The Spring of Living Water
Notes
Transcript
Please turn in your Bible’s to John’s Gospel, chapter four. We are beginning the fourth chapter this evening and will be here for a few weeks.
The passage we are examining tonight is a very familiar story. Jesus and the woman at the well. In this passage we will again see the contrast of the humanity of Christ against his divine nature. We will see his treatment of those who are outcast in society. We see him breaking the social and cultural norms of the day. And we will see him seeking after those who are the elect and calling them, revealing himself to them.
So John chapter four starting in verse one.
1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 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.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 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.) 10 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.” 11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 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.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 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.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
This chapter is yet another dialogue that we see with Jesus and someone else. In chapter three we saw a long dialogue with Nicodemus, and here in chapter four we see a long dialogue with this Samaritan woman and the contrasts between the two individuals could not be greater.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a religious male. She was untrained, a female peasant. Nicodemus started with theological issues, the Samaritan woman practical issues. Nicodemus was a Jew, the woman a Samaritan. Their attitudes were different. Nicodemus showed respect, she showed hostility.
But there is one thing that both of these individuals had in common. There is one thing that bonds them together. They both needed a savior. They were both condemned sinners and the savior was revealing himself to them.
We start out the chapter with a transition from chapter three.
1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
Now we do not know what exactly the Pharisees thought about Jesus at this point, but we do know what they thought about John the Baptist. They were concerned about the mass followings each of these men were gaining for themselves. What right do they have? What authority do they have?
Jesus finds out about this and decides to leave. They leave Judea where Jerusalem is found and decide to go back to their home territory of Galilee. Remember it was in Galilee that Cana is found where he turned the water into wine in chapter two. It is in Galilee that Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, is found. It is in Galilee where many of his disciples were from. And that is where they are heading back to. And in order to get to Galilee they had to pass through Samaria as we see in verse four.
Now we need to unpack verse four for a second to make sense of it. Obviously, Samaria, the path through Samaria, was not the only way to Galilee from Judea. You could go to other routes. You could cross over the Jordan and come up into Galilee from the East. You could also go west to the Mediterranean Sea and come around that way into Galilee. Both of those alternate routes would add days onto the journey of the already three-day journey from Judea by way of Samaria.
Now many people say that Jews never went through Samaria and would do anything and everything they could to go around Samaria on one of the other two routes. In fact, this is what I have been taught my entire life. And thinking and teaching this makes what Jesus did seem all the more amazing. Why would he go through Samaria? However, that was not the case at all. That is an incorrect teaching. Josephus, the ancient historian, writes this in his work the Antiquities of the Jews.
The Works of Josephus: New Updated Edition Chapter 6: How There Happened a Quarrel between the Jews and the Samaritans; and How Claudius Put an End to Their Differences
It was the custom of the Galileans, when they came to the holy city at the festivals, to take their journeys through the country of the Samaritans;
So obviously this was not some strange thing for Jesus to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. But it also says they had to. This can be taken two different ways. One, it can just mean they had to because that was the custom. It can also mean that they had to because of a divine appointment with the Samaritan woman. Or it can be both.
Nevertheless, they are travelling through Samaria in order to get to Galilee and they come to Jacob’s well.
John 4:
4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 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.
Now Jacob’s well is not mentioned in the Old Testament but it is well-known that it was traditionally passed down through generations that this was a well dug by the Patriarch himself. Geographically it also fits as verse 5 tells us that it was near the field that Jacob gave to Joseph.
This was a deep well. In fact, this well is still there today. You can go see it. It is approximately 106 feet deep. And they would have to draw water from this well.
It says in verse six that Jesus was weary from the journey. They would likely have been travelling by foot. It is a long journey, it is a hot journey and they come to Sychar and Jesus decides to rest at Jacob’s well here at the sixth hour. This would be around noon time the hot part of the day.
It’s important to note that Jesus was weary. This reminds us that though he was God, he was also human. He felt what we felt. He got tired, he got hungry, he was like us in every way except one, he never sinned. It is important. Jesus was human. He was not some projection of a human kind of like a hologram. He was truly God and also truly man. Let’s just take a moment to look at a few verses that affirm the reality of his human nature. Obviously here in verse six he is tired, in the next verse we will see he is thirsty.
We see Jesus thirst at the cross.
John 19:28-
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.
2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.
18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.
Jesus was truly human as well as truly God. This is important as I said because there is a heresy called Docetism that, as I said, believes Jesus was just some sort of projected humanity but not real humanity. Jesus walked like us, talked like us, became hungry, thirsty, tired like us. He was human.
This is important because of what it means for us as we read in .
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
We have a savior that understands what we go through. He understands our needs. He understands our trials and he can sympathize with our weakness. He has been tempted as we are tempted. But he did not sin. But because of this, because he is like we are, yet without sin, he was able to save us.
John 4:
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Now there are two strange things about this interaction. First is the time of day the woman is coming. It says she was coming at noon, the hottest part of the day. This would have been strange because the women would normally come to draw water early in the morning or in the evening when it would have been cooler. She was also alone which was not normal in that culture. Why she came at this time and why she was alone we do not know for sure. But we can safely assume, based on the rest of the chapter and what Jesus will expose, is there must have been some desire to avoid others by this woman. She was guilty, ashamed. She did not want to be around the other women.
The second oddity about this interaction is that Jesus is speaking with this woman. This is strange for several reasons. The first is that this is a Jewish man speaking to a woman. This just was not done in that culture. Men and women did not speak in public. Especially strangers. This would go against the culture. Second is that she was a Samaritan. Jews did not speak to Samaritans as we see later. This is an animosity, a hatred, that goes back centuries. And I want to take a couple of minutes to look at the issues between the Jews and Samaritans because the hatred ran deep and there are many underlying reasons. It was not just straight racism, it was much deeper than that.
2 Kings 17.6
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Assyria has now captured Samaria and took the Israelites into exile. Now we know from other places in Scripture, namely , that not all of the Israelites were taken. Some were allowed to remain there in Samaria. Later in it tells us that the Assyrians resettled Samaria and took possession of the land. They intermarried with the Israelites that remained in the land. As a result, the Israelites, and their descendants, that were in Samaria started to worship the gods of the Assyrians as well as the Lord God.
33 So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
It was because of this that when the rest of the Israelites returned to the land from their exile they no longer viewed the Samaritans as fellow Israelites of children of the promises of God. Instead, they viewed them as rebels, half-breeds, pagans, sub-humans. They hated the Samaritans and what they had done and continued to do.
Eventually the Samaritans became less involved with the pagan gods and returned to only worshipping the Lord but they only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament as Scripture. They did not accept the prophets of Israel. They also did not accept Jerusalem as the place to worship God. We will see more of this in a few minutes.
But the point is that the hatred of the Samaritans by the Jews were great. And now Jesus is speaking to not only a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman. This broke every social norm. In fact, later the Jews would codify a law that showed this longstanding hatred of Samaritans and Samaritan women that in the Mishnah they would write that all of the daughters of the Samaritans are menstraunts from their cradle and therefore are eternally unclean. They were to be avoided at all costs, especially Samaritan women.
But this Samaritan woman comes to Jacob’s well and Jesus asks her for a drink. Verse 8 tells us as an aside from John that the disciples were not there. They had gone on into Sychar to buy food for their journey.
But, as I said, Jesus asks this woman for a drink of water. Naturally she is confused. Verse 9.
9 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.)
I like the way the Message puts it.
9 The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)
As I said, this broke all of the social norms. This just was not done and she is amazed by it. Wait, you are asking me? Do you know who I am? Do you know what I am? Do you know what you are? You Jews aren’t supposed to be conversing with us Samaritans. You hate us! We are nothing to you! You think we are half-breeds, worthless, lower than the earth itself. And yet, Jesus has asked her for a drink.
Jesus he is not swayed by this. He is not distracted. He has two purposes for speaking to her. We know he was thirsty, but he has an opportunity here so he responds.
10 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.”
What is this gift from God Jesus is referring to? It is the eternal life that Jesus will tell her that he can give her. It is also another parallel to the conversation with Nicodemus. The gift of God would be considered by that culture to be the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. So he could be saying to her, if you really knew the Scriptures, you would be saying something different. Remember, this is the same way he responded to Nicodemus in chapter three.
10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?
In both cases, Jesus said if they knew the Scriptures, they should know what he is about, what he is saying and what he is teaching them.
Jesus says to her that she would be asking him for a drink if she understood these things. And he would give her living water.
And the response she gives shows a clear lack of understanding on her part.
John 4:11
11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
She doesn’t understand that Jesus is talking about her spiritual state. She still thinks he is talking about physical water. She sees he has nothing to draw water from this deep well. Remember, Jacob’s well is over 100 feet deep. How is he going to get this living water? Is Jesus greater than her ancestor Jacob?
The Samaritans held Jacob as greater than most. A great man. How could Jesus be greater than Jacob? Jacob had to dig this well, he had to lower buckets down to draw water from it as did the rest of his descendants. Are you greater than he was? Are you somehow going to just make this water flow up?
She is in utter disbelief of what Jesus is telling her. Obviously, this is because she does not understand what he is talking about, but she is also scoffing at him, ridiculing him. Mocking him in a way. Where do you plan on getting this water from sir?
Just as Nicodemus thought being born again was somehow talking about physical birth and questioned Jesus in disbelief, the Samaritan woman does the same thing here at Jacob’s well. So Jesus again tries to explain things to her.
John 4:
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.”
Obviously this is not physical water, we see that plainly. This is a water that will allow you to never thirst again, water that will become a spring of water that leads to eternal life. This is the Gospel. Christ can give us life that we cannot have without him. He can restore us to our state before the fall, a state that is right with God, a state in which death is no more! It is water that Christ and Christ alone can give to her and anyone who asks of him for it. It is a fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied in .
3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.
And also
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
But, the woman still does not understand. She is thinking still in the natural and physical sense of water and thirst.
15 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.”
She thinks the best thing that Jesus is offering is that she will not be physically thirsty anymore. That she will no longer have to draw water from this well dragging her buckets with her. She is focused on the temporal, the immediate, the physical, but Jesus is speaking of the spiritual. We need to understand the spiritual matters are above the physical temporal matters. You can be in the best physical shape possible, with the best physical standing possible, the best physical situation, but if you are not in the best spiritual position, that is having eternal life, you have missed everything. It is all meaningless.
The woman does not understand at all what Jesus is saying or what he is offering to her. She just wants a drink that will last, but he is offering everlasting life. He is giving her the best news she will ever hear, yet she does not understand. She doesn’t get it. And Jesus knows how he will get her attention. Verse 16.
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
Jesus is turning the table here, he knows her situation but she doesn’t know that. So he asks her to go home and get her husband. And this is how she responds.
Only read the first part of the verse.
John 4:17
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
I have no husband sir. I have no one to go get and fulfill your request. She knows that is not the whole story but she has no reason to let Jesus know that. But Jesus already knows the answer.
Only read the second half of 17 and all of 18
John 4:17-
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
Jesus knows her situation. Remember, he is God. He knows all. He knew exactly what her situation was because he created her. He knew her even though she did not know and had never met him. He tells her that she is correct, technically, when she says that she has no husband. He proceeds to tell her she has not had one husband, not two husbands, not three, not four, but five husbands! Now, we do not know if these husbands died, or if they divorced her for some reason but the fact is that she had five. I don’t know if I know anyone who has been married five times. That would be out of the ordinary today and even more so in the first century culture.
But what is worse, the man she is now living with is not even her husband. So this woman has had five marriages, all have failed, and now there is a sixth man involved that she is not even married to! It is no wonder that she goes to the well at noon, it is no wonder she goes to the well alone. This woman does not want to see people. She does not want to live through the ridicule. She doesn’t want to endure the shame and scorn and now she is talking to a stranger, a Jewish stranger who would already look down on her for being a Samaritan, at least that is what she would have thought, and he somehow knows all of this about her! Who is this man? How could he possibly know all of this? At this point she must be in a bit of a shock.
But she wants to turn the table back. She wants the heat off of herself so she changes the subject.
John 4:19-
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
She changes the subject to a theological question. She does this because she understands that he has some sort of supernatural insight by being able to tell her all of these things about her even though he does not know her.
Remember the history of the Samaritans and the Jews, the Samaritans thought that they should worship on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans based this off of the writings of Moses, remember they did not accept anything else as Scripture. Because of this, they refused to accept Jerusalem as the proper place of worship. So she asks this question of Jesus to test him. What will he say? But at the same time she is able to distract from the issue he had raised. What is the proper place of worship? Who is right? Is it us Samaritans or the Jews? Who is really following God?
Jesus gives her another answer that she would not have expected. It is an answer that would rock the core of the Jewish faith and tradition as well.
John 4:21
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus is saying you do not understand! The hour is coming, very shortly, that none of that will matter. The old covenant is ending. A new covenant is coming. You will not need to worship the Lord on this mountain, you will not need to worship the Lord in Jerusalem, you will be able to worship him everywhere. The veil will be torn. You will have access to the Father. Salvation is coming through the Jews. The hour is coming, and, in fact, the hour is here. I am the way, I am the one that brings about this change. This is what he will show her in just a moment. But the true worshippers, they will worship the Father in spirit and truth and that is who the Father seeks.
Worship in spirit. This is not referring to the Holy Spirit. This is referring to the internal spirit of the person. You must worship the Lord both internally and externally. But not because of a subjection to rules and laws about worship as they have been following for centuries. Worship must be internal. Because it is within you. It is part of you. It is what is in your heart. And what is within you pours out in worship to the Lord. It is what we have been talking about all along in the Gospel of John. Believing is not just an outward thing. It is a turning of your life over to God. It is an about face, a change. It is internal. Yes we confess and profess, but we must also believe in our heart. It is internal. It is within us. It is being born again. It is a new life. It is a new creation. The external is important but it is nothing without the internal.
And we worship in truth. That is to say that we worship in the way Scripture calls us to. Our worship of God, our actions, our hearts should be centered on what the Scriptures teach us. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind.
God seeks out these worshippers by calling them to himself. He draws them and they have that change and they believe.
Even after this, she still does not quite grasp what Jesus is telling her.
25 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.”
She was confused, she wanted to understand but did not think Jesus did a very good job at it. So she says she knows a Messiah is coming. She knows Christ will be given. And she knows that when Christ comes he will explain everything to them. He will teach them the way. They looked to the promise of .
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
And Jesus then reveals everything to her.
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
I am he! I am the one! You are looking for me woman! The Messiah you long for, the one who you think and believe will tell you all things I am that Messiah. I am the Christ. I am telling you all things and I am drawing you to myself to tell you the truth! I am that way of salvation. I am the one that gives you that life, that is the water that I am speaking about. I am the Christ!
Jesus reveals himself plainly to her. Something he had not so clearly done in Jerusalem. He spoke in what seemed like riddles in Jerusalem at the temple. But to this woman he puts it all out there. I am the Christ. I am he.
Just as Jesus makes this revelation they are interrupted by the disciples
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
For all of the reasons we have already discussed they were amazed that he was speaking with this woman but they did not dare question him. But they were shocked and surprised. But the woman, she was amazed by what she had been told by Christ.
28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
She runs, leaving her water jar, she runs back to the town and says you will not believe what has just happened to me! There is a man who told me everything that I have ever done. I’ve never met him before but he knows everything about me! Could he truly be the Christ?
She doesn’t tell them everything that Jesus told her. They would hardly believe that she met the Christ but they would come see a man who could tell everything about her without ever even meeting her.
She is on fire. She is filled with excitement! Come and see! You have to see this! You must meet Jesus. So they followed her and went to Christ.
Jesus plainly reveals himself to those who have been given to him. He calls them. He offers them hope. He offers life. He offers the spring of living water.
And just as the Samaritan woman responded, just as Philip responded in John chapter one, we should go to everyone we know, we should be excited, we should say, come and see the Christ. Come and see the savior!
Jesus has revealed himself plainly to us and we should tell that good news to anyone and everyone we come across. We should shout it from the rooftops. Come see the man, come see the Christ, come meet the Lord who knows everything we have said, everything we have done, and takes it all away so that we might be called righteous.
As we go out of here tonight, let us be ignited with the fire of evangelism that we should tell the world about Christ and bring glory to his great name.
Let us pray.
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