Excerpts from the CNT:

According to John 4 we may experience and enjoy Christ as the gift of God, the Messiah, and the Savior of the world.

a. The Gift of God

In verse 10 the Lord Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God…you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” In verse 14 He spoke to her again about the water that He gives. From these verses we see that Christ is the gift of God. Our thirst can be quenched only by the living person of Christ, the Son of God, who has been given to us by God.

(1) Given by God

Christ has been given to us by God. John 3:16a says that God so loved the world, that is, sinful, fallen people, that He gave His only begotten Son, His expression, that they might obtain His eternal life to become His many sons and be His corporate expression for the fulfillment of His eternal New Testament economy. God’s giving us His Son was not done in a simple way but in His Divine Trinity.

(2) Imparting the Living Water

Christ, the gift of God, imparts the living water—the water [2864] of life (Rev. 21:6; 22:1). The water of life signifies God in Christ as the Spirit flowing Himself into His redeemed people to be their life and life supply.

(a) A Fountain of Water

In John 4:14 the Lord Jesus said that the water that He gives us becomes in us a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life. This verse indicates that the Triune God flows in the Divine Trinity in three stages: the Father as the fountain, Christ the Son as the spring, and the Spirit as the river. We need to see that the Triune God is flowing through the Father, Christ the Son, and the Spirit into us. Whenever 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. As the spring of living water, Christ quenches our thirst, satisfies us, makes us happy, and becomes our pleasure.

(b) Gushing Up into Eternal Life

According to John 4:14, the flowing Triune God is “into eternal life.” The Greek preposition translated as into is rich in meaning. Into here means issuing in, or to be, to become; thus, it speaks of 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 as the totality of the divine life. Just as our human life has its totality and a living person is the totality of the human life, so also the eternal life has its totality and the totality of the divine life is the New Jerusalem. The eternal life eventually will be the New Jerusalem. Thus, into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem.

We must have something flowing into the divine New Jerusalem in order for us to arrive there. When God in Christ as the Spirit flows into us, He flows with us. He will flow us into the New Jerusalem to be the New Jerusalem. Thus, the New Jerusalem is the issue of God’s flowing in three stages. All three stages are in us; we have the fountain, the spring, and the river within us at the same time. The Father is the fountain as the source, Christ the Son is the spring, and the [2865] Spirit is the flowing river, and this flowing issues in the eternal life, which is the New Jerusalem as the destination of the flowing Triune God.

b. The Messiah

In John 4 Christ is also presented as the Messiah. The Samaritan woman said to the Lord Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when He comes, He will declare all things to us” (v. 25). Jesus responded by saying, “I, who speak to you, am He” (v. 26).

(1) Coming to Bring the Divine Life to Men

As the Messiah, Christ came to bring the divine life—the living water—to men (vv. 10, 14). In verse 29 the woman said to the people of the city, “Come, see a man who told me all that I have done. Is this not the Christ?” This indicates that she believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. By thus believing, she received the living water and was satisfied.

(2) That Men May Worship God in Spirit

The Messiah brought living water to men that they might worship God in spirit. In verse 20 the Samaritan woman spoke to the Lord Jesus concerning the place of worship: “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship.” To this the Lord Jesus replied, “An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (vv. 23-24). In verse 24 God is the complete Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—and Spirit refers to the nature of the complete Triune God, not merely to the Lord Spirit. To worship God, who is Spirit, we must worship with our spirit, which is of the same nature as He is. The Lord’s word in verses 21 through 24 was given to instruct the Samaritan woman regarding her need to exercise her spirit to contact God the Spirit. To contact God the Spirit with the spirit is to drink of the living water, and to drink of the living water is to render real worship to God. [2866]

May the Lord impress us with what proper worship is. Proper worship is to continually drink the living water. God the Spirit is the living water, and our organ for drinking the living water is our human spirit. Whenever we exercise our spirit to contact God, the living Spirit, we drink of Him as the living water in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the real and proper worship of God.

c. The Savior of the World

Verse 42 speaks of Christ as the Savior of the world. The Lord Jesus is the Savior of fallen mankind based upon His person and His redemptive work. He is the very God who became a man to be our Savior, and He has accomplished full redemption for us the sinners, through which He saves us from God’s condemnation and from our fallen condition. What He is and what He has accomplished make Him competent to be the Savior able to save us to the uttermost. In particular, He is the Savior to save men from sin (vv. 16-18) through life as their salvation (v. 22). In salvation He is not only our Savior objectively; He is also our life subjectively.