The New Testament Commentary Vol Iii John

1. If any man thirst. In those hot and arid regions there is no fiercer want than thirst and no greater blessing than the cool draught of water. The Savior knew that there was a thirst no earthly fountain could satisfy, a deep inward thirst that dries up the spirit. Such he bids to come and drink.

2. A condition of coming to the living fountain is thirst. "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." "If any thirst, let him come." "Come ye that are weary and heavy laden." There must be a felt need of Christ, before anyone can come to him. If the world satisfies the soul it has no room for Christ.

3. Those who drink must become flowing fountains. Moses struck the rock of Horeb and it flowed in a living stream. Christ strikes our barren hearts and lives and they flow forth in his love, a stream of life to others. Those who have eternal life must lead others to eternal life.

4. There is no ignorance so deep as the ignorance that will not know; no blindness so incurable as the blindness that will not see. And the dogmatism of a narrow and stolid prejudice which believes itself to be theological learning is, of all others, the most ignorant and blind. Such was the spirit in which, ignoring the mild justice of Nicodemus, and the marvellous impression made by Jesus on their own officers, the majority of the Sanhedrim broke up, and went each to his own home. -- Farrar.

5. When the Interpreter had done, he takes them out into his garden again, and led them to a tree whose inside was all rotten and gone; and yet it grew and had leaves. Then said Mercy, "What means this?" -- "This tree," said he, "whose outside is fair, and whose inside is rotten, is it to which many may be compared that are in the garden of God; who with their mouths speak high in behalf of God, but in deed will do nothing for him; whose leaves are fair, but their heart good for nothing but to be tinder for the devil's tinder-box." -- Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.