The Gift of Divine Grace (C.H. Spurgeon)

John 4:14

“But 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.” 

The living and incorruptible seed of divine grace is a gift because it is not produced in men by efforts of their own, through the imitation of good example, or through early instruction, or gradual reform. Though for centuries the dead should be located in the neighborhood of the living, they will not, thereby, come to life. The example of life is lost upon dead men! For many a day might you read a homily upon life in the ears of the corpse before you shall thereby cause the skeleton to make any effort towards vitality. In fact, efforts after life are efforts of life; life is where there is a desire for life; life is already, in a measure, kindled in that heart where there is a true and sincere effort made to lay hold on eternal life. Life, spiritual life, is a gift, wholly a gift. It is given according to the good-will and purpose of God. If the Lord gives the new life to some, and not to others, He is perfectly free to do as He wills with His own. Gifts are not regulated according to the law of debts. If God owes to any man eternal life, he shall have it, for God will be debtor to no man, but He owes nothing to sinful man but divine wrath, and if He chooses according to His good pleasure to give a new and spiritual life to His elect, none shall dare to question Him, or say to Him, “What are You doing?” The divine challenge is, “May I not do as I will with My own? Is your eye evil because Mine is good?” The spiritual life which is possessed by any man was given to him as the result of an eternal purpose on God’s part, framed absolutely according to His sovereign good will and pleasure—concerning which He has Himself told us, that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. This life is never received in any other way than as a gift. It is not obtainable in any other way but as a gift, and coming as a gift, it always illustrates the sovereign rights of God to give or to withhold as may please Him.

 Now, I said that it is not only a gift, but according to the text it is a divine gift. Christ has put it—“the water that I shall give him,” by which we are to understand that Jesus Christ does not give us the Inner life apart from the Father and the Holy Spirit, but that still He does give it. The fact is that the Father causes spiritual life in us in some respects, for He has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As we are the children of God the Father, we therefore salute Him by the name, “Abba, Father.” But this life also comes to us through Jesus Christ. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” He is the medium of life; it is as the result of His atoning sacrifice that we receive it; it is when by faith we look to Him, that we begin to live, and it is in proportion as we live upon Him that we enjoy true life. At the same time, this life comes to us from the Holy Spirit, and is a result of the Holy Spirit’s graciously dwelling in us. He consecrates our hearts into a temple; He resides within our spirits. Then we, who once were dead, are made to live; it is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the soul which is the great secret source and spring of the divine grace which wells up within us, and causes us to live in the life of Christ.

“You of life the fountain are— 

Freely let me take of Thee. 

Spring up within my heart, 

Rise to all eternity.” 

C.H. Spurgeon, "Life's Ever-Springing Well"

http://www.spurgeongems.org/