John 4:13,14

“ Jesus answered and said to her: Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again; but he that shall drink of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life. ”

It is to no purpose that the water of the well is spring-water; it is not that which Jesus means by living water; it has not the power of reproducing itself in him who drinks it; so, after a certain time, the want revives and the torment of thirst makes itself felt. “A beautiful inscription,” says Stier, “to be placed upon fountains.” Such water presents itself to the thought of Jesus as the emblem of all earthly satisfactions, after which the want reappears in the soul and puts it again in dependence upon external objects in order to its satisfaction.

Jesus defines in John 4:14 the nature of the true living water; it is that which, reproducing itself within by its own potentiality, quenches the soul's want as it arises, so that the heart cannot suffer a single moment of inward torment of thirst. Man possesses in himself a satisfaction independent of earthly objects and conditions. ᾿Εγώ; yes, I, (in opposition to Jacob). With Reuss, I formerly referred the words εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, unto eternal life, not to time, but to the effect produced, to the mode of appearance: in the form of eternal life. The parallel term, however, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα for ever, favors rather the temporal sense, “ even to the life without end. ”

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

6. The living water of which Jesus speaks in John 4:10 is supposed by Godet to be the eternal life, and he refers to John 4:13-14, as showing this to be the correct view. The words of those verses, however, speak of this water as being a well of water springing up into eternal life. We find also, in the sixth chapter, that the living bread and the bread of life are presented as that which is the means and support of life in the believer. It would seem more probable, therefore, that, in this expression, that which forms the basis and principle of the new life is referred to, than the new life itself. That which Jesus gives to the world in one view, grace and truth, in another view, Himself as the source of life may be understood as that to which He refers.

7. The word eternal life, in John 4:14, is placed in a parallelism with εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, and, for this reason, it seems here to be carried forward in its meaning to the future. The thought in this place is of the future and final blessedness, as well as of the present inward life, and the former is thrown into prominence, as the contrast is intended to be between the passing away of the satisfaction coming from the earthly source and the never-ending blessing of the life in union with Him.