, and we heard the living word of the gospel that enlivened us and made us alive. We have truly passed out of death and have entered into life. Since the source of death is the tree of knowledge and the source of life is the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 17), for us to have passed out of death into life means that we have changed the source of our living.
For our spirit to be made alive actually signifies the resurrection in our spirit. This is also regeneration in our spirit. The regeneration in our spirit is a resurrection caused by the Lord Jesus with the divine life, which is Himself.
In John 5:26 the Lord Jesus said, “For just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son to also have life in Himself.” This reveals that in the matter of life the Son is the same as the Father. Both the Father and the Son have life in themselves. Thus, the Son can and does enliven people with life as the Father desires. In life’s enlivening the Son truly is one with the Father.
Concerning His receiving the authority of judgment from the Father, the Lord Jesus said, “For neither does the Father judge anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (v. 22). In verse 27 He continued, “He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man.” As the Son of God the Lord can give life, and as the Son of Man He can execute judgment. Referring to Jesus, Acts 17:31 says that God will judge the world by that man whom He has designated. Romans 2:16 tells us that God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus, and 2 Timothy 4:1 says that Jesus Christ will judge the living and the dead. The Son will judge justly according to the Father’s will (John 5:30). He is one with the Father in the matter of life’s enlivening, and He is also one with Him in the matter of judgment.
The Son is to be honored even as the Father is honored. All judgment has been given to the Son in order that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (v. 23b).
Christ is the One testified by the Scriptures (vv. 39-40, 46-47). We may come to Him to receive life by believing the Scriptures.
Verses 39 and 40 say, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” The Jewish religionists searched the Scriptures, but they were not willing to come to the Lord Jesus. Searching the Scriptures and coming to the Lord Jesus should be kept together. Since the Scriptures testify concerning the Lord Jesus, they should not be separated from Him.
We may contact the Scriptures and yet not contact the Lord. Only the Lord can give life. We should never separate the Scriptures from the Lord Himself. Whenever we search the Word, we must come to the Lord Himself. This means that we should make searching the Word and touching the Lord one thing. Whenever we study the Bible, we need to open our spirit to the Lord. While we are reading the words of the Scriptures with our eyes and understanding them with our mind, we must exercise our spirit to contact the Lord through the Scriptures. Then we will have not only the understanding of the letters in our mind but also the life in our spirit.
