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“The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life”—John 4:14b:
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The Triune God flows in the Divine Trinity in three stages: the Father is the fountain, the Son is the springs, and the Spirit is the river.
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The flowing of the Triune God is “into eternal life”:
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The New Jerusalem is the totality of the eternal life, and the word into means “to become”; thus, into eternal life means to become the totality of the eternal life, the New Jerusalem.
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By drinking the living water, we become the New Jerusalem, the totality of the eternal life, the destination of the flowing Triune God.
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God’s goal in being the fountain of living waters is to produce the church as His increase to be His fullness for His expression; this is the heart’s desire, the good pleasure, of God in His economy—Jer. 2:13; Lam. 3:22-24; 1 Cor. 1:9; Eph. 1:5, 9, 22-23.
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Nothing apart from God as the fountain of living waters can quench our thirst and satisfy us; nothing apart from God dispensed into our being can make us His increase for His expression—Rev. 22:1, 17.
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We need to realize that whenever God’s people are short of the Spirit of life as the water of life, they will have problems; when God’s people have an abundance of the saving Spirit as the living water, their problems among themselves and with God are solved—Exo. 17:1-7; Num. 20:2-13.
Morning Nourishment
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.14 But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.
The Triune God flows in the Divine Trinity in three stages….[In John 4:14], when the fountain springs up, that is the fountain emerging. Then a river flows. The Father is the fountain, the Son is the spring, and the Spirit is the river.
This flowing Triune God is “into eternal life.” The Greek preposition translated as “into” is rich in meaning. Here it speaks of the destination. The eternal life is the destination of the flowing Triune God. A fountain is in us springing up as a river into a destination. This destination is the eternal life. The New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine, eternal life. The eternal life eventually will be the New Jerusalem. Thus, into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem. We must have something flowing into that divine New Jerusalem in order for us to arrive there. The entire Bible is needed to interpret John 4:14. The Father is the fountain as the source, the Son is the spring, the Spirit is the flowing river, and this flowing issues in the eternal life, which is the New Jerusalem. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” p. 455)
Today’s Reading
The Triune God is flowing through the Father, the Son, and the Spirit into us. When we drink of this water, it becomes a fountain in us. We all should say, “The fountain is in me!” This fountain emerges as a spring, and the spring flows out as a river for the New Jerusalem. This is the key to open up the entire Gospel of John. This is the divine speaking, divine spreading, divine dispensing, of the Divine Trinity….When He flows into us, He flows with us. He will flow us into the New Jerusalem to be the New Jerusalem. The preposition into also means “to become.” Into the New Jerusalem means “to become the New Jerusalem.”…We have to be the New Jerusalem; then we can be in the New Jerusalem. This is the intrinsic significance of the Gospel of John and Revelation.Thus, the New Jerusalem is the issue of God’s flowing in three stages: in the Father’s stage, in the Son’s stage, and in the Spirit’s stage. All three stages are in us. We have the fountain, the spring, and the river within us at the same time. The fountain emerges, the spring gushes, and the gushing is the flowing as a river into the New Jerusalem. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” pp. 457-458)
God’s intention in His economy is to be the fountain, the source, of living waters to satisfy His chosen people for their enjoyment. The goal of this enjoyment is to produce the church as God’s increase, God’s enlargement, to be God’s fullness for His expression. This is the heart’s desire, the good pleasure (Eph. 1:5, 9), of God in His economy. The full development of this thought is in the New Testament, but it is sown as a seed in Jeremiah 2:13.
God’s economy is to dispense Himself as the living water to produce His increase, His enlargement, to be His expression. This thought is developed in the writings of John….In John 4 the Lord Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman concerning living water (vv. 10, 14). In John 7:38 He said, “He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”…Revelation 22:1 and 2 show us that in the New Jerusalem the river of life flows and that in this river grows the tree of life as the life supply to support and sustain the entire city. (Life-study of Jeremiah, pp. 17-18)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” msg. 14; Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 42-45; Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 3