4:1-24 Living water

February 19, 2021

Read John 4:1-24

This passage is closely connected with the previous two chapters. Just as the water of Judaism was contrasted with the new wine of Christianity (2:1-11), the water of Jacob’s well is here contrasted with the living water which Jesus brings. John 2:19-22 emphasised that Jesus, not the temple, would become the new basis of worship in spirit and in truth, and that thought is developed in this conversation with the Samaritan woman. Jews and Samaritans had a deep-rooted hostility to one another. Yet to both Nicodemus, a religious Jew, and to this sinful Samaritan woman Jesus spoke the same message of new life through himself.

That life is described as “living water” (10), a description for water which flowed rather than from a cistern or well. Such water was preferred. But there is a deeper meaning, for in the Old Testament water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 44:3; Ezek.36:25-27) and in John 7:38-39 living water refers specifically to the life of the Spirit. This living water is deeply satisfying (14). It is not that believers will never need to drink from Jesus again, but the inexhaustible supply of the Spirit’s life within them is there to be drunk from. So, drink deeply and often.

Because the life of Spirit wells up from within the believer, we can worship God anywhere, not just in a particular holy place (21). The essential thing, therefore, is that worship is in “spirit and in truth” (23-24). The context shows that Jesus was here referring to the human spirit i.e. it is not the outward form that matters but inner worship from the heart in response to the truth which God has revealed in Jesus. God’s own nature as spirit requires spiritual worship, and so God seeks those who give themselves to him in this way (Rom.12:1).