“Blessed is the
man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of
the LORD; and in His law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a
tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season;
his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper” (Psa.
1:1-3).

“Jesus stood
and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He who
believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water” (John 7:38).

As to the
connection between these two passages, I think that Psalm 1 is a delineation of
the character, walk, and fruitfulness of the Lord Himself, the Man of God’s
delight. He never walked in the counsels of the ungodly, etc., but His delight
was in the law of the Lord. In Him God saw—and sets before us for our
imitation—a Man whose delight it was to do His will as revealed in His Word.
Hence His fruitfulness, for the secret and power of fruitfulness is subjection
to God (John 15:4,5).

Psalm 1
presents the Son of Man as the tree planted by the river of water, that is, in
constant, unbroken communion with God, whose leaf does not wither, and who
brings forth His fruit in season.

Everything in
the Lord Jesus delighted God. He said the right thing at the right time and in
the right place. God says to us, “See the Man who always pleases Me; and see how
He does it. He knows how and when to speak, how and when to be silent, even
though He Himself is defamed. He knows what to do and what not to do, when to
go and when not to go, what to say and what not to say. He is neither an
enthusiast nor a mere reasoner, neither elated by acclamations of praise nor
dejected by the scorn and contempt of those who felt His majesty and their own
inferiority. He is superior to the world, to man, to Satan; and without sin,
His branches are richly loaded with the fruit in which God delights. This is the
Man whose strength and sufficiency are in God, and in whom God delights.
But in all this strength and majesty, this rich fruitfulness in living
connection with its source for man (that is, God), He stood alone. He could
drink to the full from the fountain of all joy and strength, and through Him
indeed came blessing to others. Still He was pent up, straightened, because He
had a baptism with which to be baptized. Yet so fixed was His purpose to do the
will of Him who sent Him and to finish His work, that He could anticipate that
work in its blessed results to others. So He stood up in the last great day of
the feast (strange feast where there were those who were thirsty!), in which
there was indeed the outward form of approach to the source of blessing and refreshment,
but no real approach. And He cried, “If any man thirst, let him come
unto Me and drink.” If I mistake not, it is the only occasion (besides that on
the cross) in which He cried, as if the vehemence of His desire to impart
blessing to the spiritually needy was only equaled by the intensity of His
suffering on the cross.

“He who
believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water.” I think the allusion here is to Isa. 32:2, “A Man shall be
… as rivers of water in a dry place,” along with Isa. 44:3, “I will pour
water upon him who is thirsty … I will pour My Spirit upon your seed.” In
Psalm 1 we have more the effect of the river on the fruitfulness of the Tree.
It is planted by the water that nourishes it. In John 7 it is the waters that
are to flow out unchecked. Christ was fruitful there, but who else? The rivers
of living water flowing out of the belly is what God does in grace for man and
through man. It never existed before the exaltation of Christ. “This spake He
of the Spirit, which they who believe on Him should receive; for the Holy
Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John
7:39). It had never been before. It was God opening up all the floodgates of
blessing through the obedient, humbled, and now exalted Man to all those who
believe. He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,” and he
shall not only have what he needs for himself, but shall become a channel of
richest blessing to others.

(From Help
and Food, Vol. 5.)