John 7:38 - Exposition

He that believeth on me. The ὁ πιστεύων in the nominative absolute, followed by another construction, gives great force to the mighty words. This is not the first time that Christ has represented believing under the form of both "coming" and "drinking." The one term seems to cover that part of faith in Christ which unites the soul to him, which sides with him, which utterly abandons self to take his word as true and his power as sufficient; the other term, when applied to participation in his blood, implies receiving into the soul the full solace of his imparted life. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall rush torrents of living water. From his newly given, divinely imparted life shall proceed, as from the innermost depths of his consciousness, illimitable supplies of refreshment and fertility for others as well. Each soul will be a rock smitten in the thirsty land, from which crystal rivers of life-giving grace shall flow. Godet urges, against Meyer, the great sufficiency of this particular illustration of the rock in the wilderness as justifying the reference to the phrase, "as the Scripture hath said," and points especially to Exodus 17:6 , "Behold, I will stand before thee there … in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and out of it ( וּנּמֶּםִ ) water shall come, that the people may drink" (cf. Numbers 20:11 ; Deuteronomy 8:15 ; Psalms 114:8 ; passages read during the feast). He thinks the κοιλίας αὐτοὺ corresponds with "from out of it" of Exodus. Hengstenberg laid long and fantastic emphasis on the Canticles, where the κοιλία of the bride of Jehovah is described. It is certain that the numerous passages in the Old Testament, in which the gift of refreshing water is made the symbol of national mercies and spiritual blessings, do, for the most part, fall short of this remarkable expression. Still, Isaiah 44:3 ; Isaiah 55:1 ; Isaiah 58:11 ; Joel 3:18 ; Zechariah 14:8 , all more or less approach the thought; but Ezekiel 47:1-12 , where from the altar the living, health giving, mighty river flows for the healing of the nations, is so akin to the saying of the Lord, as soon as we recognize the fact that he is greater than the temple, and that his Church is God's temple, and each body of man a temple of the Holy Ghost, that all real difficulty vanishes. The whole history of the Church is one continuous comment and illustration of the exhaustless fulness of his Word. Just as a soul of man comes and drinks of the water of life, he becomes himself a perennial source of life to others. He supplies not cisterns of stagnant water, but rivers of living water ( Romans 8:9-11 ; 1 Corinthians 3:16 ). Chrysostom adds, " One may perceive what is meant, if he will consider the wisdom of Stephen, the tongue of Peter, the vehemence of Paul; how nothing withstood them—not the anger of multitudes, nor the uprising of tyrants, nor plots of devils, nor daily deaths—but, as rivers borne along with loud rushing sound, they went on their way."