According to John 3:16, the Son is for the Triune God to give Himself to us. In the Gospel of John the Son is likened to food and water. Jesus said that He is the bread of life (6:35, 48), the bread from heaven (v. 51b), and the living bread (v. 51a). This is marvelous. As the bread of life, He is the living bread. He is fresh and living. Jesus is also the living water (4:10, 14) and the flowing water (7:38). This corresponds to Revelation 22:1-2a, which says, "And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life." Out of the throne of God and the Lamb flows the river of the water of life, and in this river the tree of life grows as a spreading vine. The Bible concludes with this river and its tree of life. The river and the tree are Christ given by God for us to receive. When we receive Him, whatever He is, is within us and becomes our constitution. This is the divine economy with the divine dispensing according to God's central thought to mingle Himself with man, to make God and man, man and God, one entity, the New Jerusalem.

The Gospel of John also reveals Christ as the breath. After His consummation through His processes, Christ came to His disciples in resurrection and breathed into them, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (20:22). The word for Spirit in this verse can also be translated breath. The holy breath is for Christ to breathe out and for us to breathe in. The entire Bible is a record of God breathing out and man breathing in. The Scripture itself is God's breathing (2 Tim. 3:16). Every time we come to the Scripture we should not only read it but breathe it in. This is pray-reading. Pray-reading the Word transforms us because in pray-reading we breathe. In pray-reading we first breathe out our sorrow and sin; then we breathe in God's fullness.

A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, wrote a hymn concerning breathing the Lord (Hymns, #255), and the following verse and chorus show how much he enjoyed the Lord by breathing Him in:

O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me,
Teach me how to breathe Thee in;
Help me pour into Thy bosom
All my life of self and sin.

I am breathing out my sorrow,
Breathing out my sin;
I am breathing, breathing, breathing,
All Thy fulness in.