What is the living water Jesus spoke of (John 4 and 7)?

from the old testament

• Jesus’ use of the phrase “living water” came from similar Old Testament imagery. God referred to Himself as the fountain of living water, saying, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). By forsaking God and pursuing sin, they were also losing out on eternal life (cf. Jeremiah 17:13).
• In John 7 and Revelation 21, Jesus uses language very similar to Isaiah 55:1, which reads, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The call was to return to the LORD and be saved.

from the new testament

• John 4 is a passage about Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman. Jesus initiated that conversation by asking the woman for a drink of water (John 4:7). Jews and Samaritans hated each other, so she was incredulous that a Jew would be talking with her, let alone asking for a favor (John 4:9). Jesus replied, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).
• The woman did not understand, thinking that first Jesus was asking for water and then offering to get her water though he had nothing to draw it (John 4:11). She does appear to understand that Jesus was talking about special water, as she added, “Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock” (John 4:12). Jacob gave them water by making the well, yet she saw Jesus with nothing even to draw water claiming to provide a better water.
• Jesus explained, “Everyone who drinks of [Jacob’s] water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).
• Thus, Jesus equated “living water” with “eternal life.” He was using the phrase “living water” because people need water to physically survive. Illustrating salvation as living water, He was saying people needed it to live eternally.
• Jesus again used the expression “living water” a little later on in John 7. There, He arrived during the Feast of Booths (John 7:2, 14). As He was teaching, He called out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37–38). The key is that “living water” is connected to belief in Jesus (cf. John 3:16). It’s a statement about the eternal life one receives when one has saving faith.
• In Revelation, Jesus is also speaking. At the end He said, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment” (Revelation 21:6). As He did in the John examples and as in the Old Testament references, Jesus was pointing toward Himself as the source of eternal life. The thirsty is the one who believes in Him. To them He freely gives living water so that they will live forever.

implications for today

While we can live for a couple of weeks without food, we can only make it a couple of days without water. We need it to survive. It’s vital. It’s thus fitting that Jesus used water to illustrate just how vital He is to eternal life. In Him is found “living water.”

Where does one get this living water? It’s found only in the gospel, in knowing who Jesus is and what He did. Jesus is the Son of God, existing eternally as divine (John 1:1). However, knowing that humanity was sinful and unable to save itself, He humbled Himself by adding on a human nature and becoming like us (Philippians 2:6–7). In His human nature, He was exactly like us but without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Being without sin meant He lived the perfectly righteous life we never could, perfectly pleasing the Father (Matthew 3:17). Because death is the penalty for sinners (Romans 6:23), Jesus did not have to die. But He did so willingly (John 10:17–18) to be a propitiation, a sacrifice which satisfied the righteous wrath of God. But He did not stay dead. Because He satisfied God’s wrath, death had no hold on Him, and three days later He resurrected.

It is because of who Jesus is and what He did that He is the living water. When one “drinks” of Him, repents of his or her sin and confesses Him as Lord (Romans 10:9–10), then he or she will be given eternal life (John 3:16).

What about you? Have you drunk this living water? If not, we implore you to do so now before you die and it’s too late!