But This Spake He Of The Spirit.

[Digging4Truth]

37In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

This scripture was mentioned in another thread and rather than hijack the thread with this thought I decided to start a new thread.


Often when a scripture is mentioned I will go back and read it no matter how familiar I am with the scripture to check context and carefully read through it again.

I wanted to present a thought on this scripture for some discussion.

Verse 39 says the following:

But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.

He had just made an announcement prior to this verse stating "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

It is interesting that Jesus would say come unto me and drink when he had nothing to offer isn't it? Our understanding of verse 39 is that he was speaking of something that was not yet available. So what we have is Jesus saying come unto me, and drink when there was actually nothing available to them at that time.

But... when we look at verse 39 the wording leaves some room for interpretation.

He had told them if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink. He went on to say that out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water..

Then comes verse 39.

But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.

Read it again with this thought in mind. Say there is a sale at Walmart that was to begin at a certain time on a certain day. Right now push mowers are on sale but the riding mowers don't go on sale until a certain time three days from now.

Then someone makes a statement about mowers on sale and someone else feels the needs to clarify...

But this spake he of the push mower, which they that want to buy can receive: But the riding mowers are not yet on sale because that doesn't happen until Thursday


Jesus said... if you thirst come and drink... out of your belly's shall flow rivers of living water. And when he said that he was speaking of the spirit that those who believe on him should receive. For the HOLY spirit was not yet given.

Are you seeing what I am saying? The scripture seems to lend itself to an understanding that there was something that people did receive... but it differs from what would be available after Jesus was glorified.


I'm not making a doctrinal statement. I'm simply presenting something I saw in study this morning for discussion. Let me know what you think.