The Spirit of God is the water of life and the water of life is the righteousness of God. Therefore, the receiving of the Spirit is the drinking in of the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus. This drinking in of righteousness by faith makes the sinner a righteous man – a keeper of the law of God.
The Samaritan woman at the well was able to understand the words of God: “Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this [well] water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13, 14). She was able to comprehend because she was actively looking for the Christ to come! (John 4:29).
“On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37, 38).
Here we have the promise of living water, the same as He promised to the woman of Samaria. This water is to be in-the-very-being of the one receiving it, and we know that this water of life is the very Spirit of God.
Now, as some say, let’s “connect the dots”: “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:10, 11). Again: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
“For we know that the law is spiritual” (Rom. 7:14). That is, the law is of the nature of the Spirit of God. This is further shown by the fact that those things that are in harmony with the law of God are the fruit of the Spirit. See Gal. 5:22, 23. So the reception of the Spirit of God makes the sinner another person, with a different nature. It makes him living a different life. The Spirit is the Spirit of God, and its righteousness is the righteousness of God, and that is expressed in the Ten Commandments. The Spirit ministers this righteousness to the man, and lives in him. His character is then the character of God, because he is one with God, he has been made a new creature, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. He has “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24).[1]