In recent Notes we have stressed that the Gospel of John uses three distinct figures to portray the death of Christ: as the “Lamb of God” Jesus died to take away our sins (John 1:29, 36); as a “serpent” He died to deal with our serpentine nature (John 3:14); and as a “grain of wheat” He died so He could release the divine life within Him into His believers (John 12:24). Together, these three figures give us a complete picture of what the death of Christ on the cross accomplished, at least as far as we are concerned. (See “The Lamb, the Serpent, & the Seed” • 1)

We see something very similar at the end of the Gospel of John, when Jesus is actually on the cross. John tells us,

One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and right away there came out blood and water.
— John 19:34

The blood here signifies the death of Christ as “the Lamb of God” for our redemption, while the cross itself signifies how we have been crucified with Christ in His death as a “serpent”; these are the negative aspects of the death of Christ. But, as we have stressed, there is also something very, very positive related to the death of Christ, and that is signified here by the flowing out of the water.

Water in the Gospel of John is used as a figure for the Spirit (4:13-14, 7:37-39). So, while the blood that flowed from the cross speaks of the death of Christ for our redemption, the water signifies the release of the Spirit through His death as a “grain of wheat.”

We must surely treasure the blood that flowed out from His wounded side, but we must also see the water; that is, that it was through His death and resurrection that the very divine life of Christ was released for us to receive the Spirit as “the living water” so we could be regenerated. As Andrew Murray writes in The Spirit of Christ,

We must not rest content with the faith that trusts in the cross and its pardon; we must seek to know the new life, the life of glory and power divine in human nature, of which the Spirit of the glorified Jesus is meant to be the witness and the bearer (Col. 1:26-27).

Then we will have an adequate appreciation of the death of Christ, and of all He accomplished for us on the cross, for we will see that He not only died to deal with our sins and our sin nature, but also so we could receive His divine life and thus become the many children of God (John 1:12-13). Surely we must say, Praise the Lord for such a death as this!

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—  9 November 2024 —