7:39 But this he said about the Spirit, which the ones who believed in him were about to receive. For the Spirit was not yet [given], because Jesus had not yet been glorified (τοῦτο δὲ εἶπεν περὶ τοῦ πνεύματος ὃ ἔμελλον λαμβάνειν οἱ πιστεύσαντες εἰς αὐτόν· οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πνεῦμα, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὐδέπω ἐδοξάσθη). After this final and climactic exhortation of Jesus, the narrator gives the meaning of this significant statement. The key is provided when the narrator explains that the subject matter of Jesus’s statement of vv. 37–38 is the Spirit. This clarifies what is meant by the phrase “living water,” which occurred both in this dialogue (v. 38) as well as in Jesus’s dialogue with the Samaritan woman (4:10–11). The narrator speaks from a postresurrection perspective (see 2:21–22), and the statement contains the cosmological insights of the unseen, reminiscent of the prologue’s cosmic vision. And in this case it is also a post-Pentecost perspective, since the timing of this event in the narrative is explained by means of the coming of the Spirit in real, historical time.
The final statement by the narrator is awkward and complex, but need not be confusing. The narrator describes the Spirit as “not yet” (οὔπω), to which some add the word “given.” But our translation will not add that interpretive implication because the point is not the timeline of the Spirit but the powerful manifestation of the Spirit as just described by Jesus. To speak of the Spirit as nonexistent or inactive is to misunderstand the third person of the Trinity. In a sense, the point is not to describe when the Spirit meets the world, but when believers are given the grace to meet the Spirit. And none of this was possible until Jesus was “glorified” (ἐδοξάσθη). The narrator, then, takes the reader to the cross. Ironically, the original audience on this last and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles would, for very different reasons, move closer to taking Jesus to the very same place.
Klink, E. W., III. (2016). John. (C. E. Arnold, Ed.) (p. 376). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
