John the evangelist's account of the real meeting and conversation of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman near Sychar also turns out for the reader to be a parable full of deep meaning, in which, as in a drop of water, some important things related...
John the evangelist's account of the real meeting and conversation of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman near Sychar also turns out for the reader to be a parable full of deep meaning, in which, as in a drop of water, some important things related to any person's meeting with Christ can be seen.
In folklore, "living water" usually means a kind of magical remedy that prolongs or restores life. The Gospel, however, speaks to us about something entirely different. The point is that the quality of water in wells and springs can vary greatly, and in the everyday speech of the ancient Near East there were different terms for water more or less fit to drink. The purest and best of it was called living water. This concept is closer not to folkloric living water, but to what we call life-giving moisture. At hot noon, when all respectable women (not women married five times) had long since stocked up on water, such water was, of course, greatly desired by the Samaritan woman.
But for us, the point is still not this. We cannot fail to notice that in the Bible there is a long-standing tradition of comparing pure water with faith and personal communion (or, if you like, "personal acquaintance") with God. The Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman about water that will become in a person a spring flowing into eternal life. The apostle James writes in the General Epistle that bitter and sweet water cannot flow from one spring, comparing the flow of water with the flow of truth. At the end of Revelation the evangelist John quotes the Lord's words: "To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment." This image was known already to the prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel all use it.
Therefore Christ's words about living water can be applied to the gift of faith that He gives us. The water of Christ's teaching is called living by Him, that is, clean and unclouded - unlike water from other sources, not dangerous for a person's spiritual health. On the contrary, this water becomes a source of life in the person himself. Only Christ can give it to us, and if we were able to understand this (if we knew the gift of God), we would ask for this water as the most important thing.
And, of course, we cannot help thinking that in the barren desert that human spiritual life becomes without this gift of God, Christ's word is truly like a drink of clean cold water on a hot day.
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4:14 Will never thirst - Will never (provided he continue to drink thereof) be miserable, dissatisfied, without refreshment. If ever that thirst returns, it will be the fault of the man, not the water. But the water that I shall give him - The spirit of faith working by love, shall become in him - An inward living principle, a fountain - Not barely a well, which is soon exhausted, springing up into everlasting life - Which is a confluence, or rather an ocean of streams arising from this fountain.