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I have studied the Gospel of John for many years, but in this crystallization-study I have seen something more intrinsic. This book, especially in chapters 1 through 4 and chapters 6 and 7 on the two feasts of the Passover and of Tabernacles, portrays a flowing Triune God. The Triune God flows in the Divine Trinity in three stages. John 4:14b says, “The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.” When the fountain springs up, that is the fountain emerging. Then a river flows. The Father is the fountain, the Son is the spring, and the Spirit is the river.
This flowing Triune God is “into eternal life.” The Greek preposition translated as “into” is rich in meaning. Here it speaks of the 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. The New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine, eternal life. The eternal life eventually will be the New Jerusalem. Thus, into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem. We must have something flowing into that divine New Jerusalem in order for us to arrive there. The entire Bible is needed to interpret John 4:14. The Father is the fountain as the source, the Son is the spring, the Spirit is the flowing river, and this flowing issues in the eternal life, which is the New Jerusalem. The Gospel of John opens by saying, “In the beginning was the Word” (1:1). The Word is for speaking, and speaking is the start of God’s flowing. Speaking is flowing, spreading is flowing, and dispensing is also flowing. God flows through speaking, through spreading, through dispensing.
In order to understand the Gospel of John we must see its intrinsic revelation, which is that John reveals the Triune God. No other book in the Bible reveals the Triune God so much and so clearly and intrinsically as John, especially in chapter 14. Even in chapter 1 of John the Triune God is revealed. God has the Word to speak for Him, and He also has the Spirit to bring forth the Word. The Son is the Word, the Father is the source, and the Word speaks the source. This means that He spreads the source, flows the source. Spreading implies dispensing, and dispensing implies imparting the Triune God in His Divine Trinity. This takes place through His becoming flesh (v. 14), becoming the Lamb (v. 29), and eventually becoming the life-giving Spirit signified by the dove (v. 32). This life-giving Spirit is for dispensing, for giving life, to transform the clay material into stones for building the house of God, Bethel (v. 42). The church as the Body of Christ is today’s Bethel. Eventually, the totality of Bethel is the New Jerusalem, where the only begotten Son of God will be the Son of Man as the heavenly ladder with Bethel as the base (v. 51).
The Son of Man is typified by the heavenly ladder seen by Jacob in his dream. In John 1:51 the Lord Jesus said, “You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Such a story is recorded in Genesis 28 in Jacob’s dream. Jacob saw a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it (v. 12). The Lord Jesus said that as the Son of Man, He is this ladder. He is the only begotten Son of God who became the Son of Man. In His humanity He becomes a joining ladder, to join heaven and earth into one. Heaven refers to God, and earth refers to man. As the ladder, Christ as the Son of Man joins God and man into one.
In eternity past He was the Word, but in eternity future He will be the ladder. The ladder is not flat. It is set up on the earth to reach the heavens as a stairway. Every ladder is a stairway for going up and coming down. This traffic is the fellowship. The ladder indicates traffic, fellowship. The love of the Father, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit are the reality of this ladder for going up and coming down. The Triune God is not flat. The Triune God is standing up to be a ladder. Without a ladder there is no way to climb up higher. Christ as the ladder is the way in John 14:6. He is “the ladder way.” How can we as earthly men be one with the heavenly Father? Christ is the way as the ladder. He is the stairway for us to be one with God.
The New Jerusalem is the totality of God joined with man and man mingled with God. The number that represents the New Jerusalem is twelve, signifying that God in His eternal administration is mingled with His creature, man. The Triune God is signified by the number three, and man is signified by the number four. Three times four is twelve. In the New Jerusalem there are the twelve foundations, inscribed with the names of the twelve apostles (Rev. 21:14); the twelve gates, which are twelve pearls, inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes (v. 12); and the twelve fruits of the tree of life (22:2). This shows that the New Jerusalem is the mingling of God and man. This mingling is through the Son of Man who was and still is the only begotten Son of God. This is all in John’s writings, which include Revelation.
Eventually, the Triune God becomes the living water, which the Lord Jesus presented to the Samaritan woman in John 4. Jacob’s well in John 4 is physical, but Jacob’s dream is divine and mystical. In this divine, mystical realm there is a real fountain. This fountain is the Father. When this fountain emerges, or springs up, that is the Son. When the spring flows into a river, that is the Spirit. This is into, or for, the New Jerusalem. The first four chapters of John present the Triune God as the flowing water. In chapters 6 and 7 there are two feasts. These two feasts are the issue of the flowing. We fallen men become hungry and thirsty. At the feast we have something to eat to satisfy our hunger and something to drink to quench our thirst. The food is Christ, and the water is also Christ.
We need to see that the Triune God is flowing through the Father, the Son, and the Spirit into us. When 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. This is the key to open up the entire Gospel of John. This is the divine speaking, divine spreading, divine dispensing, of the Divine Trinity. The Father as the fountain, the Son as the spring, and the Spirit as the river flow into us. When He flows into us, He flows with us. He will flow us into the New Jerusalem to be the New Jerusalem. The preposition into also means “to become.” Into the New Jerusalem means “to become the New Jerusalem.” If we are not becoming the New Jerusalem, we can never be in the New Jerusalem. We have to be the New Jerusalem; then we can be in the New Jerusalem. This is the intrinsic significance of the Gospel of John and Revelation.
Question: John 4:14b mentions the fountain and the springing up, but where is the river, signifying the Spirit?
Answer: The springing up is the spring flowing. The river is implied in the flowing. Into here means “issuing in,” or “to be, to become.” The New Jerusalem will be there through the Triune God’s flowing. In the beginning of the Bible, God was there. At the end of the Bible is the New Jerusalem. In the beginning, in eternity past, was the Word, who was God. In eternity future the Word becomes the New Jerusalem. This means that in the beginning was God, and at the end He becomes the New Jerusalem. Thus, the New Jerusalem is the issue of God’s flowing in three stages: in the Father’s stage, in the Son’s stage, and in the Spirit’s stage. All three stages are in us. We have the fountain, the spring, and the river within us at the same time. The fountain emerges, the spring gushes, and the gushing is the flowing as a river into the New Jerusalem.
First Corinthians 12:13 says, “We were all baptized into one Body.” This does not mean that the Body is apart from us and that we have been put into the Body. It means that we have been baptized into the Body. The baptism of the Spirit put us all together to be the Body. Into means “to be.” We have been baptized to be the Body. Eventually, we will be the New Jerusalem, which is God mingled, blended, and incorporated with man. Now we can see that one half of a verse, John 4:14b, covers the entire Bible.
