There is a thirst deeper than the body's need. It is the ache of the soul when the things we hoped would satisfy us have not done so. Success can distract it. Pleasure can briefly numb it. Religion can cover it with activity. None of these can give life.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus did not whisper to such people. He stood and cried:

"If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

John 7:37–38

John immediately explains what Jesus meant:

"But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive."

John 7:39

This is an invitation, but it is more than an invitation to temporary relief. Christ promises that the thirsty person who comes to Him will receive the Holy Spirit. The empty life does not merely receive a cup to carry away. God makes it the channel of a river.

A cry on the great day of the feast

The setting gives Christ's words their force. The Feast of Tabernacles remembered Israel's wilderness journey and celebrated God's provision. It also carried the hope of future blessing. Water belonged naturally to that world of remembrance and promise: water from the rock, rain upon the land, cleansing, fruitfulness and the prophetic streams of God's coming kingdom.

The later Jewish record describes water being drawn and poured at the altar during the feast. Whether every detail of that later description was already fixed in precisely the same form in Jesus' day, John's setting is unmistakably charged with the imagery of water and salvation. Scripture had promised:

"Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."

Isaiah 12:3

Then, on the last day, Jesus stood.

Teachers ordinarily sat. Jesus made Himself conspicuous, and He cried so that the crowd could hear. He did not direct them towards another ceremony or merely offer an interpretation of the feast. He placed Himself at the centre of its promise:

"If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."

The water towards which the prophets pointed is found in Him.

The thirst beneath our other thirsts

The Bible does not flatter us about the condition of the human heart. It speaks of desire, longing and dissatisfaction because we were made for God and have turned away from Him.

David wrote:

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God."

Psalm 42:1–2

Jeremiah described the tragedy from the other direction. God said that His people had committed two evils:

"They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."

Jeremiah 2:13

That remains an honest picture of us. We leave the fountain and labour over broken containers. We ask achievement, possessions, approval, entertainment, relationships and even religious performance to hold what they cannot hold. Some are good gifts in their proper place, but none can bear the weight of being our life.

The problem is not simply that we have not yet discovered the correct earthly satisfaction. We have forsaken God. Our thirst is therefore both misery and mercy: misery because life apart from God is dry, and mercy because the ache exposes the lie that our broken cisterns are enough.

Who is the thirsty person?

Jesus does not say, "If any man has made himself worthy." He says, "If any man thirst."

Thirst is not a virtue with which we purchase water. It is need. The thirsty person may be burdened by sin, tired of pretending, disappointed with the world or troubled by the distance between religious profession and spiritual reality. He may not be able to explain everything he feels. He knows that he lacks what only God can give.

Nor should we turn thirst into another test by which anxious people disqualify themselves. Some experience an overwhelming crisis; others have a quieter but genuine recognition of their need. The force of Christ's words does not rest upon the intensity of our sensation. It rests upon the sufficiency of the One who calls.

The invitation is broad—"if any man"—but it is not vague. Jesus is calling people who know enough of their need to come. The answer is not to cultivate a more dramatic thirst and stare endlessly within. It is to look to Christ.

Come unto Me

These may be the most important words in the passage: "come unto me."

Jesus does not say, "Come to a system." He does not send the thirsty to a place, a ritual, a priesthood or a technique. Christian truth matters, Christian fellowship matters and Christ commands His people to be baptised and to remember Him together. Yet none of these is the fountain. They have life only because they lead us to and flow from Christ.

The invitation is personal because salvation is found in a Person. The One speaking would bear our sins, die and rise again. He reconciles us to God; He does not merely help us make peace with ourselves.

Earlier in John's Gospel, Jesus told the woman of Samaria:

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

John 4:14

Later He said:

"He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

John 6:35

Coming and believing belong together. To come is not to travel to a holy site or perform a work which earns God's welcome. It is to turn from the false sources in which we trusted and entrust ourselves to Christ. It is to receive from Him what we cannot produce.

What it means to drink

Drinking is a simple act of receiving. A thirsty person does not improve the water or pay it a compliment. He takes it because he needs it and because it is offered.

Jesus explains His own figure: "He that believeth on me." To drink is to believe on Him—not merely to agree that He existed, or to approve selected sayings, but to rely upon Him as the Christ who gives life.

This faith is not a magic form of words. A prayer can express faith, but the wording of a prayer is not the Saviour. Nor is faith a work by which a person earns the gift. The thirsty sinner brings no supply of his own. He comes to Christ because Christ is sufficient and true.

Neither does coming to Christ mean making a bargain while intending to keep command of our lives. The One who saves us is the Lord. We do not make Him Lord by surrendering enough; He already is Lord. We come as we are, but we come to Him—not to a version of Him who leaves our rebellion undisturbed. His grace pardons, receives and begins to change those who trust Him.

The safety of the invitation lies in Christ's willingness as well as His power. He is not mocking thirsty people by calling them towards water He will then withhold. Elsewhere He promises:

"Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

John 6:37

The one who comes aright comes empty-handed, but not without assurance. Christ has pledged His welcome.

The gift is the Holy Spirit

John does not leave "living water" open to whatever meaning appeals to us. Jesus was speaking of the Spirit, whom believers would receive after Christ was glorified.

God does not merely alter our record and leave us alone. Through Christ, He comes to dwell in His people by the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is not sustained by willpower added to forgiveness. It is the life of God at work within those who belong to Christ.

This does not mean that believers become divine or cease to be weak human beings. Nor does it mean that every Christian continually feels full, powerful or emotionally refreshed. The Spirit's presence is a promise of Christ, not a sensation we must maintain. He gives new life, bears witness to Christ, produces His fruit, teaches through the Word and equips believers to serve.

Jesus' promise is therefore greater than private comfort. The water is "in him", but it does not terminate upon him.

Rivers, not a private reservoir

"Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

The language is abundant: not a drip, not a ration, but rivers. Yet it should not be turned into a promise of uninterrupted excitement, material prosperity or an impressive public ministry. The abundance belongs to the Spirit and His sufficiency, not to our importance.

Living water flows outward when the love, truth and holiness of Christ are made visible through ordinary believers. It flows in prayer, patient service, faithful witness, generosity, endurance, forgiveness and words which point another thirsty soul towards Christ. Sometimes the river is evident to many. Sometimes it reaches one wounded person almost unnoticed.

We are not the fountain. That distinction protects both humility and hope. If usefulness depended upon our natural strength, many of us would have little to give. But Christ does not ask the channel to become the spring. The life comes from Him.

When a Christian feels dry

A Christian may read this promise and quietly wonder, "Why, then, do I feel so dry?"

Scripture does not pretend that believers never experience weariness, grief, spiritual dullness or seasons in which prayer feels difficult. The Psalms give words to saints who longed for God from a dry and thirsty land. Such experience does not prove that Christ has broken His promise or that the Spirit repeatedly departs and returns according to our feelings.

Dryness may expose neglected prayer, tolerated sin, self-reliance or months spent drinking from broken cisterns. When it does, we should confess honestly and return. At other times it accompanies suffering, exhaustion or a trial through which faith is being deepened. We should not diagnose every weary soul in the same way.

The answer is still Christ. We do not graduate from the words "come unto me" after conversion. We return to His Word, speak truthfully to Him, receive the help of His people and depend again upon the Spirit whom He has given. We are not trying to persuade an unwilling Saviour to reopen a closed fountain. We are learning afresh that we never became the source of our own life.

The Spirit and the bride still say, Come

The Bible ends with the same invitation sounding across Scripture:

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Revelation 22:17

The invitation is free because Christ has paid its cost. It is personal because He gives Himself. It is serious because our broken cisterns cannot give life. It is full of assurance because the One who calls is both able and willing to receive those who come to Him.

If you thirst, do not make a virtue of remaining thirsty. Do not wait until you can explain every doctrine, repair your own life or produce a feeling worthy of God.

Come to Christ.

Drink.

The fountain is not dry.

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References for further review