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Here is a picture of the life in Christ--the new nature--being born a child of God--a
spring that will beautify, strengthen and feed our every act and thought in our life in Him.
The cup of water from the earthly well refreshes and then we thirst again, but with this
gift of God we have a well of spiritual water implanted in us. The words `springing up'
suggest development with the goal of eternal life. Natural water is the vehicle designed
by God to feed and maintain all the functions of the human body. Spiritual water has a
counterpart in us. The visible vehicle has been deliberately chosen by God to
demonstrate the invisible operation of the Spirit. Think it out for yourself. The words of
God are not empty rhetoric. The woman at the well seems to have missed the lesson our
Lord taught. It may well have dawned on her later. If we read the Word hurriedly and
without meditation we too may miss the many precious lessons that are going to
strengthen and guide our spiritual education and maturity.
The new nature--life in Christ--is the gift of God and is one of several gifts that John
records:
3: 16:
"God gave his only begotten Son."
4: 10:
links the above gift with "living water".
10: 11:
". . . . . the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."
13: 15:
"I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." One
of the many examples set before us to emulate.
17: 8:
"I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me."
17: 14:
"I have given them Thy Word."
17: 22:
". . . . . the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them."
And what can we understand by this last text? Glory carries the idea of approval by
God. Where we let the Spirit of Christ have full reign and free rein in us we shall be
conscious of a unity with Him, and our lives by reflection will witness in measure His
glory to the world.
Finally the episode of healing the nobleman's son who was at the point of death:
"And as he was going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, thy son
liveth. Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto
him, yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him" (John 4: 51, 52).
The nobleman's time check proved to him the miracle of Christ's gracious act of
healing:
"So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him,
thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house" (4: 53).
Divine prophecy is used by God to demonstrate to man His overruling power through
the platform of time. If man would see it, it vindicates the truth of His Word. As an
example, Stuart Allen in The Unfolding Purpose of God lists 14 prophecies that were
fulfilled concerning the Lord Jesus Christ in 24 hours, and these prophecies were spread
all over the O.T. May we prime ourselves with such prophetic utterances and their
fulfillment that we like Paul in Acts 28: 3 can in some measure be qualified to
persuade men out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets `concerning Jesus'.