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Joh_7:39. Not an interpolated gloss (Scholten), but an observation by John in explanation of this saying. He shows that Jesus meant that the outward effect of which He spoke, the flowing forth, was not at once to occur, but was to commence upon the reception of the Spirit after His glorification. He,—self-evidently, and, according to the οὗ ἔμελλον , undoubtedly meaning the Holy Spirit,
He it was who would cause the streams of living water to flow forth from them. John’s explanation, as proceeding from inmost experience, is correct, because the principle of Christian activity in the church, especially in its outward workings, is none other than the Holy Spirit Himself; and He was not given until after the ascension, when through Him the believers spoke with tongues and prophesied, the apostles preached, and so on. Such overflowings of faith’s power in its outward working did not take place before then. The objection urged against the accuracy of John’s explanation, that ῥεύσουσιν may be a relative future only, and is not to be taken as referring to that outpouring of the Spirit which was first to take place at a future time (De Wette), disappears if we consider the strong expression ποταμοὶ , κ . τ . λ ., Joh_7:38, to which John gives due weight, inasmuch as he takes it to refer not simply to the power of one’s own individual faith upon others, so far as that was possible previous to the outpouring of the Spirit, but to something far greater and mightier—to those streams of new life which flowed forth from the lips of believers, and which were originated and drawn forth by the Holy Ghost. The strength and importance of the expression ( ποταμοὶ , κ . τ . λ .) thus renders it quite unnecessary to supply ποτέ or the like after ῥεύσουσιν (in answer to Lücke); and when Lücke calls John’s explanation epexegetically right, but exegetically incorrect, he overlooks the fact that John does not take the living water itself to be the Holy Ghost, but simply says, regarding Christ’s declaration as a whole, that Jesus meant it of the Holy Spirit, leaving it to the Christian consciousness to think of the Spirit as the Agens, the divine charismatic motive power of the streams of living water.
It remains to be remarked that the libation at the feast of Tabernacles was interpreted by the Rabbis as a symbol of the outpouring of the Spirit (see Lightfoot); but this is all the less to be connected with the words of Jesus and their interpretation, the more uncertain it is that there is any reference in the words to that libation; see on Joh_7:37.
οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα ] nondum enim aderat (Joh_1:9), furnishing the reason for the οὗ ἔμελλον λαμβάνειν as the statement of what was still future. The ἦν , “He was present” (upon earth), is appropriately elucidated by δεδομένον (Lachmann; see on Act_19:2); Jesus alone possessed Him in His entire fulness (Joh_3:34). The absolute expression οὔπω ἦν is not, therefore, to be weakened, as if it were relative (denoting merely an increase which put out of consideration all former outpourings), as Hengstenberg and Brückner take it, but “at the time when Christ preached He promised the Holy Spirit, and therefore the Holy Spirit was not yet there,” Luther. Comp. Flacius, Clav. II. p. 326: “sc. propalam datus. Videtur negari substantia, cum tamen accidens negetur.” See also Calvin. For the rest, the statement does not conflict with the action of the Spirit in the O. T. (Psa_51:13; 1Sa_16:12-13), or upon the prophets in particular (2Pe_1:21; Act_28:25; Act_1:16); for here the Spirit is spoken of as the principle of the specifically Christian life. In this characteristic definiteness, wherein He is distinctively the πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ , the πν . τῆς ἐπαγγελίας (Eph_1:13), τῆς υἱοθεσίας (Rom_8:15), τῆς χάριτος (Heb_10:29), the ἀῤῥαβὼν τῆς κληρονομίας (Eph_1:14), the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead (Rom_8:11), and according to promise was to be given after Christ’s exaltation (Act_2:33), He was not yet present; just as also, according to Joh_1:17, grace and truth first came into existence through Christ. The reason of the οὔπω ἦν is: “because Jesus was not yet glorified.” He must through death return to heaven, and begin His heavenly rule, in order, as σύνθρονος with the Father, and Lord over all (Joh_17:5; 1Co_15:25), as Lord also of the Spirit (2Co_3:18), to send the Spirit from heaven, Joh_16:7. This sending was the condition of the subsequent εἶναι (adesse). “The outpouring of the Spirit was the proof that He had entered upon His supra-mundane state” (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p. 196); and so also the office of the Spirit to glorify Christ (Joh_16:14) presupposes, as the condition of its operation, the commencement of the δόξα of Christ. Till then believers were dependent upon the personal manifestation of Jesus; He was the possessor of that Spirit who, though given in His fulness to Christ Himself (Joh_3:34), and though operating through Him in His people (Joh_3:6, Joh_6:63; Luk_9:55), was not, until after Christ’s return to glory (Eph_4:7-8), to be given to the faithful as the Paraclete and representative of Christ for the carrying on of His work. See chap. 14–16. Chap. Joh_20:21-22 does not contradict this; see in loc. The thought of an identity[272] of the glorified Christ with the Holy Spirit might easily present itself here (see on 2Co_3:17; and likewise Gess, Pers. Chr. p. 155). But we must not, with De Wette, seek for the reason of the statement in the receptivity of the disciples, who did not attain to a pure and independent development of the germ of spirit within them until the departure of Jesus; the text is against this. As little can we regard the σάρξ of Christ as a limitation of the Spirit (Luthardt), or introduce the atonement wrought through His death as an intervening event (Messner, Lehre d. Ap. p. 342; Hengstenberg and early writers); because the point lies in the δόξα of Christ (comp. Godet and Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 286 f.), not in His previous death, nor in the subjective preparation secured by faith. This also tells against Baeumlein, who understands here not the Holy Spirit objectively, but the Spirit formed in believers by Him, which τὸ πνεῦμα never denotes, and on account of λαμβάνειν cannot be the meaning here.
[272] Tholuck. “the Spirit communicated to the faithful, as the Son of man Himself glorified into Spirit.” Php_3:21 itself speaks decisively enough against such a view. Wörner, Verhältn. d. Geistes, p. 57, speaks in a similar way of “the elevation of Christ’s flesh into the form of the Spirit itself,” etc. Baur, on the contrary, N. T. Theol. p. 385, says: “Not until His death was the Spirit, hitherto identical with Him, separated from His person in order that it might operate as an independent principle.”