The Bible employs powerful symbols to teach us about the attributes of our triune God.
Various symbols associated with the Holy Spirit depict His nature or aspects of His work, and water is one of them, symbolizing His cleansing from sin in our new birth.
Jesus introduced Nicodemus to this concept when He declared: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3:8).
Water also expresses the Holy Spirit’s thirst-quenching, soul-satisfying, life-giving character! Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14).
John 7:38-39 provides a direct correlation between water and the Holy Spirit through the words of Jesus: “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive…).”
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon the saints and prophets like a cloak, and then depart again, but New Testament believers are promised that the Holy Spirit will live in us! When Jesus used the words “he that believeth”, our Savior spoke in the present tense, meaning a continuing act of believing here and now, and a continuing outflow of the Holy Spirit from our innermost being.
It’s a wonderful thought, that new life is constantly flowing through us, not because of our personal merit but because of our great salvation. Jesus taught elsewhere that “a good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things” (Matthew 12:35).
That “good treasure” is a glorious gift from God!