(a) How does Jesus describe Himself in St John's Gospel as the Living Water ? (b) In what ways does this teaching apply to us?

Answer Details

(a) Jesus as the Living Water (John 4:1-26; also John 7:37-39)

The teaching arises chiefly from Jesus' meeting with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well.

• Tired from His journey, Jesus sat by the well and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink, though Jews normally had no dealings with Samaritans.
• He told her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
• The woman, thinking of ordinary water, noted that He had nothing to draw with and the well was deep, and asked whether He was greater than Jacob.
• Jesus replied, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
• The woman then asked for this water so that she would not thirst nor keep coming to draw.
• Elsewhere, at the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus cried out, If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink, and John explains that He spoke of the Holy Spirit, rivers of living water flowing from the believer's heart.

(b) Ways this teaching applies to us

1. It teaches that only Christ can satisfy the deepest spiritual longings of the soul; earthly things leave us thirsting again.
2. The living water represents eternal life and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which every believer must receive from Christ.
3. We are invited to come to Jesus in faith, just as the woman did, regardless of our race, past sins or social standing.
4. Those who receive Christ become a source of blessing to others, as rivers of living water flow out of them.
5. It calls us to seek lasting spiritual satisfaction in God rather than in the passing pleasures of the world.