Living Water
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Jesus is the Fountain of Living Water
Jeremiah 2:13 KJV:
For my people have 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 17:13 KJV:
O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
Living water is water that springs up from the ground.
John 4:7–9 APNT:
7 And a woman from Samaria came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, “Give me water to drink,”
8 for his disciples had entered the city to buy food for them.
9 That Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it [since] you are a Judean, yet you ask to drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Judeans do not deal with the Samaritans.”
In that culture, a man would not just speak to a woman and ask for a drink. Even more significant is that Judeans would have nothing to do with Samaritans; they wouldn’t even speak to them!
John 4:10–11 APNT:
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you were aware of the gift of God and who this is who said to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would ask him and he would give you living water.”
11 That woman said to him, “My Lord, you have no water pot and the well is deep. Where [is] your living water?
She knew that “living water” meant “a spring.” This was just a well; there was no spring there.
John 4:12–15 APNT:
12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and from which he and his sons and his flocks drank?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again,
14 but everyone who drinks from the water that I give him will not thirst forever. But that water that I give him will be in him a spring of water that will bubble up to eternal life.”
15 That woman said to him, “My Lord, give to me from this water, so that I will not thirst again nor have to come [and] draw [water] from here.”
She’s thinking only in terms of her senses, physical water. But what Jesus says is a prophecy about what’s going to happen. We are starting to get a picture that there’s something about living water that has to do with the Spirit of Christ within that he’s prophesying about. It will bubble up and it will do something.
We need to remember that it will be bubbling up. It will be in him, and the person will never thirst again. Those are going to be keys to understanding what living water is.
Excerpt from The Temple:
While the morning sacrifice was being prepared, a priest, accompanied by a joyous procession with music, went down to the Pool of Siloam, whence he drew water into a golden pitcher, capable of holding three log (rather more than two pints). But on the Sabbaths they fetched the water from a golden vessel in the Temple itself, into which it had been carried from Siloam on the preceding day. At the same time that the procession started for Siloam, another went to a place in the Kedron valley, close by, called Motza, whence they brought willow branches, which, amidst the blasts of the priests’ trumpets, they stuck on either side of the altar of burnt-offering, bending them over towards it, so as to form a kind of leafy canopy. Then the ordinary sacrifice proceeded, the priest who had gone to Siloam so timing it, that he returned just as his brethren carried up the pieces of the sacrifice to lay them on the altar. As he entered by the ‘Watergate,’ which obtained its name from this ceremony, he was received by a threefold blast from the priests’ trumpets. The priest then went up the rise of the altar and turned to the left, where there were two silver basins with narrow holes—the eastern a little wider for the wine, and the western somewhat narrower for the water. Into these the wine of the drink-offering was poured, and at the same time the water from Siloam, the people shouting to the priest, ‘Raise thy hand,’ to show that he really poured the water into the basin which led to the base of the altar.
The people would sing from Psalm 113 through 118.
Psalm 118:24 KJV:
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:29 KJV:
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
The audio describes what a big production this was.
On the last day, the high day, of the feast the priest goes around the altar seven times. What does that remind you of? Jericho! On this last day, Jesus was standing. And he cried out.
John 7:37–39 APNT:
37 And on the high day, which is the last [day] of the feast, Jesus was standing and he cried out and said, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to me and drink.
38 Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures have said, rivers of living water will flow from his inner part.”
39 Now he said this about the Spirit that those who believed in him were about to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Jesus stands up in the middle of this whole production and says those things.
Tabernacles was not a solemn feast; it was a celebratory feast!
In verse 38, where it says “as the scriptures have said,” well, there is no scripture that says “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (KJV). At least not directly.
It’s talking about a prophecy in Zechariah that describes what is going to happen in Jerusalem at the end times when Jesus comes back to the Mount of Olives. This is after the great tribulations. When all the armies are gathered against Israel and it looks like there is no hope, Jesus’s feet will touch the Mount of Olives. And we will be with him!
Zechariah 14:3–9 ESV:
3 Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. 4 On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. 5 And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
6 On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. 7 And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
The living water flowing out from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem will water the plains and heal the sea. From that point on, in the millennial kingdom, all Israel becomes a beautiful, lush, fertile place where everyone wants to come.
John 7:38 APNT:
Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures have said [about Jerusalem], rivers of living water will flow from his inner part.
What’s going to happen with Jerusalem in the future? Rivers of living water will flow from its inner part.
It’s a comparison with how the Spirit will work as a spring bubbling up, just like what will happen with the Mount at the end times.
It looked like a bare mountain. We look like everybody else. But inside, God put Spirit, which is like a source, a fountain. It’s not a cistern!
When we live and walk by the Spirit, it bubbles up and comes out of a person, and it brings healing. It takes care of all the desert places. It results in producing fruit.
Do you see the analogy? Jesus says Come to me and drink, and you’ll never thirst again. The fountain that we have on the inside by way of the Spirit, is unending. Whatever answers, whatever healing, we need in our lives, we can get by way of the Spirit.
Isaiah 12:2–3 ESV:
2 “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation [Yeshua].” 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation [Yeshua].
Jesus is the fountain, and it is from him that we draw the living water—out of what he has given us by way of the Spirit.
Scripture References
Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This audio teaching is also available on the Acts Now Fellowship website.
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