The Argument from Desire

In the third installment of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia (A Horse and His Boy), there is a short but beautiful scene that profoundly echoes the biblical appraisal and prescription for the emptiness of the human condition. The novel's main character, Shasta, is in the midst of an urgent and grueling mission to deliver a time-sensitive message to the Kings and Queens of the land of Narnia. Along the way, Shasta experiences a mystifying yet wholly satisfying encounter with an utterly astounding and dynamic figure he has heard only rumors and whisperings about. Following this stunning encounter, Shasta experiences something else truly remarkable. The story continues like this...

"Was it all a dream?’ wondered Shasta. But it could not have been a dream for there in the grass before him he saw the deep, large print of the Lion's front right paw. It took one's breath away to think of the weight that could make a footprint like that. But there is something more remarkable than the size of it. As he looked at it, water had already filled the bottom of it. Soon it was full to the brim, and then overflowing and a little stream was running downhill, past him, over the grass. Shasta stooped and drank a very long drink and then dipped his face in and splashed his head. It was extremely cold, and clear as glass, and it refreshed him very much.” (Lewis, 1952)

There is no doubt that when Lewis wrote this biblically allegorical passage that he was reflecting upon a similar, well-known account in the Gospel of John. This parallel account is found in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, where a spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted Samaritan woman (in a similar condition as that of the wearied Shasta) experiences a life-changing and soul-satisfying encounter with the Lion of Judah. John records the account like this...

“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. So, he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so, Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. And he had to pass through Samaria. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

(John 4:1-26)

This encounter the Samaritan woman has with Jesus at the well is incredibly rich theologically and there is an abundance of teachings on this passage in literature and other forms of media. In this writing, the focus will stay on humanity's relationship to Jesus as the Living Water. But before we address what it means that Jesus is the Living Water, we must first draw some important truths from the life of the Samaritan woman. Examining the life of the Samaritan woman, there are two aspects of her life that lead to her encounter with the Living Water found in Jesus. Most obviously, living in the arid climate of Samaria, the need to gather and collect drinking water was extremely important. Women living in Samaria during the first century would typically collect drinking water together as a group either early in the morning or later in the evening to avoid the heat of the day (MacDonald, 2016; Moody, 2014). Unlike many of us in the Western world today who have readily accessible drinking water, those living in arid regions during the first century truly knew what it was like to experience "real thirst" (Keller, 2013). Tim Keller, in his book Encounter with Jesus, points out that “because our bodies contain so much water, to be in profound thirst is to be in agony" (Keller, 2013). In this account, physical thirst is not the only type of thirst causing the Samaritan woman agony, and it is not the only type of thirst in need of quenching. And this is the exact need that Jesus has come to meet in her life.

Notice the time of day the Samaritan woman is coming to the well. John records that the woman met Jesus at the well at the sixth hour, which using the Jewish reckoning of time, would mean that she was coming to the well at noon during the middle of the day all alone (Moody, 2014). Why would this woman be coming to the well during the heat of the day without anyone else to accompany her? Jesus, by gently searching the woman' s heart, reveals the cause of her apparent social isolation and a thirst within her that goes even deeper than just the physical.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” (John 4:16-18)

Here in this simple question and answer, followed by Jesus' prophetic reveal, we find the second aspect of the Samaritan woman’s life that has led her to this encounter with the Living Water found in Jesus. Due to her failed marital history and tainted sexual past, she has become “a moral outcast, a complete outsider - even within her own marginalized part of society” (Keller, 2013). But what does this have to with water and the Living Water that Jesus offers?

The account of the Samaritan woman's life, which offers us a God's eye view into the condition of humanity and our own lives, is riddled with dissatisfaction and discontent. Day by day, she makes the physically grueling trek to the well to retrieve water in order to satisfy her physical thirst. But just as Jesus said, "everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again (John 4:13). the water from the well never satisfies her physical thirst completely, so day by day she must return to the well to get more. Much like her temporal relationship to the water of the well, the Samaritan woman's several failed marriages and tainted sexual history indicates that she has been trying to use men to bring complete satisfaction and contentment to her life, and it has not worked. She goes from one man to the next hoping that he will completely quench her emotional and spiritual thirst for fulfillment, joy, meaning, value, and happiness, and it never comes. While men have given the Samaritan woman "quick spikes of pleasure, the experience is fleeting and any satisfaction she has found is soon "wrenched from [her] hand" (Keller, 2016). She is left longing, left perhaps hoping that her physical, emotional, and spiritual thirsts will be one day completely satisfied, or worse, left in despair that they never will be.

The Samaritan's woman's life is most certainly not an outlier. On a far greater scale than an individual Samaritan woman's life, humanity has been searching for something that will completely satisfy their physical, emotional, and spiritual longings for nearly all of human history. If we accurately analyze our human condition, just like the ancients, the medieval, and the modern thinkers have, we realize that there is a deep longing inside each and everyone of us. If we look at our hearts clearly, we find that each one of senses a void at the center of our lives. It is at the very core of our being, deep within us, and it determines everything about us. It longs to be satisfied, and our life is riddled with dissatisfaction, discontent, and agony when that fulfillment evades us.

Humanity has turned every which way to satisfy this instinctive longing of our hearts. We look for it in material comfort and material good. We look for it sensual pleasures and in things that vividly engage our senses. We look for it in success, in status, in prosperity, in achievement, and in wealth (Keller, 2016). We look for it every corner of the world and in every comer of our very being. The life of King Solomon illustrates this pursuit for satisfaction well...

“I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. So, I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also, my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-10)

In this world, man typically looks to get complete satisfaction in their life from wealth, achievement, status, sex, material comfort, material goods, and from relationships with others. King Solomon sought all the satisfaction and fulfillment he could get out of this world, pursuing and possessing more of the aforementioned means of worldly satisfaction than any other man can even come close to. Solomon writes that he "kept [his] heart from no pleasure” (Ecclesiastes 2:10). He turned to everything the world could offer to quench the thirst of his heart to find contentment for the longings within him. Did it work? After considering all his pursuits, possessions, and the satisfaction his heart was ultimately longing for, Solomon wrote...

"So, I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind...So, I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun..." (Ecclesiastes 2:17, 20)

As Jonathan Haidt writes in his book The Happiness Hypothesis, "the author of Ecclesiastes wasn't just battling the fear of meaninglessness; he was battling the disappointment of success...nothing brought satisfaction" (Haidt, 2006; Keller, 2016). Solomon had experienced more material and relational prosperity than nearly any other human in history, and yet, "the things that human beings think will bring fulfillment, contentment,” and satisfaction were unable to completely satisfy the ultimate longings of Solomon's heart. The world had offered him everything, yet it was not enough to quench the thirst of his heart. If material and relational prosperity do not ultimately satisfy the human heart, where do we go from there?

Some say that ultimate satisfaction and meaning in this life do not exist. This proposition is immediately challenged by the reality that the person who holds it will not be able live consistently with their view. While atheists suggest that this life is void of any real meaning and satisfaction, each one of them will find themselves as many atheists say, “making their own meaning and fulfillment out of life." Although they believe that ultimate meaning and satisfaction is merely an illusion, in order to live a life of contentment, they will produce and impute their own meaning and means of living a satisfying life onto their own existence. This leaves us to wonder, if real meaning and satisfaction are nonexistent, then why do atheists have to make up their own to lives of contentment? Could it be more probable that the reason we need meaning and satisfaction in order to live lives of contentment is because we were made to find ultimate meaning and satisfaction in something, or rather, Someone? To this the atheist view is left conflicted and ultimately unviable.

How about evolutionists, who suggest that "people find more pleasure in working toward a goal than they experience when they actually attain it...which serves as an adaptive mechanism" (Keller, 2016). Tim Keller offers a summary of this viewpoint in his book Making Sense of God, where he writes that...

"Evolutionary psychologist...conjecture that our forebears who experienced post attainment disappointment were more likely to work harder to achieve higher goals. These people were then more likely to live longer and so, having more children, they passed down their genes to us. Therefore, the discontent – the feeling that nothing in the world fulfills our deepest longings – is actually a chemical response in the brain that helps our ancestors survive. The sense we have that 'something is missing' is therefore an illusion, a trick played on us by our genes to get us to be more industrious." (Keller, 2016)

While this view is certainly more consistent than that of the atheist, it does not offer the most accurate assessment of the human condition. Without mentioning in detail, the immense challenges evolution faces scientifically, philosophically, and statistically as a worldview, the idea that the desire found within the human heart to be ultimately satisfied is merely a survival mechanism is quite unrealistic. Tim Keller explains why by writing that...

"The disappointments of life [are] not a motivation to work harder but rather a disincentive for doing anything...though disappointment may, in the short term, drive some people to more attainment, it can just as likely undermine initiative and drive. And over time it usually will. Therefore, the feeling does not necessarily and even normally lead to survival behavior."

(Keller, 2016).

Keller's counter to the evolutionist proposition is reinforced by Solomon himself, who writes that...

“Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So, I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So, I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” (Ecclesiastes 2:15-21)

As both Keller and Solomon note, rather than being the source of initiative and drive,

disappointment and dissatisfaction ultimately chip away at it until our lives collapse into despair, contempt, or grieved acceptance. The reality of this demonstrates that "the evolutionary explanation of our constant discontent does not seem to hold up” (Keller, 2016). So, what else is there to do about this discontent and dissatisfaction in our lives?

Many of the ancient philosophers, those like “Buddha and the Chinese sages like Lao Tzu in the East and the Greek Stoic philosopher in the West," suggests that "to achieve satisfaction you should not seek to change the world but to change your attitude toward the world" (Keller, 2016). These philosophers and those like them suggest that we must not "try to fulfill your desires; rather, control and manage them" (Keller, 2016). In short, "do not become too emotionally attached to anything" (Keller, 2016).

C.S. Lewis describes this approach to the desires of the human heart as the "The Way of the Disillusioned 'Sensible Man" (Lewis, 1952). In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis writes that the "Disillusioned 'Sensible Man" considers the dissatisfaction and discontentment of his life and...

"He soon decides that the whole thing [finding ultimate satisfaction] was moonshine. ‘Of

course,’ he says, 'one feels like that when one’s young. But by the time you get to my age you’ve given up chasing the rainbow's end.' And so, he settles down and learns not to expect too much and represses the part of himself which used, as he would say, 'to cry for the moon." (Lewis, 1952)

While Lewis notes that this view of the human desire for satisfaction "makes a man much

happier," Keller observes that "many people have found this approach to satisfaction not very satisfying" (Keller, 2016). To demonstrate this, Haidt has found "that modern research shows some external circumstances do correlate with increased satisfaction" (Haidt, 2006; Keller, 2016). Keller, summarizing Haidt's assessment, adds that "in particular, love relationships are important, and therefore the advice of emotional detachment may actually undermine happiness" (Haidt, 2006, Keller, 2016). Furthermore, the view of detachment "undermines any motivation for major social change" since it compels us to "resign ourselves to the world rather than seek to change it" (Keller, 2016). Therefore, based on the nature of human satisfaction, contentment, and happiness in relationship to love and social change, the view of seeking to be emotionally detached is inadequate for providing us with an accurate assessment of and solution to the desires of the human heart. Having surveyed the insufficiencies of the atheist's, evolutionist's, and Stoic's view on the desires of the human heart, where can we turn for answers? How did we end up so dissatisfied and discontent, and how can we find ultimate satisfaction and contentment for the desire of our hearts?

Lewis says there is another, more intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually satisfying view on the unsatisfied state of the human heart. Lewis calls this “the Christian Way,” and its reasoning goes like this...

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.” (Lewis, 1952)

Reflecting upon the order and logic of the universe, Lewis recognized that if earthly desires had earthly satisfaction, that meant that if no earthly thing could satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart than the human heart was made to be satisfied by something, or Someone, other worldly. Therefore, based off of Lewis’ reflection on the desires of the human heart, the first four premises for the Argument from Desire go like this...

1. Human beings have finite desires that are unsatisfied.

2. There is finite satisfaction available to meet those desires.

3. The human heart is never eternally satisfied by the things of this world.

4. Therefore, there must be eternal satisfaction available to meet the desires of the human heart outside of this world.

Having come to the conclusion that there must be eternal satisfaction available to meet the eternal desires of the human heart outside of this world, the two big questions still stand. How did we end up so dissatisfied and discontent, and how can we find ultimate satisfaction and contentment for the desire of our hearts? And where do we turn for answers?

To find these answers, we must first turn to Scripture and go the beginning. When God created man, Scripture says that "the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it" (Genesis 2:15, ESV). The Hebrew verb used for "put him" gives us the idea that with God in the Garden man had spiritual rest, the complete satisfaction for desire of human heart (Moody, 2014). In the Garden, "God immediately placed him [man] in that state for which man was originally intended, the state of being in full relationship with God, the state of being at spiritual rest in and with Him" (Moody, 2014). The writer of Ecclesiastes goes further to say that God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, ESV). In the book Genesis, we find the humanity originally possessed ultimate satisfaction and contentment for the desire of their hearts, which was a state of uninterrupted, eternal dwelling in the presence of God. When God finished His act of creation, He declared that everything was “very good” (Genesis 1:31, ESV). In the beginning of history, all was right with the world and man's relationship to God was in perfect rhythm. It “was the world we were built for, a place in which there was no parting from love, no decay or disease” (Keller, 2008). Man’s desires were perfectly satisfied in the presence of God in the Garden. So, what happened? If humanity had ultimate satisfaction and contentment for the desires of their heart, how did we become dissatisfied and discontent? How did we lose our perfect, infinitely satisfying relationship with God in the Garden? The third chapter of Genesis explains.

“Now the serpent was craftier than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths...then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:1-7,22-24)

In order to experience the love of God fully, His creation had to have the ability to be “freely, voluntarily united to Him” (Lewis, 1952). Therefore, His creation had to be given the free will to choose between right and wrong. In the Garden, God placed two primary trees in the center, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To have continual access to the Tree of Life, which represented the eternal, life-giving satisfaction of dwelling the perfect, uninterrupted presence of God, Adam and Eve were commanded to trust in God’s goodness and obey His command to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And as the third chapter of Genesis records, Adam and Eve were deceived by the Enemy and disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, they were cast out of the perfect presence of God in the Garden and separated from the life-giving, soul-sustaining, eternally satisfying Tree of Life. The eternal satisfaction of humanity’s heart found in the fullness of God in the Garden was lost, and we became spiritual exiles in a land that was no longer our home. So, what does this mean for us now?

It means that we are left longing to return to the Garden. It means our soul is without rest. It means that deepest longings of our hearts, the desire to be dwelling in the perfect, uninterrupted loving presence of God, is unsatisfied. As Tim Keller writes...

“The Bible says that we have been wandering as spiritual exiles ever since...We are all exiles, always longing for home. We are always traveling and never arriving. The houses and families we actually inhabit are only inns along the way, but they are not home...we have been living in a world that no longer fits our deepest longings. Though we long for bodies that ‘run and are not weary,’ we have subject to disease, aging, and death. Though we need love that lasts, all our relationships are subject to the inevitable entropy of time, and they crumble in our hands. Even people stay true to us die and leave us, or we die and leave them. Though we long to make a difference in the world through our work, we experience endless frustration. We never fully realize our hopes and dreams. We may work hard to re-create the home that we have lost, but says the Bible, it only exists in the presence of the heavenly Father from which we have fled...Home continues to evade us.” (Keller, 2008)

Lewis notes too that...

“Our life-long nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.” (Lewis, 1949)

In view of the accounts of Genesis, we know that earthly blessings serve as “only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage” of the eternal satisfaction found in the perfect presence of God (Lewis, 1952). While temporal satisfaction is attainable through these earthly blessings, if we place our eternal desire on them, they will ultimately be crushed by the weight (Keller, 2008). Our earthly blessings, our families, our friends, our material possessions, careers, achievements, successes, and experiences were never meant to bear the eternal weight of the human heart’s desires (Keller, 2008). In his book The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes on this, saying that...

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty [eternal satisfaction] was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself.” (Lewis, 1949)

Philosopher Albert Camus adds that...

“Beauty [the echo of the Garden] is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”

Finally, the Psalmist writes of his own heart in a way which aptly describes the human condition, saying that...

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1, ESV)

This brings us back to the Living Water. In His encounter with the Samaritan woman, Jesus answers her, the Psalmist’s, and all of humanity’s need. Jesus says that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again” (John 4:14, ESV). What does He mean by never thirsting again?

As we have seen, the human heart thirsts for dwelling in the eternal presence of God. Its what we had in the Garden. There, we were eternally and fully satisfied. But at the Fall that was lost. In this world we currently inhabit, we are left spiritually thirsty. In this encounter with the Samaritan woman, Jesus is claiming that this spiritual thirst that we have can once again be satisfied and that He as the Living Water provides that satisfaction. So, how has Jesus offered us this eternal satisfaction once more?

To answers this, we must once again return to Genesis. When Adam and Eve were cast out and exiled from their spiritual home in the Garden, it is recorded that “at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:24, ESV). In order to access eternal, life-giving, soul-satisfying presence of God and the Tree of Life, one “had to go under the sword of divine justice” (Keller, 2016) Since no man, because of their sin, could go under the sword of divine justice and live, humanity was left separated from eternal life with God in the Garden. As the Psalmist wrote, we were cast out into “a dry and weary land where there is no water,” or no eternally satisfying source for us to draw upon. This is where Jesus comes in.

On this earth, Jesus lived the life we should have lived. On this earth, Jesus lived the only life worthy to pass under the sword of divine justice and live. Yet, in each of the four Gospel accounts, we find Jesus facing a punishment He did not deserve. John records that...

“So, he delivered Him over to them to be crucified. So, they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.” (John 19:16-18, ESV)

On the cross, Jesus died the death we should have died. On the cross, Jesus took the divine wrath, “the Cup,” of all of mankind’s sin (Keller, 2016). On the cross, Jesus became the ultimate spiritual exile, becoming completely separated from the infinite, divine love of God. On the cross, Jesus when under the sword of divine justice so we did not have to. Later in his account, John records that...

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’”

(John 19:28, ESV).

On the cross, Jesus most certainly experienced immense physical thirst and agony. But this cry from the cross meant more than just physical thirst. On the cross, Jesus, the Son of God, was separated from the eternal, divine love of the Father. On the cross, Jesus became ultimately spiritually thirsty so that we did not have to (BibleProject, 2020). By experiencing ultimate spiritual thirst for us on the cross, Jesus has granted access to the Living Water once again through a gift of His abundant grace.

When the soldiers pierced the side of Jesus to determine His death, John records that “at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34, ESV). This graphic description of the death of Jesus offers immense spiritual implications. Since Jesus poured His blood on the cross, His eternal Living Water was poured out onto us (BibleProject, 2020). Once again, because of what Jesus did on the cross and because He rose again from death, we can have the eternal desires of heart satisfied once more.

Often, Scripture refers to Jesus as the Firstfruits of the New Creation. When Jesus rose from the tomb, He ushered in the beginning of the Kingdom of God on Earth, the new world order. The apostle Paul writes that...

“For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV)

What does this mean? It means that at this time in history, between the Redemption (Jesus’ death and resurrection) and the New Creation (all things made new), we can begin to experience the eternal satisfaction that we will experience fully when we enter Heaven. In His encounter with the Samaritan woman, Jesus said that “the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, ESV). After and because of Jesus’ work on earth and ascension into Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to come dwell in the hearts of His followers. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart of His followers allows them to experience the eternal satisfaction of being in relationship with God once again. The Holy Spirit is the source of the Living Water of Jesus Christ inside of us. This Living Water has given us eternal life and it has quenched the eternal, spiritual thirst of our hearts. Home, the state of the Garden, has been placed in our hearts. Not only does it quench our spiritual thirst, but our hearts are also unable to fully contain its filling. Jesus said that the Living Water, the presence of the eternal Holy Spirit inside of us, will “become in [us] a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, ESV). The eternal satisfaction of God in us will overflow from our lives, touching the lives of others. If you have ever been near a geyser, a waterfall, or any body of fast-moving water, you will know that being close to it will cause you to become wet from the moisture forced into the air. In the same way, the Holy Spirit inside of us will “soak” the lives of those around us when we share the love of Christ with them. If this is what we experience now, what does Paul mean when he says that we will eventually be “face to face” with the Living Water (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV)?

At the End of Times, when Christ returns at His Second Coming and ushers in the Kingdom of God fully, He will “make all things new” (Revelation 21:5, ESV). John records that...

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away...Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 21:1-4; 22:1-5, ESV)

When Jesus returns, He will bring Home back down to us. When Jesus returns, humanity and all of creation will be restored. When Jesus returns, the state of the Garden will be renewed and mankind will once more be in perfect relationship with God, the Living Water. When Jesus returns, the human heart will be eternally satisfied once again. When Jesus returns, we will physically, emotionally, and spiritually thirst no more.

Do you want to have this hope? Do you want to experience the eternal satisfaction of knowing God, the satisfaction your heart has ultimately been longing for? Jesus offers that to you. As C.S. Lewis beautifully wrote, Jesus “died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less” (Lewis, 1952). Jesus first loved us, displaying it on the cross, so that our hearts may respond to Him, for we were made for His love.

So, if you need eternal satisfaction, come to the Living Water who satisfies completely. If you are frustrated with the dissatisfaction and discontentment this world offers, come, and be satisfied by Jesus’ presence in your life. If you are weary, come to Jesus and He will give you rest for your soul. How do you do this?

First, recognize your need for Jesus’ work on the cross and what He did for you by dying and rising again. Second, repent from your former life, from the water of this world that does not satisfy. Third, accept Jesus into your life as the source of Living Water, your source for eternal life. Embrace and drink from Him fully. When you accept Jesus as your Living Water, He will pour out His Holy Spirit into your heart. Then, you will experience the eternal satisfaction of being reunited with God once again and you will become as “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14, ESV).

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

(Psalm 34:8, ESV)

“So, I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So, I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:2-8, ESV)

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,”

- Augustine

“The whole wide world is not enough,

To fill the heart’s three corners,

But yet it craveth still;

Only the Trinity that made it can

Suffice this vast, triangle heart of man.”

- George Herbert

Premises for the Argument from Desire:

1. Human beings have finite desires that are unsatisfied.

2. There is finite satisfaction available to meet those desires.

3. The human heart is never eternally satisfied by the things of this world.

4. Therefore, there must be eternal satisfaction available to meet the desires of the human heart outside of this world.

5. That satisfaction outside of this world is the eternal presence of an existing, personal God.

References:

Jesus the King by Timothy Keller (2016)

The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller (2008)

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (1952)

The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis (1949)

The Moody Bible Commentary by the Moody Bible Institute (2014)

The Believers Bible Commentary by William MacDonald (2016)

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis (1954)

Encounters with Jesus by Timothy Keller (2013)

Water of Life by The Bible Project (2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgmAkM39Zt4&t=83s

The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (2006)

Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller (2016)

A Family Guide to Narnia: Biblical Truths in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia by Christin Ditchfield