He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Jesus speaks these words at the close of a feast. He offers anyone who is thirsty more than a drink — a spring that keeps flowing outward to others. Commentators take up three questions here. Which Scripture is He quoting? What does "out of his heart" mean — older translations read "out of his belly"? And why does He promise rivers, not drops?
No Old Testament verse matches these words. So where does the quotation come from?
Admittedly this is not a quotation from the Old Testament — these exact words are not found. But there can be no doubt at all that it is a very direct reference to an Old Testament passage. Turning to Isaiah we find: "If you draw out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul... you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." (Isaiah 58:10-11.) In Isaiah the condition is ministering to the hungry. In the day of grace the condition is changed: not works of mercy, but "coming" to Him and "believing" on Him.
The older word "belly" points to the place where a person feels want.
The place of want, dear friends, is the belly — the very thing that drives a man to work hard for satisfaction. The Lord says that he will be so full, so satisfied, that "rivers of living water" will flow out of that craving heart of man. Out of his belly — no longer craving, but satisfied. Do you believe it?
John explains the picture in the next verse, and names the day it came true.
We are then told that this promise means the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they were to receive who came to Him and believed on Him. The promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Then the Holy Spirit came to dwell in believers. The overflow, the streams of living water flowing from the believer, is the picture of the Spirit. He is the Spirit of power, showing Himself through the believer who bears testimony for Christ.
Scripture elsewhere pictures the Spirit as a well springing up inside a person. Here the picture changes direction.
This picture differs from the one in John 3, where we are born again by the "water and the Spirit." It is not like "the well of water springing up" either. That well is the power of the Spirit within you, letting you enjoy the sense of being joined to the Father and the Son. In John 7 the "rivers of living water" are connected more with service than with worship.
He promised rivers, not drops — and rivers of a certain character.
He sets out a fulness of blessing from Himself. The believer, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, would not depend on plentiful harvests, pleasant circumstances, and a hundred wonderful earthly providences. He would be a perpetual marvel of happiness and blessing, and a constant giver to the world around him — not of drops of blessing few and far between, but of rivers, yes, rivers of living water. This is not mere charitable good, helping only men's bodies or their circumstances. It is spiritual good... These rivers flow on for all sorts and conditions of men, however much is taken from them. They flow night and day, in summer warmth and winter cold. The supply never tires, because its source is Jesus glorified.
Drinking comes before the rivers flow. One writer applies that order to how a fellow worker reads the Bible:
I hope that he will read the word much for himself. I say for himself, not for his work. That is the right way to read it — "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink." You drink for yourself, you thirst for yourself, and that is how rivers flow from us for others.
The feast they were keeping pointed to a joy still to come.
"Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" — out of his innermost affections. Out of what a man is at the bottom of his heart, as we say, streams of refreshment will flow to others. The poor vessel is so full that it overflows... When the Lord comes again the feast will literally have come... but until it comes, we have the Holy Spirit instead of it.
- Thirst. The invitation starts at the place of want. The craving that drives people to work for satisfaction is the very place the rivers flow from.
- Drink. You thirst for yourself and drink for yourself. That personal receiving is how the flow to others begins.
- Spirit. John explains the living water as the Holy Spirit, whom believers would receive. The promise came true at Pentecost.
- Overflow. A well springing up within is tied to worship. The rivers running out are tied more to service and testimony.
- Instead. When the Lord comes again, the feast will truly be kept. Until then He gives the indwelling Spirit in its place — a supply that never tires, because its source is Jesus glorified.
But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for [the] Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus promised living water to anyone who came to Him. John then breaks off the story to explain what that water is, and why nobody could receive it yet.
The Lord's promise was so generous that hearers might have thought the blessing was theirs that very day.
Was it then, at that very time, that such people would be refreshed by the living water, and also become channels through which rivers of it would flow to others? The Saviour's words are so large and gracious that they might seem open to this reading. But God inspired the beloved disciple to prevent it. He adds that the Lord was speaking of the Spirit.
Some translations add the word "given." The verse itself simply says the Spirit "was not yet." That is not a denial that the Spirit existed or worked before.
It was a wholly new thing for this divine Person to come and take up His home on earth once redemption was accomplished. Looking at earth, Scripture says, "The Holy Spirit was not yet." What could be called the Holy Spirit — that is, His personal presence on earth in the redeemed — was not yet. The reason is given: Jesus was not yet glorified. The Holy Spirit might carry out every divine work that had to be done. But He could not come down from heaven to dwell and have a temple on earth until Christ was in heaven as man, having accomplished redemption.
The Spirit was already at work long before this day. What changed was the character of His presence.
We must hold firmly that He came upon chosen servants of God, worked in them, and — as with Elizabeter and others — even filled them for special service. But we must hold just as firmly that His presence and power in past ages had a very different character from His presence and power in Christianity.
The timing had a reason. It turned on the state of the conscience before the cross.
If the Holy Spirit had been given then, God would have been sealing souls in a state that fell short of the consciousness of redemption, and so approving that state. Their consciences were not yet purged (though God was known in grace), and the Holy Spirit could not have sealed them in that state. Once the work of redemption was finished, and the soul was brought into the liberty of grace, the Spirit of God could take up His home and dwell in the body of the believer. That indwelling is a seal of the perfection of Christ's work.
The same glorified Christ is the One who gives what He first received.
One might say Jesus received the Holy Spirit twice: first at the Jordan for Himself, then on His return to glory for His saints. At the Jordan the Father expressed the delight of His heart in Him as the perfect man on earth, "and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove". But after Jesus rose and ascended, Peter could declare, "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing".
This chapter goes beyond the earlier promises in John's Gospel. The supply no longer stops with the person who drinks.
The overflow — the streams of living water flowing from the believer — pictures the Spirit. He is the Spirit of power, showing Himself through the believer as that believer bears testimony for Christ. In the third chapter we saw the Holy Spirit giving life; He is the life-giving Spirit. In the fourth chapter the Lord spoke of the Spirit as the well of living water. He lives inside everyone who is born again, to make communion and worship possible. In the present chapter that same indwelling Spirit, the well of living water in the believer, flows out to others, just as a spring overflows.
The world has not yet seen Christ displayed. The feast points forward to the day when it will.
The time had not come for Jesus to show Himself to the world, as He will do when the Feast of Tabernacles is fulfilled. But meanwhile He has taken His place on high. He would quench the thirst of every thirsty soul that came to Him. He would also cause rivers of living water to flow out from such people, through the indwelling Spirit, to refresh those around them.
- Glory first. The gift waited on an event, not on our readiness. Christ had to finish redemption and be glorified as man in heaven.
- Gift then. Once exalted, He received the promise of the Spirit from the Father a second time. The first time, at the Jordan, was for Himself; this time was for His people.
- Given, not just active. The Spirit had always worked, and had even filled chosen people. What was new was His personal presence dwelling on earth in the redeemed.
- Sealed on finished work. God seals believers only after redemption is complete. So the indwelling Spirit is the mark that Christ's work is perfect.
- Overflow last. Life in chapter 3, a well in chapter 4, rivers here. The Spirit satisfies the believer first, then flows out to others while the world still waits to see Christ.