John 7:37-39
"In 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. 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: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)"

In order fully to understand the meaning of this scripture and the circumstance for which this feast to which Jesus went up is a type, we must, in the first place, see the way in which He is presented to us in Scripture at present: as an absent Lord. Under an anticipated sense of this absence we find Him comforting His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me;” consequent upon that discourse with His disciples, wherein He says, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” And when Peter under a dread of that absence, exclaimed, “Lord, why, cannot I follow thee now?” Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” You shall not enjoy My bodily presence, it is true; but, though absent, believe in Me. Ye believe in God without seeing Him; now believe also in Me: though I go away from you, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you.

Here, then, is now the position of the believer. Jesus has gone, and the believer stands in the apprehension of His absence; his desires are tending toward an absent Lord. He feels his joy still incomplete, because his Beloved is not present; and he is looking for and hastening towards the time when He is to be revealed, and we shall “see him as he is.” But he knows at present he is not where Christ is; he is in a usurped world, where Satan is setting up his kingdom, whose subjects are described as saying, “I sit as queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” Here is nothing of the consciousness of the Lord's absence as felt by the church - no cry for deliverance - no cry for the Lord to come; no such thing as saying, “In this [body] we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”

Here we have the character of those who are members of Christ's body. They are such as have a habitual consciousness that their Lord is absent, that the adversary is present, and that they themselves are in a world which rejected their Lord and is under the usurped dominion of their adversary. Hence they are looking for “a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” And they are believers, who are not looking to receive their portion here from the persons and things of this world. Theirs is an “inheritance reserved” for them, the earnest of which they now receive, not by sight, but by faith - “receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” They experience troubles and trials here, “which are not joyous, but grievous;” but they have the blessed consciousness of the love of the Father brought to them by His well-beloved Son, and of which they partake, through the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.