Joh 4:7-26 | KingComments | STEP | While the Lord is sitting there, resting, a woman of Samaria comes to draw water from the well. We become witnesses to an extraordinarily meaningful encounter of a lonely, poor, sinful woman with the Judge of the Living and the Dead. He opens the conversation with the question whether she wants to give Him, the eternal God, the Creator of heaven and earth, a drink. As Man, He depends on this woman for a sip of water. He Who has provided food and drink for an entire nation in a wilderness for forty years, He Who has turned water into wine and feeds a hungry crowd, asks someone else for a drink. He utters no command, but He takes the place of a humble Questioner toward a woman who lives in sin. Thus the Lord begins the conversation with this woman He knows through and through. He knows how to approach her in order to finally give her the full blessing He has for her. This encounter has been meticulously prepared by God. When the Son of God and the woman meet, no one is present. The disciples had to leave and make room for her. They know nothing of this grace. The woman too comes to the well alone. She is not with the other women. In her solitude, she meets the Savior of the world through the wonderful guidance of God Who brought her there. What a meeting! Two lonely people meet each other. But Who was lonelier than He? The conversation is between Him and her personally, without possible interference or distraction from others. The Samaritan woman is most astonished by the Lord’s question. She sees that He is a Jew. She knows that in the eyes of the Jews she is ‘only’ a Samaritan woman and therefore has no significance. The contempt of Jews for Samaritans is great, so great, in fact, that Jews completely ignore the Samaritans. Jews are acting as if they don’t exist. There is no relationship whatsoever with them. That is why she is amazed at how it is possible that He, Who is for her at the moment no more than “a Jew”, is asking her for a drink.

‏ John 4:7-26

An Encounter at the Well

While the Lord is sitting there, resting, a woman of Samaria comes to draw water from the well. We become witnesses to an extraordinarily meaningful encounter of a lonely, poor, sinful woman with the Judge of the Living and the Dead.

He opens the conversation with the question whether she wants to give Him, the eternal God, the Creator of heaven and earth, a drink. As Man, He depends on this woman for a sip of water. He Who has provided food and drink for an entire nation in a wilderness for forty years, He Who has turned water into wine and feeds a hungry crowd, asks someone else for a drink. He utters no command, but He takes the place of a humble Questioner toward a woman who lives in sin. Thus the Lord begins the conversation with this woman He knows through and through. He knows how to approach her in order to finally give her the full blessing He has for her.

This encounter has been meticulously prepared by God. When the Son of God and the woman meet, no one is present. The disciples had to leave and make room for her. They know nothing of this grace. The woman too comes to the well alone. She is not with the other women. In her solitude, she meets the Savior of the world through the wonderful guidance of God Who brought her there. What a meeting! Two lonely people meet each other. But Who was lonelier than He? The conversation is between Him and her personally, without possible interference or distraction from others.

The Samaritan woman is most astonished by the Lord’s question. She sees that He is a Jew. She knows that in the eyes of the Jews she is ‘only’ a Samaritan woman and therefore has no significance. The contempt of Jews for Samaritans is great, so great, in fact, that Jews completely ignore the Samaritans. Jews are acting as if they don’t exist. There is no relationship whatsoever with them. That is why she is amazed at how it is possible that He, Who is for her at the moment no more than “a Jew”, is asking her for a drink.

The Gift of God

In His respond, the Lord tells the woman about God Who has a gift. He says it in a way that awakens in her a longing for that gift. The Son does not present God as One Who demands, but as a Giver. If she knew the gift of God, which is eternal life in Him Who now speaks to her, she would reverse the roles. She would have asked Him a drink and He would have given her living water. God is the source of living water (Jer 2:13; Zec 14:8) and as God the Son He now offers that living water to men.

With this offer He wants to provide for her spiritual need, her spiritual thirst. He is able to quench that thirst. To this end He points to Himself as the Humble One Who is also the Son of the Father, yet Who has bowed down so deeply that He can ask a sinful woman for water. This is how close God has come to man in His Son, in Him Who is the true God and eternal life. With the words “who it is who says to you” He points to Himself as the weary and thirsty Man Who asks her for a sip of water and Who at the same time is the eternal Son of God. He is truly the gift of God to men.

Can God reveal more clearly that He is a Giver? The fact that she has no idea at this time doesn’t change the fact of that great gift of God. If she had any notion of it, she would have asked living water from Him. It is the question of the life-giving Word of God that presents God to the hearts of those who long for this living water. If we have that desire, it becomes active in our heart and connects us to the Lord Jesus and all that is to be found in Him.

The woman, like Nicodemus in the previous chapter, can only think on a natural level. Consequently, she limits the Lord’s words to the human resources on which she would depend to receive that living water. She asks Him where He can get the living water from. And is He perhaps greater than that which is of old, that has always met the needs, previously met the needs of Jacob and his family and possessions, and now meets her needs as well?

When there is no awareness of the glory of Christ, tradition is always an obstacle to accepting what comes from God. A great name and great gifts and a long tradition, blind us to God’s work in Christ. As a result, the true Great is not recognized in His greatness.

The Lord is in the process of breaking through her traditions. He first points her to the water of the well. That water refreshes for a certain period of time, but after that there is thirst and the need to drink again. Water from a natural well quenches thirst for a while, but not forever. This is how God has ordained it for the creature. This is different for those who are given to drink from the Holy Spirit. That is what Christ then speaks about with regard to the water He offers. The water He gives not only delivers from restless search for peace, but gives so much more. That water is a source of joy that someone receives in his innermost being and that he will never lose.

There is even more connected to it. That well in a person is connected to eternal life. By this the Lord refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit which He gives in the believer to become a fresh well of Divine joy in his innermost being (Jn 7:39). In John 3, the gift is the only begotten Son Whom God has given to the world (Jn 3:16). Here the gift is the Holy Spirit Whom God gives us through His Son enabling us to enjoy all that has been given to us in the Son.

All that God has given us can be summed up in: “Eternal life.” Eternal life has two aspects. It is both the Lord Jesus Himself (1Jn 5:20) and knowing the Father and the Son, which is also called eternal life (Jn 17:3). Possessing such a well that enables us to enjoy eternal life leads to lasting fulfillment. Where that well is present, there will be no need for anything else forever. These are the wonderful things associated with the gift of God.

The woman has already understood so many of the Lord’s words that she yearns to possess what He speaks of. Yet she still connects it with the natural well, where she will no longer have to go in order to quench her natural thirst.

Conscience in the light

Before the Lord can give her the water which will become a well of water in her, her conscience must first be brought into God’s light. She must first be convinced of her sins. In view of this, He says that she must go and call her husband. However, He says not only “go”, but also “and come here”. His goodness is not limited by her sinful life. On the contrary, His goodness is proven by it.

By His question, the woman is discovered to herself. When she says “I have no husband”, it is not an excuse, but an acknowledgment that she lives in sin by living together unmarried. The Lord confirms that her answer is correct. In the remainder of His response He speaks just a few words, but these words bring her into God’s light. However, she is not consumed by that light, but introduced into grace.

He demonstrates to her that to Him her history is an open book. The truth does not spare her and opens her sin to God and to her own conscience. She acknowledges this as the light of God. The woman acknowledges that the Lord’s words are not of human wisdom, but of God’s power. That is what a prophet does and what Christ as Prophet does here. A prophet speaks the words of God whereby the listener enters the presence of God and is discovered to himself (cf. 1Cor 14:24-25).

To the woman, the Lord was first only “a Jew” (Jn 4:9), now He is already “a prophet” and soon she will confess Him as “the Christ” (Jn 4:29). Thus we see how her faith rapidly progresses through the gracious work of Christ in her soul. It is grace that does not hide her sin from her and makes her realize that God knows everything. And yet, He Who knows everything is there without disturbing her. Her sin is before God, but God does not judge her. What a wonderful encounter is this between a heart burdened by sins and God, an encounter brought about by Christ. Grace inspires confidence.

The Place of Worship

Now the woman is aware that she is in God’s light, she speaks about worship, about honoring God. A heart that is convinced of its sins and convinced of God’s grace for sinners, starts to desire to worship God. This is what we witness in the woman. She expresses her longing for worship and at the same time her difficulty how and where to do it by indicating two places of worship.

The woman speaks about “our fathers” who “worshiped in this mountain”. For her, worship has always been connected to a long tradition. It is the same for countless Christians today. They come together in a church or a building because their parents and grandparents did the same. They have never wondered what the woman begins to wonder: What is the true place of worship?

The woman also knows that for “you”, that is the Jews, Jerusalem is the place of worship. Now she wants to know from the Lord Jesus which of the two is the true place of worship. He answers her question, putting faith in Him first. This is shown by the fact that He begins His teaching about worship by saying “woman, believe Me”. He makes it clear to her, that for faith, Jerusalem and Samaria as places of worship will both disappear entirely. Now that the Father is revealed in and by the Son, worship is no longer connected with any particular place on earth.

Although both Jerusalem and Samaria will disappear, they are not equal places of worship. The woman and all Samaritans have a worship that is not focused on the true God. They do not know what they worship. God has not committed Himself to them and has not revealed Himself to them as Yahweh. Their worship is directed to an unknown god, a product of their own religious imagination. For the Jews, “we”, it is true that they do know what they worship. To them God has revealed Himself and also said where and how He wants to be worshiped.

To the Samaritan woman the Lord therefore maintains Jewish worship. At that time this is still God’s chosen service because out of them is the salvation that is in the Christ (Rom 9:4-5). The Samaritans are imitators and hostile to God, otherwise they would have submitted to God’s ways and Word.

The Lord speaks of “what”, not ‘who’ is worshiped. Although God has revealed Himself in Judaism, this announcement is still only partial. The whole service is arranged in such a manner that someone who has no faith in God can also participate in it. In addition, God lived in darkness, behind the veil, and the common people were not allowed to approach Him. That is why worship is a ‘what’, meeting a precept, without necessarily having an inner relationship with God. When Christ died, that changed. Then God came out and revealed Himself through the Spirit as Father in the Son. Christians therefore know ‘Who’ they worship and not just ‘what’.

The Father Seeks Worshipers

Here we have the first unfolding of Christian worship ever given by God to a human being. This worship goes beyond both Samaritan and Jewish worship. In Christian worship, the Father is worshiped, and it is no longer the worship of Yahweh, the God of Israel, or the Almighty, as the patriarchs knew Him. It is also no longer about mandatory worship as a demand of God (Deu 6:13). God is entitled to the worship of every human being on earth, and He has demanded that worship of man at all times. Even when the church is raptured and there will be a great tribulation on earth, the command sounds: “Worship Him” (Rev 14:7).

God does not demand worship of the church, because when the Son came to earth, God revealed Himself as a Giver. Thus, the Son of God comes to sinful people whom we see represented in this Samaritan woman. The Lord Jesus has revealed God, as He, the Son, knows Him. He has revealed the Father in the fullness of love and fellowship. The Son will also bring His own who are in the world into a conscious relationship with His Father as children of that Father (Jn 20:17) because they are born of God (Jn 1:12-13).

In this light both Mount Gerizim and Jerusalem disappear. The worship on Mount Gerizim was nothing but a self-willed religion; the worship in Jerusalem was merely the test and proof of man’s incompetence under the law to meet God. Christian worship is based on the possession of eternal life in the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit as the power to worship (cf. Phil 3:3).

From now on, national religion is a deception, it is merely an attempt to bring to life what has disappeared when it comes to acknowledgment from God’s side. From now on the Father is seeking persons who worship Him as Father. For that purpose, those persons have to know Him as Father, which is only possible if they have accepted the Son.

We see here the great desire of the Father that is revealed by the Son. The entire work of the Son is aimed at bringing about that worship. Nowhere in Scripture do we read that the Father seeks anything else, although it is also important, for example, that we bear witness to the Lord Jesus. However, we may consider whether we give this desire of the Father the highest priority in our life.

The Lord adds another thing. The Father is seeking worshipers, but then it is also important to know how He wants us to worship Him. That is why the Son says that we must remember that God is spirit. He speaks about the ‘Father’ when it comes to blessings and about ‘God’ when it comes to responsibility. Therefore, when it comes to the way of worship, it is about responsibility and that is why He speaks about ‘God’ and ‘must’.

Worship of the Father must be done “in spirit”, that is in a spiritual way, guided by the Holy Spirit and not in an Old Testament, earthly, tangible way. The worship to which the Lord Jesus refers here is not an appearance that requires special clothing or sacred buildings or certain visible actions. It is about the heart and not about the eyes or the hands. Everything that is external only has the effect of diverting attention from Him, Who is represented to faith by the Holy Spirit.

It is also important that the worship of the Father is done in “truth”, i.e., in accordance with the truth which the Lord Jesus has revealed about the Father. Christian worship is focused on the Father and the Son of the Father. Only true believers can “worship in spirit and truth”.

Christ Makes Himself Known

What the Lord Jesus said about worship is far beyond the woman’s thinking. Yet she does not turn away from Him, but asks Him about the Messiah. That, in any case, is the thought that comes to her because of what He has said. She touches the core; she is at the source.

When the woman expresses her longing for the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord can reveal Himself to her. He has achieved His purpose with her. A poor Samaritan sinner accepts the Messiah of Israel Whom the priests and Pharisees rejected from among the people. Anyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ – or the Messiah – is born of God (1Jn 5:1). That is what she believes. Her heart has been touched and her conscience has been reached. The grace and truth that came to her in Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17) are now everything to her.

At that moment, the disciples come back. Now they could because the Lord has come to His purpose with the woman. Yet the woman has not gone when the disciples return. The Lord wants them to see what He has been doing during their absence. The disciples are amazed that He speaks with a woman. It was not common for a man to speak with a woman alone.

Like the woman, the disciples have not yet understood much of the grace and truth that are present in Christ and His search for those who are open to it. Had they known what the woman was seeking and what He said to her, they would have wondered even more. Not only did He speak to her, but He also revealed to her what she was seeking and showed her in Himself that He is all she needs. Above all, He fulfilled His own desire to acquaint this woman with ‘the gift of God’.

The disciples still have much to learn. They do feel that something special has happened, because they don’t ask the woman what she does seek nor do they ask the Lord why He does speak with her.