But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified. – John 7:39
[Emphasis added]
Any message from the Bible or interpretation of the scriptures that ignores the crucial elements of Christ, the Spirit, life and the church will surely miss the mark. But, in these scriptures we see a sketch of something wonderful in God’s working.
Picking up from Part 4, we are continuing with our discussion of John 7:39.
NOTE: Please go back an digest Parts 3 and 4 before going forward with this portion. It will be important for you to have laid the foundation with what is found in there.
Having seen that Jesus Christ is God’s expression in incarnation, the next question that arises relative to John 7:39 is: how is the expression of God through Christ carried forward through God’s economy—His dispensing—after the Jesus’ death and resurrection?
Back up and look at the context:
“… Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
– John 7:37b-39
Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus, Christ and other titles
Let us be clear, the God-inspired scriptures never confuse the names of God in their application. The name used carries connotations that cannot be overlooked. In the New Testament, the scriptures never conflate the usages of “Jesus,” “Jesus Christ,” “Christ Jesus,” or “Christ.” In our cursory reading of the scriptures, we might mistakenly equate them as merely referring generally to the same person, but the God had a specific reason for creating the written record as He did.
So, in this verse we see Jesus crying out and offering Himself as drink to His hearers. Jesus refers to the God-man with special emphasis on His human living. In His incarnation and human living as “Jesus,” the Christ underwent all the processes of incarnation, daily human life, temptation, overcoming, death, resurrection and ascension.
This Jesus is the very One who can become full satisfaction to our thirst. This is the One who, in our believing into Him and drinking of Him, can become also to us “Emmanuel”—God with us, a divine-human living, overcoming, the death of the cross, resurrection life and the all-transcending ascension to the heavenlies (Col. 3:1-3).
God’s dispensing of the person of Jesus Christ, with His divine-human living, into the believer as life
But, in what way can God dispense all of Jesus’ attainments and obtainments into us?
The answer lies in bringing Jesus’ very life into us by His becoming eat-able and drink-able. Edible as in John 6:53 and drinkable as in chapter 7:37b-39 (above).
To become so available, Jesus Christ must become “the life-giving Spirit” (Rom. 8:11).
Now, let me be clear: I am not talking about some form of modalism here, which I agree is heresy. But, just as Jesus Christ was the incarnation of the entire Triune God (note: “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; “I and the Father are one”; and many similar), so the Spirit that was about to be given to the believers would be the not just one-third of the Trinity. Rather, the Spirit given to the saints would be the whole God made edible (John 6), drinkable (John 7) and even breathe-able (John 20:22).
However, until the glorification of Jesus, the incarnate God who had gone through all the process of human living and the others we have mentioned, the Spirit was not yet fully prepared to bring all of the obtainments and attainments of Christ into the believer as life. Only in glorification could this be done.
[To be continued]
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