Deeper Commentary

4:1  When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John- When some want to see spiritual work in competitive terms, it's better to just not play that game at all, and move away or onwards. Making and baptizing disciples is the language of the great commission (Mt. 28:19). We are to follow the Lord's example in our own outreach; not merely baptizing but making men disciples, independent learners of Him.

4:2 Although Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples- As noted on 3:22, the Lord is described as doing the baptisms, and indeed the Pharisees perceived it that way too (:1). Especially in the doing of His work of witness, we are counted as Him. We recall that at this stage the disciples still believed in ghosts, demons and the associated wrong ideas of immortal souls and disembodied existence. But still they baptized people. The Lord hardly made the bar very high, right from the start of His ministry.

4:3 He left Judea and departed again into Galilee- It could be that as today, numbers of converts and baptisms led to jealousy which soon morphed into violent opposition, and the Lord therefore withdrew from the Jerusalem area.

4:4 It was necessary for him to pass through Samaria- This is significant, as this was not from geographical necessity. The Lord was in the Jordan valley (Jn. 3:22) and could easily have taken the valley road north through Bethshan into Galilee, avoiding Samaria entirely. See on Lk. 2:49. Pious Jews avoided travelling through Samaria; the Lord was demonstrating that He was not interested in the lines of separation drawn by the pious. The necessity however may have been because of some plot against Him arising from jealousy over the baptisms (see on :3), and so He took the route which He knew the Pharisees would not take for fear of defilement by the Samaritans. It is yet another window onto His humanity that He faced things like geographical and logistical necessity.

4:5 Sychar, near to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave his son Joseph- This place was rich in Jewish history; it was the parcel of ground purchased by Jacob, where Joseph's bones were buried (Josh. 24:32), and where Jacob had built an altar (Gen. 33:18-20), called 'The mighty one, the God of Israel'. Jacob had also conquered territory there with his own sword and bow, fighting the people of the land. Abraham had been there (Gen. 12:6), and Shechem ['Sychar'] was one of the oldest towns in Israelite history. But at the time of the Lord Jesus, it was inhabited by the despised Samaritans. It's rather like a town square with a war memorial and traditional British architecture in the United Kingdom- which is now inhabited by Moslem immigrants, with the Anglican church now turned into a Mosque. And one of the local women with a clearly immoral background- was one of the Lord's star converts. And she in turn converts the local menfolk to Christ. Just as traditional white churches in the West would view the conversion of asylum seekers and recent darker skinned immigrants with suspicion and disgust, so we can imagine people responding to the Lord's conversion of this woman.

4:6 Jacob's well was also there. Jesus, being tired from his journey, sat tired by the well. It was about the sixth hour-Incident after incident in the mortal life of Jesus had echoes of the crucifixion to come. Consider how He met the woman at the well “at the sixth hour" (Gk.), He was thirsty, a woman got Him something to drink and encouraged Him in His work (Jn. 4:6 cp. 19:14,28). No wonder He spoke of His meeting with her as a finishing of the Father’s work, which is the very language of the cross. He lived out the essence of the cross in that incident, just as we do, day by day.

The Lord's humanity is clearly indicated here. The sixth hour by Jewish time was midday; if Roman time, it was around 6 PM, when women went to get water. But the woman being separated rather from society may have come at midday, on her own.

4:7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her: Give me a drink- Jewish men, especially religious leaders, were not supposed to speak with women publically- let alone with Samaritan women. Therefore we see here the Lord's open attitude and intentional breaking of such human taboose and barriers. The well was deep and the Lord had no rope or bucket; presumably the women brought their own equipment with them to the well. We see here His need; He had little strength, having walked all night, and He also lacked a rope and / or bucket to get water from the well. He in no way was "very God of very Gods".

4:8 His disciples had gone into the city to buy food- This doesn't necessarily mean that the Lord was left there alone. The disciples were likely more than "the twelve" [there were at least also Matthias and Joseph Justus present at this time, Acts 1:24-26]; and there were likely the ministering women too. Would they all really have gone into town to buy food and left the Lord exhausted and alone by a well? Surely some would have remained with Him. But there is also the possibility that the Lord sought time and space alone in prayer (as in Mk. 1:35; Lk. 6:12; 9:28). It could be that He told them all to go into the town, whilst He prayed alone, by the well. The  Samaritan woman's appearance was therefore a direct answer to His prayers, which perhaps had focused upon the salvation of the Gentile Samaritans.

4:9 The Samaritan woman replied to him: How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans)- The Lord's clothing and accent gave Him away as a Jew rather than a Samaritan. All through this record we see every evidence of His total humanity.

The woman of John 4 grew in her appreciation of Jesus, quickly. She addressed the Lord as: a Jew (4:9); “sir” (4:11); greater than Jacob (4:12); a prophet (4:19); the Christ (4:42); saviour of the world (4:42). M.R. Vincent (Word Studies In The NT Vol. 1 p. 113) has observed that Christ is progressively addressed as “Lord” as the NT record progresses; as if the community’s perception of Him increased over time.

Being a Jew- The whole nature of being human means that we must live in  this world, although we are not of it. Consider how Daniel’s friends wore turbans (Dan. 3:21 NIV), how Moses appeared externally to be an Egyptian (Ex. 2:19), and how the Lord Himself had strongly Jewish characteristics (Jn. 4:9).

4:10  Jesus answered and said to her: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that said to you: Give me a drink, you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water- The Lord's "living water", i.e. spring water, was offered in return for her well water. Surely this contrasts with Moses meeting his Gentile wife by a well; a relationship in which he gave her very little, and which was an indicator of a spiritual weak cycle in his life. The Samaritan woman immediately recognised Jesus as Jewish, just as Zipporah thought that Moses was an Egyptian (Ex. 2:19)- which is another comforting type of Christ's humanity.

"The gift of God" is clearly to be understood in John's thinking as the gift of the Spirit. The same phrase is used about it in Acts 8:20; 11:17; Rom. 5:15; Eph. 3:7. The living water is explained later as the same gift of the Spirit: "If anyone thirsts, let him came to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said: From within him shall flow rivers of living water. He spoke of the Spirit, which they that believed in him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been received, as Jesus had not yet been glorified" (7:37-39). But that gift of the Spirit would only be given after the Lord's glorification. He was not therefore offering the woman anything immediately; He had in view what could be given her once His work on earth was completed. He could give her the living water right then in the same sense as He could give eternal life immediately; the promise was as good as the receiving, so certain was His word of promise. I noted in commentary on Acts that the gift of the Spirit is presented as an evidence that Gentiles also have equal access to the Father seeing they received the same gift. Hence the significance of this promise to a Gentile that she could receive this gift which would meet the spiritual thirst which the Lord correctly perceived in her.

We live in newness of life. The life in Christ is not a stagnant pond, but rather living water, spring water, bubbling fresh from the spring. And this is what we give out to others- for “he that believeth in me, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of springing water” for others (Jn. 4:10; 7:38). We can experience the life of Christ right now. His life is now made manifest in our mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:11), insofar as we seek to live our lives governed by the golden rule: ‘What would Jesus do…?’.

4:11 The woman said to him: Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. From where then have you that living water?- The well presumably required users to bring their own bucket or even rope. She had power over this exhausted Jew. But "living water" was known as the language of the Messianic age, and as a Samaritan, this woman would not have been unaware of it. I suggest that she is responding to the Lord's figurative language on the same level. How could this exhausted, very human Jew give this Messianic water- the well was deep, and spiritually speaking, it was very hard for Him to get it for her, surely... for after all... He surely was not the Messiah. His lack of a bucket to get the literal water was reflected in His obvious [to her] lack of ability to give the Messianic gift.

4:12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his cattle?- She is alluding to Jewish ideas of how Messiah would be greater than Jacob but not greater than Abraham or David. Not only was this man not Messiah, but Jacob was "our [Samaritan] father", she had a right to drink of this well, so she reasoned, because she [unlike Jesus the Jew] as a Samaritan was the legitimate descendant of Jacob. But the Lord didn't rise to her provocations; just as we need to ignore the petty aggression, subtexts and barbs of others in order to bring them to the greater truth.So much religious and doctrinal controversy is hampered by this desire to correct the mistaken other on peripheral issues, and the essential issues are thereby overlooked and not engaged with.

4:13 Jesus answered and said to her: Every one that drinks of this water shall thirst again- The Lord doesn't argue with her over her take on descent from Jacob, even though she was wrong about it. He lost that battle to win the war. Even if the water in that well was hers and not His, it could not ultimately quench the human thirst for salvation. It is that thirst which our witness should address; we are perhaps "the salt of the earth" in that salt provokes thirst.

4:14 But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst. The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water, springing up to eternal life- The human thirst for the Spirit would be met by the gift of the Spirit within our hearts. The water given would be the life eternal- the kind of life we shall eternally live. The reference is not to miraculous gifts, but to the ongoing gift of the Spirit within.

“With joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation” (Is. 12:3) is applied by the Lord to the present experience of the believer in Him (Jn. 4:14; 7:38). But Isaiah 12 continues to explain how the joy of that experience will lead to men saying: “The Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation [as He was for Israel at the Red Sea, cp. our baptism experience]... Praise the Lord, proclaim his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted”. The exaltation of the Yahweh Name, the wonder of it, the sheer height of who Yahweh is, these things and our personal part in them is an unending imperative to witness these things world-wide. Men did not confess Jesus to others, despite nominally believing in Him, because they did not love the concept of the glory of God (Jn. 12:43 RV). To perceive His glory, the wonder of it all, leads to inevitable witness to others.

It was from the smitten rock that springing water came out. There is an endless inspiration in the cross, an endless source of that spirit of new life. And the influence of the cross cannot be passive; we will also give out living water, we will become as the smitten rock, and through our share in His crucifixion we will give out to others that same new and eternal life. But in the context of the Samaritan woman, the rock at that time was not yet smitten, the living waters of the Spirit not yet given as the Lord was not yet glorified.

Repeatedly, the Lord Jesus carefully worded His teaching in order to use the same words about Himself as about His disciples. He was the lamb of God; and He sent them forth as lambs amongst wolves; He was “the light of the world”, and He stated that they too must be likewise. As He was the source of living water to us, so we are to be to others (Jn. 4:10,14). The Samaritan woman could be the source of living water to others, as indeed she was. John grasped this, by using even some of the language of the virgin birth about the birth of all God’s children. It’s as if even the Lord’s Divine begettal shouldn’t be seen as too huge a barrier between us and Himself. The wonder of the virgin birth is something which elicits the “Wow!” mentality; but the miracle continues into our lives.

4:15 The woman said to him: Sir, give me this water, that I do not thirst ever again, nor come all the way here to get water- I have earlier suggested that the woman perceived the Lord was using figurative language. And she now comes to believe that the exhausted Jew by 'her' well can actually give her this water. It was quite a treck from the town to the well; spiritually, she wanted an end to the apparently endless journey to quench spiritual thirst. In our terms, an end to the reading of endless self-help books, hanging out on various 'spiritual' forums online; but actually have the Spirit within us.

Whoever drinks of the water of life will have within them a spring that also gives eternal life (Jn. 4:15). The purpose of a spring is to give water to men. The way the woman immediately led others to Him is proof enough of this. Experiencing the Lord's words and salvation inevitably leads to us doing likewise to others, springing from somewhere deep within. This was in fact one of the first things God promised Abraham when He first instituted the new covenant: "I will bless you (i.e. with forgiveness and salvation in the Kingdom)... and you shalt be a blessing" , in that we his seed in Christ would bring this same blessing to men of all nations by our witness (Gen. 12:2,3). When the Lord offered salvation to the woman at the well, He spoke of how it would be a spring of life going out from her. She wanted it, but apparently just for herself. Therefore when she asked to be given such a spring, the Lord replied by asking her to bring her husband to hear His words (Jn. 4:15,16). Surely He was saying: 'If you want this great salvation for yourself, you've got to be willing to share it with others, no matter how embarrassing this may be for you'. In a similar figure, the Bible begins with the tree of the lives [Heb.], and concludes with men eating of the tree and there appearing a forest of trees-of-life.

4:16 Jesus said to her: Go, call your husband and come back here- See on :15. Receipt of the spring of the Spirit is related to our desire to want to reach out and share spiritually with others. It also requires repentance; and she needed to repent. The Lord wanted her right away to be a source of Spirit to others, hence He asked her to return to Him with her "husband". Although the Spirit was not yet given, He realized that in prospect it could still be granted in some form because He was certain that He would indeed fulfil His mission and be "glorified" so that the living water of the Spirit could be poured out.

4:17 The woman answered and said to him: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: You said well that you have no husband- We note the Lord's positivity. Bear in mind that in their languages, "man" and "husband" are the same word. He could have said 'Wrong. You are living with a man. Don't lie to Me. Fess up and admit it, and then we can go further'. But He turned it around positively. He commends her for saying she has no man in the sense of a husband. The Lord picks up her deceptive comment positively, agreeing that her latest relationship isn’t really a man / husband as God intends. I find His positive attitude here surpassing.

4:18 For you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truthfully- See on :17. What was apparently an untrue, or less than fully truthful comment is turned around positively by the Lord, to demonstrate His style of imputing righteousness. The woman was evidently a sinner; and the Lord made it clear that He knew all about her five men. But He didn’t max out on that fact; His response to knowing it was basically: ‘You’re thirsty. I’ve got the water you need’. He saw her spiritual need, more than her moral problem; and He knew the answer. When she replied that she had no husband, He could have responded: ‘You liar! A half truth is a lie!’. But He didn’t. He said, so positively, gently and delicately, ‘What you have said is quite true. You had five men you have lived with. The one you now have isn’t your husband. So, yes, you said the truth’ (Jn. 4:16-18). He could have crushed her. But He didn’t. And we who ‘have the truth’ must take a lesson from this.

4:19 The woman said to him: Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet- Now she is sure that this exhausted, dehydrated Jew is more than a random guy sitting by a well, cadging a drink off a Gentile. Yet having been convicted by Him of a sinful life, even though He did it in the kindest possible way, she prefers to wiggle out of those personal issues by getting into theology. We know from Acts 8 that people from Samaria formed a significant part of the earliest Christian community. Yet all converts are prone to return to their former beliefs in some ways at some times. The Samaritan view of Messiah was likewise that he would be the re-incarnation of a prophet, specifically Moses (Jn. 4:19,25). It therefore seems likely that the idea of a pre-existent Christ / Messiah developed as a result of the early Jewish and Samaritan converts returning to their previous conceptions of Messiah. For these were less taxing to their faith than the radical idea that an illiterate Jewish teenager called Marryam in some dumb Galileean village actually conceived a baby direct from God Almighty. Uninspired documents such as the Preaching Of Peter and the Gospel Of The Hebrews also make the false connection between Jesus and a re-incarnated Moses, Elijah etc. Clearly enough, the idea of a pre-existent, incarnated Jesus had its roots in paganism and apostate Judaism.

4:20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship- Sin is serious. This is one of the most recurrent themes in the Bible. Yet with the characteristic blindness of human nature, it is one which fails to register with us as it should. 'Just' one sin in Eden led to death- and so much more than death. Time and again people missed the Lord's attempt to convict people of their sin. When He tells the Samaritan woman of the five men she'd had in her life, she responds by ribbing Him about whether God should be worshipped on Gerazim or in Jerusalem. She tried to move off the delicate issue of her morality into theological argument and strife about conflicting traditions (Jn. 4:18-20).

4:21  Jesus said to her: Woman, believe me, the hour is coming, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father- The Lord had promised the gift of the Spirit within. This made all arguments about sacred space utterly irrelevant and at best obsolete. We sense His eager hopefulness for response when He said to the woman: “Believe me, woman...” (Jn. 4:21 GNB). Even though she was confrontational, bitter against Jewish people, and perhaps [as it has been argued by some] pushing a feminist agenda in an inappropriate way... the Lord sought for faith in her above correcting her attitude about theological things.

4:22 You worship that which you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews- The Lord went along with her as far as He could, but as in our witness to folks, there comes a time when we have to put our foot down. Salvation was "from the Jews" in that the Messianic saviour would be from them. And the identity of the Messiah was the issue here. The Lord doesn't take away from the Samaritans the fact they worshipped; but they worshipped in ignorance without accepting Messiah as being a Jew rather than one of their re-incarnated prophets (see on :19). There is a very similar situation in Acts 17:23, where Paul declares to people the God whom they had worshipped in ignorance through sacrificing to "the unknown God". The "we" cannot refer to Jews generally; for they did not know the Father nor His Son (8:19,27). He meant "we" as in Himself and the disciples who were now regrouping around Him. "We worship what" we know could as well be translated "who we know". Acceptable worship of the Father was predicated upon acceptance of Himself as Messiah, the salvation of and from the Jews.

4:23 But the hour comes and now is, when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such worshipers are who the Father seeks- The Lord’s ‘hour’ which was to come was His death (2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23,27; 13:1; 16:32 Gk.; 17:1; 19:27). Yet in a sense the essence of His death was ongoing throughout His life; the ‘hour’ was to come, and yet was. Then, through the cross, true worship of the Father in spirit and in truth was enabled, when the veil of the temple was torn down, and the system of Mosaic worship ended. I have noted above that the Spirit was only to be given when the Son was glorified; but that hour was then and was also to come; therefore in a sense the Spirit could be given even then.

The ‘true’ worship of the Father doesn’t imply necessarily a ‘false’ worship prior to it; it is the ‘true’ in contrast to the shadow that had existed before it (cp. the true vine, the true manna). But the true worship was to be in the Spirit, in the heart, the place where the fountain of living water could be placed.

There are many examples of where God and man are portrayed as being in some kind of mutual relationship. Consider Jn. 4:23: “The Father seeks such to worship Him”. The Hebrew / Greek idea of ‘seeking’ God implied to worship Him. Understanding that, albeit through the mask of translation, we see that the Father is seeking seekers. We seek Him, He seeks us; and thus we meet. Men were found by Jesus, just as they were seeking to find Him (Jn. 1:39,43); there is an electric moment when the Lord and man meet. He seeks for us, and we seek for Him; and we find each other.

4:24 God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth-

"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers" (Jn. 4:23) was spoken by the Lord early in His ministry. Even at that stage ["and now is..."], there were some worshipping in spirit and in truth. If the Lord is referring to the disciples, and if the "truth" in Jn. 4:24 is to be understood in theological / doctrinal terms, then "the truth" which they at that time possessed was very far less than what we might think today. The disciples at that time had many misbeliefs and misunderstandings; they believed in demons, were unclear about important aspects of the Lord's work, death and resurrection, and believed in ghosts. But they worshipped in spirit and in truth. However, I suspect that "spirit and in truth" doesn't refer to 'A spiritual attitude plus theological purity' (which none of us have anyway). That was how I once read the phrase. But "truth" would seem to me to refer more to truthfulness, and to reality as opposed to shadow- e.g. Jesus as the true light, the true bread refers not to His intellectual purity but to the way in which He was the fulfillment of the things of "the true tabernacle" as Hebrews puts it, and thus His truth / reality stood over against the shadows. In the context, the Lord is making a point to the Samaritan woman about where geographically God's house and place of worship should be- Zion or Gerizim. And as He often does, the Lord takes the question onto another level. 'The place of worship doesn't matter, the worship must be in spirit and in truth', i.e. the presence of God in the temple was to be ended, the Mosaic worship system with its need for geographical place and focus was about to end, and worship was to be internal, in the heart. And some, the Lord noticed, had already perceived that. So the context of Jn. 4:24 wasn't about the need for doctrinal / theological / intellectual truth. In Jn. 4:18 the Lord commends the woman because she "spoke truthfully / truly" about her marital state. As the Father was seeking "spirit and truth" worshippers, it was apparent to the disciples that the Lord Jesus was "seeking" this woman for God (Jn. 4:27). Her honesty meant she was beginning to worship in truth. And so He goes on to encourage her to worship God in spirit and truth[fulness]; her humble recognition of failure was the "truth" required for worship. But she needed to also accept the Spirit. She had the mind of David, who worshipped with 'truth in the inward parts' after recognizing his sin with Bathsheba. Notice how David says that God 'desires truth in the inward parts' (Ps. 51:6), and the Lord seems to be alluding to that when He says that God desires worship in spirit [inward parts] and truth. The context of sexual failure is the same for both the Samaritan woman, and David. If my reading of the allusions to David and Ps. 51 is correct, then the Lord wasn't talking at all about "truth" in the sense of pure theology. Rather was He referring to the "truth" of confession of sin and worship with a humble heart. It is the desperately repentant person who will fall down and worship God (Mt. 18:26 s.w.); this is the "spirit and truth" worshipper. And such a spirit is ultimately "the truth" which we are to finally arrive at.

The Jews and Samaritans had the idea that all they needed to do was to occasionally visit a place of worship in order to have a relationship with Him. The Lord, as His manner was, cut right across this by saying that as God is Spirit, so the true worshippers would worship Him in Spirit. If we believe that God is Spirit, if all He does and says constantly expresses His Spirit, then our lives likewise must be of non-stop worship, not through going occasionally into a temple or ecclesial meeting, but in living a spirit of life that worships Him in every situation (Jn. 4:20-24).

4:27 And upon this scene came his disciples, and they marvelled that he was speaking with a woman. Yet no one said: What are you seeking? Or, Why do you speak with her?-Seek for response in people. As the disciples came upon the Lord talking to the woman by the well, it looked as if He were seeking something (Jn. 4:27). But they didn’t ask what- for it was obvious. His body language reflected how He was seeking her salvation. He seeks the lost until He finds them, even now (Mt. 18:12; Lk. 15:8); as He looked up into the branches of the sycamore tree seeking Zacchaeus, He was epitomising how He came (and comes) to seek and save all the lost (Lk. 19:5,10). Our preaching to others isn’t a cold-hearted witness, or a theological debate; it is a seeking of glory to the Father; we exhort one another, considering how we may provoke to love (Heb. 10:24).

The Rabbis taught that a man should not salute a woman in a public place. For Jesus to talk to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn.4) was therefore an indication of his studied disregard of local tradition concerning women when it clashed with spiritual principles. The incident was “a strange innovation on Rabbinic custom and dignity”. The Talmud taught: “Six things are a disgrace to a disciple of the wise: He should not…converse with a woman in the street” (Babylonian Talmud: Berakoth “Benedictions” 43b). A woman could only be alone with two men, never with one, and this was within a town; outside a town, she had to be in the presence of three men (Babylonian Talmud: Kiddushin “Betrothals” 81a). But the Lord spoke to her alone. A woman could even be divorced for speaking to a man. “What conduct transgresses Jewish custom? If she…speaks with any man” (Mishnah: Ketuboth “Marriage Deeds” 7:6). There can be no doubt that the Lord didn’t accept the prevailing view of women. The Lord's conversations with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman are recorded in an intentional parallel in John 3 and 4. The man doesn't get it, he fails to perceive the double entendre in the Lord's words, and struggles with their deeper meaning. The Samaritan woman gets it straight away, and even responds to the Lord with the same kind of language.

4:28 So the woman left her waterpot and went away into the city, and said to the people- She had once been rather proud that she had something to draw with, and the Lord didn't. Leaving her waterpot was a statement that now she had found the living water which quenched thirst, and she no longer needed the natural water. She specifically "said to the men" (as AV). Were these "the men" of her former life? Why go to men in particular? The same word is used in :29 about the "man" she had found who she thinks is the Christ. She went to those with whom she had sinned.

4:29 Come, see a man who told me all things that I have ever done. Can this be the Christ?- She tells the men with whom she had sinned (:28) that she has found a man who told her all about their sins. There were no secrets any more; one man at least knew the entire story. And she believes she may well have found the Messiah. He let Himself be encouraged by her response to Him, even though her comment “Could this be the Messiah?” (Jn. 4:29) implies she was still uncertain. Raymond Brown has commented: “The Greek question with meti implies an unlikelihood” (The Gospel According To John, Vol. 1, p. 173). But we see throughout this incident how faith in Him as Messiah passes through stages- and of course John is appealing in his Gospel for others to likewise come to this faith to follow the path of this woman. She now understands Messiah as most importantly one who realizes our sins and can deal with them- rather than as some conquering hero. And this again was a necessary issue to emphasize in preaching in John's context.

4:30 They went out of the city and came to him- There was something in the frank witness of this sinful woman which was compelling. Just as biography is always interesting to us fellow humans, so confession of sin and faith it has been dealt with in Christ is the most compelling witness. 'Coming to Christ' is very much the language of conversion.

4:31 In the meantime the disciples pleaded with him, saying: Rabbi, eat- The disciples are presented here as focused on the material rather than the spiritual and symbolic. And it is John himself writing or speaking the Gospel message in this way, like the woman, admitting his own weakness in order to bring others to the Lord.

4:32 But he said to them: I have food to eat that you do not know- Dehydrated at the well, very hungry, the response of the Samaritan woman revived His spirits to the point that the disciples assumed He must have been give a meal (Jn. 4:32,33). He goes on to say that working with a woman like that is His "meat" or food, the 'doing of the will of him that sent Me and to accomplish His work' (4:34 RV). Yet the will of God and accomplishing of His work was evidently the cross (Lk. 22:42; Jn. 6:38; Heb. 10:9,10). In preaching to that woman and converting her, the Lord was living out the essence of the crucifixion that awaited Him. Preaching work isn’t glamorous. It is a living out of the cross.

4:33 The disciples queried each other: Has anyone brought him something to eat?- As noted on :31, the male Jewish disciples are presented as lacking the spiritual perception of this female Gentile. The disciples in their own preaching of the Gospel, of which John's Gospel is a transcript, were admitting their own petty literalism. And urging others to not be as they had been.

4:34 Jesus said to them: My food is to do the will of Him that sent me and to accomplish His work- See on :32. After the Lord converted the Samaritan woman at the well, He commented to His disciples that such work was His food- "to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work" (Jn. 4:34). But soon afterwards He claimed that "the works which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me" (Jn. 5:36). It's tempting to think that the "works" He spoke of were His miracles- but the linkage with Jn. 4:34 suggests that they were also references to the change He achieved within people. These transformed people were His witness- and the Samaritan woman is a classic example. For when He had done the Father's work in her, she rushed off to witness to the world. In Jn. 6:28,29 the Lord seems to consciously steer us away from understanding His "works" as merely the miracles of e.g. feeding and physical healing. In response to the question "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" He responds: "This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent".

The Lord saw His preaching work as a carrying of the cross. He spoke of how His witness to the Samaritan woman was a ‘finishing of the Father’s work’ (Jn. 4:34). The ‘finishing’ was clearly only accomplished upon the cross, when He cried “It is finished”, and He “fulfilled” or [s.w.] “finished” the Scriptures (Jn. 19:28). Thus in His life, He lived out the essence of His future cross by witnessing to others. Like Paul, we need to grasp what this means for us in practice. Crucifixion was a public, painful, sacrificial act; and true effort in witness will be the same. And this is exactly why Paul can speak of “the preaching of the cross”, the preaching which is the cross (Gk.). In His preaching to the woman at the well, the Lord saw Himself as ‘finishing God’s work’ (Jn. 4:32,34). And yet John evidently intends us to connect this incident with the Lord’s final cry from the cross which he records: “It is finished!". Only on the cross was the work finished; but by pushing aside His own hunger, tiredness and desire for solitude in order to convert that woman, the Lord even then was ‘finishing the Father’s work’, in that in essence He was living out the spirit of crucifixion. And so with us; the life of ongoing crucifixion demands that we consciously push ourselves in the service of others. The finishing of the Father’s work was accomplished in the cross- hence the final cry of triumph, “It is finished!" (19:30). But this meat was not appreciated by them in His lifetime. The work of sharing in Christ’s cross should be our meat and drink, to the eclipsing of the pressing nature of material things. For this was the context in which the Lord spoke; His men were pressing Him to attend to His humanity, whereas His mind was filled, even in tiredness and dehydration, with the living out of the cross unto the end. As He was exhausted and dehydrated by the well, so He was on the cross. He saw that “meat" in the conversion of the Samaritan woman. He saw the connection between His cross and the conversion of that woman; thus “the meat... the will... [God’s] work" was the cross, and yet it was also the conversion of the woman. The cross is essentially the converter of men and women, and thereby our crucifixion-lives are likewise the power of conversion.

4:35 Do you not say: There are yet four months and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white, ready to harvest- If they lifted up their eyes, they would see a file of Gentile men headed by a fallen woman coming towards them. And this was the whiteness of the harvest. Grain turns from green to yellow to white. Those people who were apparently expressing an initial interest were seen by the Lord as ready for harvest. Be believed the process of conversion could happen that quickly. And His disciples, from that day to this, struggle to believe it. They want to first see some course of instruction and a socializing of converts into their community. However it must be also noted that harvest in Palestine typically began after Passover; so the Lord may be hinting that it was after His death that the harvesting would begin. But then on the other hand, He has said that His "hour" of death was right then, it was both coming and yet "now is" (see on :23). The way of the Spirit involves working outside of time as we know it; as the essence of the hour of the cross was then, so the moment of sowing was also that of harvesting, the Spirit was not yet given because the Lord was not glorified, yet it could still be given; and so eternal life could be given now to people who remain still mortal.

The Gospel writers were preaching the words of the Gospels in response to their Lord’s command to go preach. Yet Jn. 4:35,38 records them recognizing that they didn’t appreciate how great the harvest was, and indeed the harvest was spoilt because of the weakness of the disciples. For the whiteness of harvest rather than it being yellow might hint that it was overdue for harvest. The Lord Himself was of the persuasion that people are more interested than His brethren may think. "You say 'Four months from sowing to harvest: the time is not yet'... [But I say that] the fields are already white for reaping. Already the reaper is taking his pay" (Jn. 4:35). Four months was the time reckoned proverbially for the sown seed to come to harvest in Judea. It seems that the disciples thought there had to be a gap between sowing and reaping, whereas the Lord is saying that people were more ready for harvest than His preachers thought. The Kingdom prophecies speak of a time when the sower shall overtake the reaper, i.e. there is immediate fruition of the crop planted. And so it was in the Lord's spiritual Kingdom; the seed had fruit immediately. And it can be the same with us- our insistence that there has to be a respectable gap between sowing the Gospel and reaping the harvest isn't a concept upheld by the Lord. There's more of a harvest out there than we think. And perhaps the relatively poor response to the preaching of Jesus in AD30-33 was because His disciples didn't do their part?

4:36 He that reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit to everlasting life; that he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together- The reapers were the disciples (:38). If they reaped, they would receive wages, and the fruit of the converts they gathered would be that those converts received eternal life. Not just at the last day, but in the sense John's Gospel speaks of- receiving the gift of life after the pattern of the Lord's life, right now. The "wages" surely suggests that work with the likes of the Samaritan woman has its blessings in this life, as well as having eternal consequence.

The experience of preaching is in itself a foretaste of the future world-wide Kingdom. The harvest is both at the end of the age, according to the parables of Mt. 13, but also is ongoing right now (Jn. 4:36) as we gather in the harvest of converts. The Lord in Jn. 4:35,36 took this figure far further, by saying that the harvest is such that the interval between sowing and harvesting is in some sense collapsed for those who engage in preaching. The reaper was already collecting his wages; the harvest was already there, even though it was four months away (Jn. 4:35). This clearly alludes to the promises that in the Messianic Kingdom there would also be no interval between sowing and harvest, so abundant would be the harvest (Lev. 26:5; Am. 9:13). And hence, we are impelled to spread the foretaste of the Kingdom world-wide by our witness right now.

The final judgment will be of our works, not because works justify us, but because our use of the freedom we have had and exercised in our lives is the basis of the future reward we will be given. Salvation itself is not on the basis of our works (Rom. 11:6; Gal. 2:16; Tit. 3:5); indeed, the free gift of salvation by pure grace is contrasted with the wages paid by sin (Rom. 4:4; 6:23). And yet at the judgment, the preacher receives wages for what he did (Jn. 4:36), the labourers receive hire (s.w. wages) for their work in the vineyard (Mt. 20:8; 1 Cor. 3:8). There is a reward (s.w. wages) for those who rise to the level of loving the totally unresponsive (Mt. 5:46), or preaching in situations quite against their natural inclination (1 Cor. 9:18). Salvation itself isn’t given on this basis of works; but the nature of our eternal existence in the Kingdom will be a reflection of our use of the gift of freedom in this life. In that sense the judgment will be of our works. There are many passages which teach that our salvation will be related to the extent to which we have held forth the word  both to the world and to the household (Prov. 11:3; 24:11,12; Dan. 12:3; Mk. 8:38; Lk. 12:8; Rom. 10:9,10 cp. Jn. 9:22; 12:42; 1:20; 1 Pet. 4:6  Gk.). Those who reap the harvest of the Gospel will be rewarded with salvation (Jn. 4:36). Such work isn't just an option for those who want to be enthusiastic about it.

4:37 For herein is the saying true: One sows and another reaps- This is perhaps John's equivalent to the parable of the sower in the synoptics. The Lord is the sower. The Lord likened His preachers to men reaping the harvest. The implication is that He had done His work with the woman, and they were to now work with the crowd of Gentile men she was bringing to Him. He speaks of how they fulfilled the proverb that one sows and another reaps (Jn. 4:37,38). Yet this ‘proverb’ has no direct Biblical source. What we do find in the Old Testament is the repeated idea that if someone sows but another reaps, this is a sign that they are suffering God’s judgment for their sins (Dt. 20:6; 28:30; Job 31:8; Mic. 6:15). But the Lord turns around the ‘proverb’ concerning Israel’s condemnation; He makes it apply to the way that the preacher / reaper who doesn’t sow is the one who harvests others in converting them to Him. Surely His implication was that His preacher-reapers were those who had known condemnation for their sins, but on that basis were His humbled harvesters in the mission field.

4:38 I sent you to harvest that upon which you have not laboured; others have laboured, and you are taking over their labour- Harvesting what one has not worked for is the language of Israel receiving the promised land (Josh. 24:13). The Kingdom blessings were to be understood spiritually- harvesting people for the Lord for whom they had done none of the hard, preparatory ground work. "Laboured" is used only elsewhere in John in :6 about how the Lord sat at the well "wearied" or 'laboured'; He had laboured, although He graciously includes others in His work, and He invited the disciples to now go reap the harvest for which they had not laboured. Perhaps the others who had laboured is some reference to an outreach toward Samaritans made by John the Baptist and his disciples. The language of taking over their labour would be appropriate to how the Lord's disciples were to build upon the earlier spade work done by John's ministry. Or perhaps the other labourers referred to the Samaritan woman and her initial group of converts; the idea would then be that the disciples ought to return to the area and secure a great harvest as a result of their witness. But such was their slowness to perceive the Lord's openness to Samaritan Gentiles that the disciples did not do this in time. To see themselves as taking over the labour of despised Samaritans was too much for them; their prejudices had been too great. And perhaps John records this in order to demonstrate the weakness of himself and his team, a lament over the potential they had let go.  

4:39 And from that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified: He told me all things that I have ever done- The Samaritan woman at the well had a sense of shame and deep self-knowledge over her, as she realised that Christ knew her every sin. It was with a humble sheepishness that she confessed: “I have no husband", because she was living in sin. She was converted by that well. Immediately she "left her waterpot, and went her way into the city (the record inviting us to watch her from a distance), and saith to the men  (significantly), Come, see a man... is not this the Christ?" (Jn. 4:17,28,29). There was a wondrous mixture of enthusiasm and shyness in those words: "Come, see a man...". It is a feature of many new converts that their early  preaching has a similar blend. It is stressed that men believed because of the way the woman told them “He told me all that ever I did” (Jn. 4:39). He had recounted her past sins to her (4:18,19). And she now, in matchless humility, goes and tells her former life to her associates, using the very words of description which the Lord had used. He convicted her of her sins, and this conviction resulted in her unashamed witness.

We see how belief is predicated at times upon the word of a third party other than the Lord. We can bring people to faith, and also stumble them in their walk.

4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they pleaded with him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days- Coming to Jesus in John's Gospel means to believe in Him. They wanted Him to "stay" or "abide" with them, a common theme in John of the Lord abiding in the hearts of believers. They are set up as model converts, in whom the Lord 'abode' after conversion. As John's Gospel later explains, this is achieved by Him through His Spirit, which means that He is present as really as if He were physically present with us. His abiding by the Spirit is a sign of acceptance, and His abiding with them at a time when a Jew like Peter could not go inside the home of a Gentile was surely a public indication of His acceptance of Gentiles. Peter and others who so objected to such fellowship after His resurrection were clearly forgetting, willfully, the implication of such incidents.

4:41 And many more believed because of his word- Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by God's word; it's as if these Gentile converts are being set up as role models for all who should thereafter believe. Their belief was as valid as those who believed for the sake of the woman's testimony, that she had met a man who knew all of her sins, and was thereby, by implication, able to deal with them. This large scale conversion is significant because there is no hint that any miracle was done in order to provoke faith. It was conversion on the basis of the Lord's power to know human personal history and to forgive. It becomes even more programmatic for all who would afterwards believe.

4:42- see on Jn. 20:31.

And they said to the woman: Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world- They realized that the true Messiah was not Saviour solely of Israel, but of the kosmos, which John has defined in the prologue as the new world of persons who believe in Him. Acts 5:31 defines His 'salvation' in terms of Him giving both repentance and forgiveness to people; and this is exactly what the Lord had done to the woman and other Samaritans. He had given provoked in her repentance, and empowered her forgiveness. This is all the work of the Spirit.

4:43 And after two days he left for Galilee- Perhaps He wanted to give the disciples a break from attention, and so He went somewhere where He thought they would not have much acceptance nor attention (:44). But in the same way as during His working life the Lord could have made technical mistakes in His manual work, so here, things didn't turn out as He had perhaps intended. In John's Gospel more than the others we see the Lord's deep humanity, mixed with the highest terms of praise for Him.

4:44 Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country- As noted on :43, the Lord assumed He would not be welcomed there and He could have some quality time teaching the disciples in their native environment. The common proverb was repeated or testified to with approval by the Lord. But things turned out not as He had expected (:45)- another window onto His humanity, as is the description of Galilee as "His own country". See on :48.

4:45 So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all the things that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they also had gone up to the feast- As noted on :43 and :44, this welcome was perhaps not what the Lord had expected. Their belief however was because they had seen miracles at the feast (2:23); unlike the Samaritans, of whom we have just read, who believed without having seen miracles.

4:46 He came again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum- The Lord's return to Cana was perhaps as a follow up to His witness there previously. Perhaps He sought to try again with Nicodemus, whom I suggested on 2:1 was there. His attempt to follow up with individuals, despite the large scale of His ministry, is a reflection of the huge value the Lord attached to the individual.

4:47 When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded that he would come to Capernaum and heal his son. For his son was at the point of death- To make that 20 mile journey over mountainous terrain displayed quite some faith. Perhaps this nobleman was one of those who had encountered the Lord at the feast in Jerusalem (:45). The fact he came personally rather than send messengers or servants again indicates a genuine personal faith. The Greek is literally "come down to Capernaum", which reflects the topography (as 2:12); all encouraging confirmations that we are reading a genuine account rather than one fabricated for personal reasons.

4:48 Jesus replied to him: Except you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe- The Lord criticized the people for their refusal to believe apart from by seeing signs and wonders. In line with this, the Lord attacks Nicodemus’ belief on the basis of the miracles, saying that instead, a man must be born again if he wishes to see the Kingdom (Jn. 3:2,3). But later He says that the disciples were being given miraculous signs greater than even healing to help them believe (Jn. 11:15); He bids people believe because they saw signs, even if they were unimpressed by Him personally (Jn. 5:20; 10:37; 14:11). Clearly enough, the Lord was desperate for people to believe, to come to some sort of faith- even if the basis of that faith wasn’t what He ideally wished. And it’s possible that His initial high demand for people to believe not because they saw miracles was relaxed as His ministry proceeded; for the statements that faith was not to be based upon His miracles is found in Jn. 3 and 4, whereas the invitations to believe because of His miracles is to be found later in John. This challenges the attitude that sets a bar of faith and understanding over which people must first leap before we work with them.

I noted on :43 and :44 that the Lord had expected little response in Galilee, and yet there was response. In this we have a window onto His utter humanity. Likewise perhaps in this comment that faith would only come from seeing miracles; for the nobleman did not see the miracle, but believed.

4:49 The nobleman said to him: Sir, come before my child dies- The man thought that the Lord's physical presence was required for the miracle. His faith was therefore incomplete, but all the same, the Lord worked with Him. And just as He does today with us, sought to stretch the faith of the man.

4:50 Jesus said to him: Go your way. Your son lives. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way- The man of course could have disbelieved; yet the Lord had done the miracle anyway. So the Lord was as it were desperately hopeful that his challenge to the development of the man's faith would work- and it did. And yet his faith was still immature; for although it is stated that the nobleman believed the Lord’s words, it was only once his son was healed that he really believed (Jn. 4:50 cp. 54).

4:51 And as he was going home, his servants met him, saying that his son lived- They would have known that he had gone to Cana to seek the Lord Jesus and healing from Him. They were so thrilled that they began the 20 mile journey to meet Him. They met their master as he "was going down" (AV)- i.e. as he was coming down the final slope toward Capernaum. We wonder why they had delayed coming to him; perhaps they wanted to be sure the child had really recovered. All this has the circumstantial ring of truth to it which permeates the inspired records.

4:52 So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. They replied to him: Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him- If "the seventh hour" means 1 p.m. [assuming counting time from sunrise- although there are various possibilities; Roman time would have been 7 p.m.], then the man would have walked or travelled home through the night, arriving the next day, so that the servants spoke of "Yesterday". Travelling overnight was a risky undertaking as Galilee was full of road thieves. But he was so eager to see the result of faith. "Began to get better" is also an indication of incomplete faith; he imagined that the Lord's healing word would have only gradual effect, whereas the child had perhaps died and been resurrected at that time ["your son lives"]. In any case, the fever abruptly "left him" at a specific time and not as part of any gradual process of feeling better, as the nobleman with his limited faith had imagined.

4:53 The father knew that that was the hour when Jesus had said to him: Your son lives. And so he and his household believed- As noted on :50, the man's initial belief had not been strong; but now it became stronger. Or it could be that he had set himself the condition to the effect that if his son was really healed, then he would believe; and that condition was met. Christ saw that man's low level of faith, and took him where he was, with the result that he soon rose up to a higher level. The Lord must have reflected on the wide differences between the various levels of faith and commitment He encountered. Jairus besought Him to lay His hands on his daughter (Mk. 5:23); whilst the Centurion's attitude was "say the word only" (Lk. 7:6). His faith was undoubtedly on a higher level (Lk. 7:9), but still the Lord accepted the lower level of Jairus and worked with it. He was manifesting His Father in this. Reflect how Daniel refused to eat the food sent to him from the King of Babylon; but God arranged for this very thing to be sent to Jehoiachin as a sign of His recognition of his repentance (Jer. 52:34)! God saw that Jehoiachin wasn't on Daniel's level, and yet He worked with him.

The idea of whole households "believing" is common in the New Testament; the early church was largely a network of household churches.

4:54 This was the second sign that Jesus did, when he had gone from Judea to Galilee- There is a question as to whether this is the same miracle of the centurion's servant being healed in Capernaum which we have in Mt. 8:5 and Lk. 7:2. I would argue that they are similar, but different:

(1) Here a ‘king’s man’ pleads for his son; there a centurion for his servant.
(2) Here he pleads in person; there the Jewish elders plead for him.
(3) Here the father is probably a Jew; there the centurion is certainly a Gentile.
(4) Here the healing words are spoken at Cana; there at Capernaum.
(5) Here the malady is fever; there paralysis.
(6) Here the father wishes Jesus to come; there the centurion begs him not to come.
(7) Here Christ does not go; there apparently he does.

The similarity I suggest is that the faith of the Gentile centurion is presented as far stronger than that of the spiritually immature Jewish nobleman. The similarities suggest that perhaps that Gentile had heard of the healing of the nobleman's child, and was motivated by it to complete faith, just as we are motivated by accounts of faith rewarded in others' lives to ourselves have even stronger faith than in the cases we heard about.