The Glorified Fountainhead Text: John 7:37-39
Introduction: A Staged Confrontation
The world is full of religious activity. Men are inveterately religious, and they love their ceremonies, their traditions, and their liturgies. The Jerusalem of Jesus' day was the epicenter of this kind of activity, and the Feast of Tabernacles was one of the high points of the entire year. It was a week of joyous celebration, remembering God's provision for Israel in the wilderness. It was a harvest festival, full of feasting and gladness. And by this time, it had accumulated certain traditions not found in the law of Moses, one of which was a water-pouring ceremony. Each morning, a priest would take a golden pitcher to the Pool of Siloam, fill it with water, and carry it back to the temple amid the sounds of trumpets and the joyful shouts of the people. He would then pour the water out at the base of the altar, a symbolic act recalling the water from the rock in the desert and a prayer for future rains.
It was a grand spectacle. It was pious, it was historical, and it was entirely insufficient. Religious rituals, no matter how elaborate or well-intentioned, cannot quench the deep thirst of the human soul. They are pictures of the reality, but they are not the reality itself. They are shadows, and men who try to drink from shadows remain thirsty. And so, into the midst of this grand, religious performance, on the last and greatest day of the feast, when the religious fervor was at its absolute peak, Jesus stands up and shatters the whole performance. He does not offer a gentle critique or a quiet suggestion. He cries out. This is a public, dramatic, and deliberate confrontation. He is claiming to be the reality to which the entire ceremony pointed. He is telling them that their buckets are empty, and He is the fountain.
This is not simply an invitation; it is a declaration of war against all man-made, ceremonial religion that stops short of Christ Himself. It is an assertion that He is the true Temple, He is the true rock, and He is the only source of living water. What He offers is not a new ritual, but a new life. Not a symbol of the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself. And this offer is tied directly to the central event of all history: His glorification through death, resurrection, and ascension. What we have in this text is the gospel in miniature: the universal human condition, the exclusive divine provision, and the appointed divine timing.
The Text
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were going to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
(John 7:37-39 LSB)
The Universal Invitation (v. 37)
We begin with the setting and the summons:
"Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.'" (John 7:37)
Jesus waits for the opportune moment. "The last day, the great day of the feast." The party is at its height, the religious symbolism is thick in the air, and the sense of expectation is palpable. And what does He do? He stands and cries out. The Greek word here is krazo, which means to shout, to cry with a loud voice. This is not a polite suggestion. This is a public proclamation from the King. This is a herald's shout in the town square.
And the call is universal: "If anyone is thirsty." This is the fundamental human condition. Every person born into this world is born thirsty. We have a deep, abiding ache in our souls for meaning, for righteousness, for satisfaction, for God. And we spend our lives trying to quench this thirst at broken cisterns. We try to drink from the puddles of career, or family, or sex, or money, or power, or even religion. But as the prophet says, we spend our money for that which is not bread, and our labor for that which does not satisfy (Isaiah 55:2). The world is a salt sea; the more you drink of it, the thirstier you get. Jesus begins with the one diagnosis that fits every human being. He is not addressing a special class of people; He is addressing mankind.
The solution He offers is just as direct and exclusive. "Let him come to Me and drink." The solution to your spiritual thirst is not a program, not a philosophy, not a seven-step plan, and not a religious ceremony. The solution is a person. Notice the two commands: come and drink. Coming to Jesus is faith. It is turning away from all other false fountains and recognizing Him as the only source. Drinking is also faith. It is the act of personally receiving what He offers, of taking Him into your very being. Faith is not a mere intellectual agreement. You can die of thirst while staring at a glass of water and agreeing that it is, in fact, water. You must drink. You must personally appropriate Christ. The invitation is to everyone who is thirsty, but the provision is only in Him.
The Divine Overflow (v. 38)
In the next verse, Jesus moves from quenching our thirst to making us a source for others.
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’" (John 7:38 LSB)
This is a staggering promise. Jesus does not just promise to satisfy your thirst. He promises to transform you from a thirsty desert into a flowing river. He doesn't just give you a drink; He makes you a fountain. The Christian life is not a stagnant pool. It is not a reservoir that just holds water for itself. It is meant to be a conduit, a channel through which the life of God flows out to a dry and thirsty world.
Where does this river come from? "From his innermost being." The Greek is koilia, which literally means belly or womb. This is the very core of a person. The change God works is not superficial. It is not a fresh coat of paint on a rotten structure. It is a radical, internal transformation of the very center of who you are. The Spirit of God takes up residence in the heart of the believer and begins to flow out from that central place.
And notice the scale of it. It is not a trickle, or a stream. It is "rivers of living water." Plural. This is a picture of superabundant, overflowing, life-giving power. This is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. Ezekiel saw a river flowing from the temple that grew deeper and deeper, bringing life wherever it went (Ezekiel 47). Zechariah prophesied a day when living waters would flow out from Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:8). Jesus is telling us that the believer in Him is now the temple from which these waters flow. The church, the body of believers, is the New Jerusalem, and from us, the water of life is to flow to the nations. This is not for a spiritual elite. This is the birthright of every single person who "believes in Me."
He says, "as the Scripture said." There is no single verse in the Old Testament that says this verbatim. Jesus is summarizing the consistent testimony of the prophets. He is weaving together multiple threads of promise from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah to show that this overflowing life of the Spirit is the great hope of God's people, and it is fulfilled in Him.
The Divine Timing (v. 39)
John, writing his gospel decades later, adds a crucial inspired commentary to explain the meaning and the timing of this promise.
"But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were going to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." (John 7:39 LSB)
Here we are told plainly that the "living water" is the Holy Spirit. This is not some impersonal force, but the third person of the Trinity. The Spirit is the one who makes the presence of Christ real within us and who flows out from us.
But there is a condition. There is a divine schedule. The Spirit, in this New Covenant sense, "was not yet given." This does not mean the Spirit was inactive in the Old Testament. Of course He was. He strove with men, He empowered prophets, He gifted craftsmen. But the universal, internal, permanent indwelling of the Spirit in all of God's people was an eschatological promise that awaited a specific event. What event? "Because Jesus was not yet glorified."
The glorification of Jesus is His entire saving work, seen as one glorious whole: His suffering on the cross, His burial, His triumphant resurrection, and His ascension to the right hand of the Father. The cross was not a tragic defeat; it was the hour of His glory (John 12:23). The resurrection was the vindication of His glory. The ascension was the coronation of His glory. It was only after the Son had completed His work and was seated in glory at the Father's right hand that He, together with the Father, would pour out the Spirit on the church at Pentecost. The giving of the Spirit is the direct result of the glorification of the Son. Pentecost is the inevitable consequence of the Ascension.
This is absolutely central. The Holy Spirit does not come to draw attention to Himself. He comes to glorify Christ (John 16:14). He is the divine floodlight that shines on the Son. Therefore, the Son had to be lifted up into glory first, so that the Spirit could be poured out to reveal that glory to the world through the church. The entire economy of our salvation is Trinitarian. We come to the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Spirit. But the whole sequence is unlocked by the finished work of Jesus Christ. Without the glorification of Jesus, there is no Pentecost. Without the empty tomb and the occupied throne, our hearts remain a barren desert.
Conclusion: From Drinkers to Fountains
So what does this mean for us? First, it means that if you are thirsty, you must come to the right place. Your thirst is a gift from God, designed to drive you out of yourself and to Christ. Do not try to quench it anywhere else. The invitation still stands, shouted across two thousand years of history: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink."
Second, if you are a believer, you must understand what you have received. You have not just been given a ticket to heaven. You have been invaded by the third person of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit has made your heart His residence. You are a temple. And you are not meant to be a museum. You are meant to be a fountain. The Christian life is not fundamentally about what you can get, but about what can flow through you. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, and so on, is the character of this river. The gospel witness is the direction of this river. It is meant to flow out, to bring life to the desert around you.
Finally, everything depends on the glory of Christ. The Spirit flows from a glorified Savior. This means our lives, our power, our effectiveness, are all directly proportional to how much we make of the glorified Christ. When we are focused on ourselves, our experiences, our problems, the river gets dammed up. When we are focused on the glory of Christ, crucified, risen, ascended, and reigning, the Spirit flows freely. The work of the Spirit is to make us look at Jesus. And as we behold His glory, we are transformed into His image, and the rivers begin to flow (2 Cor. 3:18).
The Jews at that feast had a ceremony with water from Siloam. It was a picture, a shadow, a type. But on that last day, the reality stood up in their midst and offered them not a pitcher of water, but rivers. Not a temporary ritual, but an eternal reality. Not a symbol of life, but the Spirit of life Himself, poured out freely because the Son was glorified. Our task is simple: come, drink, and overflow.