While chapter three is about a highly cultured, very religious, God-seeking, God-fearing, moral person, chapter four is about an immoral woman. Although she was quite evil, having had five husbands and living with a sixth who was not her husband, she still tried to speak about religion. She pretended to be religious because the Lord Jesus exposed her evil history. The Lord said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here” (John 4:16). She said that she did not have a husband. This was a truth but a lie. She told the Lord Jesus a lie by speaking the truth. The Lord Jesus, responding to her, said, “You have well said, I don’t have a husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; this you said truly” (John 4:17-18). Immediately she changed the subject from her husbands to the worship of God (vv. 19-20). To talk about her husbands was unpleasant. Because the Lord’s word about her husband touched her conscience, she changed the conversation to the matter of worship.

The Lord Jesus, in His wisdom, also began to speak about the worship of God, saying, “God is Spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and reality” (John 4:24). Eventually, the Lord revealed to her that this Spirit, who is God Himself, and who is the One we must worship, is the very living water (John 4:24, 14). The very God who is Spirit is the water of life. We take the water of life by exercising our spirit to contact Him, that is, to worship Him.

In chapter three of the Gospel of John we are told that we have to be born anew, that is, to have a second birth. Then in chapter four the Lord Jesus speaks about drinking (v. 14), in chapter six about eating (v. 57), and in chapter seven about drinking again (vv. 37-38). Drinking and eating seem to be two separate things, yet actually they are one. John 6:35 says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes in Me shall by no means ever thirst.” We eat the bread and we shall never thirst. Is He the bread for eating or for drinking? It seems that John 4 is only about drinking and that John 6 is only about eating. Yet even in John 6, which is apparently a chapter only on eating, there is also a word about drinking. You cannot separate eating from drinking or drinking from eating. Isaiah 55:1 says, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters...come ye, buy, and eat.” We come to the waters and obtain food. This proves that the eating and the drinking are just one thing. In our daily life, it is hard for any of us to eat without drinking. Have you ever had a meal where you ate without drinking? Eating and drinking always go together. These two are one.

The Gospel of John reveals life to us. This life can only be maintained by the life supply, which is food and water. Since we have received the Lord Jesus as our life, we all have to learn how to drink and eat. The reason why so many Christians are weak today is because few know how to eat and drink. Most Christians know that Christ is the bread of life, but few know the way to eat. Many know that Christ is the water of life, but few know the way to drink. We need to be those who not only know how to eat and drink, but who are daily and even hourly eating and drinking. By eating the bread and drinking the water, we not only receive life, but also obtain the life supply.

In chapter after chapter of the Gospel of John, the Lord reveals Himself as our life and life supply. We receive Him as our life and partake of Him as our life supply by eating and drinking Him. In chapter one the Lord, as the almighty God in the beginning, became flesh, became a man, to be the Lamb of God to accomplish God’s redemption for us that He may be our life. As our life, He is also the feast to us with the wine for us to drink and enjoy in chapter two. The way for us to receive this wine according to chapter three is to be born anew. The day we received the Lord Jesus, we were born again, and we began to drink Christ as the wine and enjoy His life as a feast. Now we must drink and eat Christ, realizing that the food and drink are mingled together. Day by day we must drink and eat, and eat and drink, enjoying the Lord all the time.
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