John 4:16–42

4:16–18 Go Call Your Husband. John does not tell us how Jesus knew this woman’s history. Even if we surmise that the circumstances indicted her, that she was at the well by herself at an inopportune time in an effort to avoid other people, this does not account for the specifics of what Jesus says. He not only gets the issue right when he tells her to go call her husband (v. 16); when she denies that she has a husband, he affirms her response and ups the ante by stating she has had five husbands and the man she has now is not her husband (vv. 17–18). This could mean she had been with five men who were husbands to other women, or perhaps she herself had been married to five different men and now is with a man to whom she is not married. Regardless, Jesus addresses the woman’s sin.

She has asked for the living water he offered (v. 15), and Jesus in essence tells her that in order to receive such water she must deal with the sin in her life (v. 16). She denies that she has sin, but Jesus proves the point with devastating accuracy (vv. 17–18).

The woman’s reply, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet” (v. 19), shows that Jesus was right. It also serves as a segue for her to attempt to dodge the issue. The Samaritan woman has questions, and rather than do what Jesus has said, she raises one such question. In doing so she shifts the attention away from herself and raises a legitimate issue. Jesus was obviously Jewish. She was Samaritan. Could he answer the questions at the heart of the divide between the two peoples? If he could, she might have to reckon with his indictment of her sin. He could answer the question, and he did. She then accepted his claims and testified to his identity.

4:19–26 Worship in Spirit and Truth. What caused the woman to recognize that Jesus was a prophet (v. 19)? His accurate recounting of her history (vv. 16–18, 29, 39). In response to this, the woman makes a statement to Jesus that raises the question about the root of the divide between Samaritans and Jews: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” (v. 20).

In his reply, Jesus avers that the issue she has raised is irrelevant because the times have decisively changed with his coming (v. 21). Jesus then affirms the Jews and Jerusalem as the people and place of God (v. 22) before elaborating on the new situation that results from his coming (vv. 23–24). The woman indicates that she is aware that a promised Messiah is on the way, one who will decide such disputes (v. 25), and Jesus asserts that he is the one of whom she speaks (v. 26).

In questioning where people should worship God, the woman asks whether her people, the Samaritans, or the people of Jesus, the Jews, are in the right (v. 20). Jesus responds, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (v. 21). Jesus points beyond the dispute itself to a new state of affairs that will make the claims made by both sides obsolete. This reply diffuses some of the tension inherent to the dispute by showing that it has only temporary significance.

Having lowered the temperature of the issue, Jesus then affirms that God chose Jerusalem and the Jews: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (v. 22). Jesus has told this woman that she is a sinner (vv. 16–18), and now he tells her that her people are in the wrong and their loathed enemies are in the right (v. 22). Some are unwilling to tell people the truth, truth they need to hear. But Jesus is unafraid. He softens the truth by showing that worship in Jerusalem is not ultimate (v. 21), but he does not shrink from affirming the truth while setting it in its wider context: Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship, but it will not be so forever, as he explains in verses 23–24.

Jesus had said “the hour is coming” in verse 21, and he repeats it in verse 23, adding, “and is now here” (cf. 5:25). A new state of affairs is on the way and has arrived with his coming, as a shift in salvation eras has now been set in motion. How have things changed? Deuteronomy 12:5 and many other texts instruct Israel to worship Yahweh at the place where he would choose to set his name, and God eventually chose Jerusalem (cf., e.g., Ps. 68:15–16). In this passage, then, Jesus announces that something God commanded in the OT has come to an end, namely, worship in Jerusalem at the temple.

Behold the greatness of Jesus: who else but Jesus could declare that a commandment of God had expired? Who else but Jesus could do this righteously, with no sin, with no abrogation of God’s authority, with God’s approval, with the result that the standard for obedient worship shifts from what God said in the OT to what Jesus says in the NT. As Jesus does this, John intends for us to understand that God’s authority is enacted in Jesus as the Word who is God (John 1:1, 14). Thus there is no conflict between Jesus and God. Jesus exercises God’s authority to declare that the time has come for a fundamental change in the nature of worship.

Because worship will be “neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem” (4:21) but “in spirit and truth” (v. 23), it seems the phrase “in spirit and truth” should be understood as a new kind of place—not a literal place but the realm of the Spirit. Rather than worshiping in Jerusalem at the temple, in the new covenant that Jesus brings true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit, partaking of the realm of the Spirit wherever they find themselves.

Those who are born again belong to the realm of the Spirit: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (3:6). And those who are born again into the realm of the Spirit will worship in that same realm: “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (4:23). How do people get into that realm? Jesus says in 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Jesus further declares, “The Father is seeking such people to worship him” (4:23). This is not a self-centered need for praise from an insecure artist. This is the one who is worthy, who is seeking to give us the joy of doing what we were made to do: enjoy him. We seek and strive and yearn and grope for greatness, and there is nothing more awe-inspiring, more challenging to all our capacities, more demanding of everything we are as humans, than knowing God. We were made for God. We were made to experience him and respond in praise. God wants what is best for us, and there is nothing better he can give us than himself. All who seek happiness need to know: God seeks worshipers who will worship him in spirit and truth. Many claim to seek truth. Many claim to seek a higher sphere of existence. They strain and grasp for something to ease the ache and satisfy the longing. Jesus speaks in verse 23 of people’s finding supreme joy celebrating the greatness of God in spirit and truth.

Jesus goes on to say, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (v. 24). That God is spirit seems to assert that he is not material. This statement also emphasizes that God belongs to the realm of the Spirit. No images are to be made of God because he is spirit and transcends all that is material. True worshipers must worship God in accordance with who and what he is: true worshipers must worship “in spirit and truth.” Imagine the Samaritan woman trying to process on the spot all that Jesus has said to her. He surprised her by asking for a drink (vv. 7–9) before offering her living water (vv. 10–15). He then indicted her sin with specifics (vv. 16–18) and announced that a shift was taking place in salvation history that would render localized worship obsolete, declaring that the hour had come when true worshipers, the kind sought by the Father, would worship him in spirit and truth (vv. 19–24). What is she to make of this man? How is she to comprehend all he said?

She made an assertion that was a question in verse 20, and that may be what she does again in verse 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.’” In saying this, she may be fishing for the kind of reaction that was elicited from her comment back in verse 20. If that’s what she is doing, it works. Jesus replies, “I Am—the one speaking to you” (v. 26 AT). In the context of John’s Gospel, these words resonate with other places where Jesus declares, “I Am.” He is the Messiah and is to be identified with the one who revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush.

4:27–30 Transition: No One Said. We have seen that transitions in these chapters of John contain information about time, place, and people involved. At this point the disciples return and the Samaritan woman leaves to summon the townsfolk. There are indications that rabbis of antiquity discouraged interaction with women. Even if those indications do not reflect the time of Jesus or the circles in which he moved, eyebrows rise in cultures that value chastity and marital fidelity when a man is found conversing alone with a woman whose reputation is not above reproach. In spite of the shady circumstances, no one raised any questions about what was happening (v. 27).

Jesus is our inspiration and our example. It is inspiring to see how he engaged everyone according to the two great commandments. Never did he interact with people based on what he stood to gain from them. Jesus models love for God and neighbor, leaving an example for those who follow him—that we love everyone we encounter, seeking their best instead of what we can take from them.

4:31–38 Food, Harvest, Labor. As the Samaritans make their way to Jesus, the newly returned disciples of Jesus urge him to eat the food they went away to obtain (v. 31; cf. v. 8). Jesus has not eaten, and the text does not tell us whether he received the drink he asked of the Samaritan woman. Even if he had not been refreshed by that drink, the rest at the well and the invigorating conversation seem to have renewed his energies.

When tempted by Satan to turn stones to bread in Matthew 4, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, answering, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Reflecting that perspective, Jesus tells his disciples in John 4:32, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” Apparently Jesus found it strengthening and satisfying to do the will of God, which was “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10; cf. John 10:16). Doing the Father’s will satisfied his own hunger and quenched his own thirst (cf. John 4:14; 6:27).

Several times we have seen Jesus make spiritual statements misunderstood as referring to physical realities: concerning the temple (2:19–20); the new birth (3:3–4); the living water (4:10–11); and here, the food he has to eat (4:32–33). Jesus has spoken of food the disciples know not of, and they mistakenly ask if someone has brought him food (v. 33). As on previous occasions, when the misunderstandings afforded Jesus an opportunity to state his true meaning, he explains, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (v. 34). At one level, Jesus is unique as the one sent by the Father, and his work can be accomplished by no one else. At another level, those who know Jesus, those who trust him, must follow his example. Those who follow Jesus and obey the Father can expect to experience this kind of nourishment. They will experience strength and joy multiplying when they do the will of God. They will be happy when obeying.

Having spoken of the nourishing joy of doing the work that God sent him to do (v. 34), Jesus goes on to speak of the harvest (vv. 35–38). The food of which he spoke was obedience, and the harvest of which he speaks is a harvest of souls: “gathering fruit for eternal life” (v. 36). There is scholarly discussion over whether the opening statement of verse 35 (“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’?”) references an unattested proverb or merely reflects common agricultural knowledge. Either way, Jesus makes this statement to redirect the conversation to the spiritual harvest. The last words of verse 35 refer not to a literal harvest but to people: “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” Verse 30 said that the Samaritans “were coming to him,” and perhaps if the disciples lifted up their eyes, they would see the Samaritans on the way to them.

When Jesus says, “Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life” (v. 36), he himself is likely the reaper receiving wages—the praise of those who trust in him, who themselves are the “fruit for eternal life” (cf. 1:49; 2:11). The reaper, Jesus, gathers fruit—people who believe in him. He receives wages—the praise of the redeemed, who are gathered so that they may have eternal life. Thus when Jesus continues, “so that sower and reaper may rejoice together” (4:36), the “sower” in view is likely the Baptist, who has been preparing the way for Jesus and rejoicing at his voice (3:29). When Jesus brings in the harvest sown by the Baptist, the two of them will rejoice together. This would seem to be summarized in Jesus’ next statement, “For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps’” (4:37). Again, on this understanding, the one who sows is the Baptist, while the one reaping is Jesus.

This reading seems to be further confirmed as Jesus tells his disciples, “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor” (v. 38). This labor is the work for God and his kingdom that the Baptist and the OT prophets who preceded him performed to prepare the way for Jesus. The sowing done by those who prepared the way now finds its complement as Jesus the reaper comes, sending his disciples to reap, to enter into the labor of others.

4:39–42 Many Believed. The way Jesus confronted the Samaritan woman’s sin in 4:16–18 caused her to recognize him as a prophet (v. 19) and provided the content of what she told her fellow Samaritans in verse 29. Her testimony is mentioned again as many Samaritans believed in Jesus because of it (v. 39). As a result, the Samaritans desire more of Jesus, so he stays two more days with them (v. 40). This seems to substantiate the idea that Jesus has demonstrated supernatural knowledge of the woman’s history. The Samaritans believe because of the remarkable power Jesus demonstrated in telling the woman all she ever did.

Exposure to Jesus is even more convincing than testimony to Jesus, and John recounts, “Many more believed because of his word” (v. 41)—the word rendered “testimony” in verse 39 (λογος) is rendered “word” in verse 41, indicating that it refers to the teaching and testifying of Jesus concerning what God sent him to do. The Samaritans believed because of the woman’s word in verse 39, and more believed because of Christ’s word in verse 41.

What Jesus has communicated to the Samaritans leads them to declare to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world” (v. 42). These people encounter Jesus and conclude that he is the Savior—not merely of the Jews but of the world. They likely experienced the same kind of sin-confronting, OT-affirming-and-fulfilling, audacious claims that Jesus makes elsewhere in the Gospel of John.