Jn4:13,14 – Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”
There are all sorts of lessons and hidden mysteries in this amazing story about the woman at the well in Samaria. As I was pondering this story again recently I was struck by how long this well had been in use. After all, this was Jacob’s well which had had been flowing for about 1800 years. That is quite amazing to me. Jesus used this as an example of the fountain that is birthed in us when we are born again. He said that if we drink this living water it will become a perpetual fountain inside of us. In other words, whatever situation we find ourselves in we can always have a drink of living water. Here is how John Calvin, of all people, described this.
“Again, the words of Christ are not at variance with the fact that believers, to the very end of life, burn with desire of more abundant grace. For he does not say that from the very first day, we drink so as to be fully satisfied, but only means that the Holy Spirit is a continually flowing fountain; and that, therefore, there is no danger that they who have been renewed by spiritual grace shall be dried up. And, therefore, although we thirst throughout our whole life, yet it is certain that we have not received the Holy Spirit for a single day, or for any short period, but as a perennial fountain which will never fail us. Thus believers thirst, and keenly thirst, throughout their whole life; and yet they have abundance of quickening moisture; for however small may have been the measure of grace which they have received, it gives them perpetual vigor, so that they are never entirely dry.”
I love this. We have a perennial fountain to drink from that gives us perpetual vigor. Jacob’s well is still flowing these thousands of years later in Israel. It remains as a picture of the eternal well that lives inside of each believer. Even today we can drink from this well, it is still bubbling up and flowing inside of all of His thirsty ones.
