Verse 9
I. The frequent occurrence of these two images in conjunction, in tacit, unemphatic passages, shows us how deeply the symbols and their meaning too had sunk into the heart of the nation. But they were at last to receive their full, precise, and definite interpretation an interpretation which should bring the life and light of God home to every man, and show him, not merely that far off in heaven light and life existed, but that they were brought close to every one's home, not merely that the well of life was with God, as the Psalmist knew, but that it rose and ran close by the ways of man, not merely that "we shall see light" in distant years, but that there is for us One that is the Light of the world, which whoso followeth shall not walk in darkness.
II. Look at what our Lord says about the living water of life. "On the last day, that great day of the feast" just perhaps after the priest had poured the water from his ewer, while the crowds were still undispersed "Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink." The water in the Temple was not drunk, only poured out. But Jesus returns at once to the rock which was the meaning of the ceremony, and to the old scene in the desert when the thirsting congregation wished to drink of the clear, outflowing tide. "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink." Drink what? That which the ancient water signified: life, and strength, and purity. Innocence restored, strength attained, life assured all these are in the draught which He places at your lips. Once drink of Christ's spirit really, and it shall rise and flow from your own lips, full of freshness, full of progress. To the Christian moralist alone of all moralists the lessening of fault, the growth of perfection, can bring no vanity, for he alone knows that it is not of himself he lives, that the life of Christ is his only life.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 32.
References: Psalms 36:9 . J. Vaughan, Old Testament Outlines, p. 109; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, pp. 292, 311; S. Macnaughton, Real Religion and Real Life, p. 97.
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