11  The Living  Water  (John 4:1–26)

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”(4:1–26)

The hope of the Messiah lies at the heart of the Old Testament. From the third chapter of Genesis (Gen. 3:15) to the third chapter of Malachi (Mal. 3:1), the Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly proclaim that the Savior is coming. In fact, all three parts of the Old Testament canon—the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets—make precise predictions about Him and His ministry (cf. Luke 24:25–27, 44–45).

As the generations of Israel became familiar with these passages, they took God’s promises to heart. Though they waited eagerly, year after year, for their coming Savior, their sense of expectation only increased as the centuries passed. Thus, by the time of Jesus’ birth, anticipation regarding the Messiah had reached an all-time high.

But then the unthinkable happened. The Messiah came, and Israel rejected Him. Under the influence of their religious leaders, the people refused to embrace the One for whom they had been waiting and instead had Him murdered.

It was not that the evidence was unclear. In fact, “the Old Testament, written over a one-thousand-year period, contains nearly three hundred references to the coming Messiah. All of these were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and they establish a solid confirmation of His credentials as the Messiah.” (Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999], 164). Instead, it was that Israel’s religious establishment felt threatened by Jesus’ ministry—He challenged their authority and confronted their hypocrisy.

In response, the Pharisees stubbornly refused to believe the truth about Him (7:48). They openly contradicted His teachings, and scorned any who followed Him. When they heard the astonished crowds wondering about Jesus, “This man cannot be the Son of David [i.e., the Messiah], can he?” (Matt. 12:23), the Pharisees indignantly declared, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons” (v. 24). The very fact that He cast out demons was powerful evidence of His authenticity. Yet, the religious leaders were so obstinate in their unbelief that they attempted to turn even that against Him.

Eventually, in the most heinous and apostate act in its history, Israel delivered its Messiah into “the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23):

But the crowds were completely wrong about Him. Although dozens of pseudo-messiahs have come and gone, an examination of the Old Testament data points unmistakably to Jesus Christ as the true Messiah.

For instance, the Messiah’s ancestry is clearly delineated in the Old Testament. God promised that the coming Savior would be a descendant of Abraham (Gen. 12:7; cf. Gal. 3:16), of Jacob (Deut. 18:18; cf. Acts 3:22–23), of Judah (Gen. 49:10), of Jesse (Isa. 11:1–2; cf. v. 10; Rom. 15:12), and of David (Jer. 23:5–6; cf. 33:15–16; 2 Sam. 7:12–14; Heb. 1:5). Jesus Christ’s lineage met every one of these requirements (Matt. 1:1, 5–6; Rom. 9:3–5; Heb. 7:14; cf. Luke 1:32; 3:31–33; Rom. 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8; Rev. 5:5; 22:16).

Furthermore, the Messiah would have to be descended from not one, but two of David’s sons. The kingship was passed down through his son Solomon, who succeeded him on the throne. But one of Solomon’s descendants, the wicked king Jeconiah (also called “Coniah” or “Jehoiachin”) was cursed by the Lord: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah’” (Jer. 22:30). Jeconiah would be childless, in the sense that none of his descendants would ever sit on Israel’s throne. Yet God promised that the Messiah will reign as Israel’s king on David’s throne (2 Sam. 7:12; Jer. 23:5–6; cf. Luke 1:32). This seeming conundrum was resolved in Jesus Christ. He was descended from the royal, Solomonic line through his legal (though not biological) father, Joseph (Matt. 1:11–12). But His physical descent from David came through another of David’s sons, Nathan, the ancestor of His mother, Mary (Luke 3:31). Thus, Jesus’ virgin birth allowed Him to be both the legal heir to David’s throne and his biological descendant (as God had promised; cf. Acts 13:22–23), while also avoiding the curse on Jeconiah’s family line.

The Messiah’s identity may be further narrowed by the specific predictions regarding His birth.

First, He had to be born in a specific place: “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity” (Mic. 5:2; cf. Matt. 2:1–6). The Bible records that “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea” (Matt. 2:1; cf. Luke 2:4–15).

Second, the Messiah had to be born within a specific time frame. Since He was to be from the tribe of Judah (cf. Gen. 49:10), He had to come before the individual tribes lost their identity following the Roman destruction of the temple with all its genealogical records. In fact, Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks actually predicted that the Messiah would be killed before the temple was destroyed (Dan. 9:26). That incredible prophecy also singled out the exact day, nearly five centuries in the future, that the Messiah would present Himself to the nation (9:25). On that very day, Jesus entered Jerusalem to the adulation of the crowds hailing Him as the Messiah (Matt. 21:1–11).

Finally, the Messiah would be born under unique and miraculous circumstances to a special person: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). Jesus Christ alone in human history was born of a virgin:

The Old Testament also made specific predictions about the Messiah’s earthly ministry. He would be heralded by a forerunner (Isa. 40:3). He would minister in Galilee (9:1–2). He would perform miracles (35:5–6). Again, Jesus met the criteria perfectly (John 1:23; Matt. 4:12–16; 9:35).

The Messiah’s death was also foretold in great detail, and Jesus fulfilled every prophecy. The Old Testament predicted that Messiah would be betrayed by someone close to Him. Psalm 41:9 reads, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.” That prophecy was fulfilled by Judas, of whom Jesus declared, “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats my bread has lifted up his heel against Me’” (13:18; cf. Luke 22:3–4). Even the exact amount Judas was paid, thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26:14–15), was predicted in the Old Testament (Zech. 11:12).

The Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would be executed with wicked men: “Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12); when Christ was crucified, “two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left” (Matt. 27:38). Although none of His bones would be broken (Ps. 34:20), the Messiah would be pierced (Zech. 12:10), which was exactly what happened to Jesus (John 19:33–34; 36–37). Finally, the Messiah was to be buried in a rich man’s grave (Isa. 53:9), as in fact Jesus was (Matt. 27:57–60).

The evidence, then, unambiguously and overwhelmingly points to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Only He fulfilled these and all other Old Testament messianic prophecies.

The apostle John obviously understood the weighty evidence that confirmed Jesus’ authenticity. In fact, the reason he wrote his gospel was to confirm the obvious—”that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). And it is in keeping with this purpose that John relates the story of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman.

The woman’s reaction to Jesus, as related in John’s account, strongly suggests that she embraced Him as her Lord and Savior. But her conversion is not the main point of this passage. The central truth of this section is found in Jesus’ revelation of Himself as the Messiah (v. 26). He did so here for the first time—and to a most unlikely non-Jew.

But why did He decide not to first declare His messiahship to the most politically correct and influential target—the Jewish religious leaders? Why choose to reveal that monumental truth to an obscure, despised, immoral, Samaritan woman? The answer lies in the sweeping truth that in the matter of salvation, “God is not one to show partiality” (Acts 10:34; cf. Deut. 10:17; 2 Chron. 19:7; Rom. 2:11; 10:12; Gal. 2:6; 3:28; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:11).

The contrast between the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus, for example, was striking. He was a devoutly religious Jew; she was an immoral Samaritan. He was a learned theologian; she was an uneducated peasant woman. He recognized Jesus as a teacher sent by God; she had no clue who He was. He was wealthy; she was poor. He was a member of the social elite of Israel; she was the dregs of Samaritan society—an outcast among outcasts, since the Jews regarded all Samaritans as unclean pariahs.

Jesus’ revelation of Himself to this woman demonstrated that God’s saving love knows no limitations; it transcends all barriers of race, gender, ethnicity, and religious tradition. In contrast to human love, divine love is indiscriminate and all-encompassing (cf. 3:16). That Jesus chose to make Himself known first not only to a Samaritan, but also to a woman, was a stinging rebuke to members of Israel’s religious elite—who rejected Him even when He did reveal Himself to them.

The story of the Lord’s encounter with the woman at the well unfolds in four scenes: the circumstances, the contact, the conviction, and the Christ.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. (4:1–6)

Word of Jesus’ growing popularity reached the Pharisees, who heard that He was making and baptizing more disciples than John. The parenthetical note that Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were is impossible to reconcile with the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, the false teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation. Surely the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to “seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), would Himself have done whatever was necessary to bring sinners to salvation.

As they had done with John (cf. 1:19–25), the Jewish authorities (particularly the Pharisees; cf. 1:24–25) viewed Jesus with suspicion. He too proclaimed the kingdom of God, called for repentance (Matt. 4:17), and baptized (through His disciples) those who repented (cf. the discussion of 1:26 in chapter 4 of this volume). As noted in the previous chapter of this volume, some of John the Baptist’s disciples were also disturbed by Jesus’ growing popularity at their master’s expense. Although John confirmed that his ministry was giving way to the ministry of Jesus (3:30), it was not yet time for the forerunner to fade completely from the scene. His work was not done.

Therefore, the Lord left Judea and went away again into Galilee. He did not want a public rivalry to develop between His followers and those of John. He also knew that, in His Father’s sovereign plan, a public confrontation with the Jewish authorities was still premature (cf. 7:30; 8:20).

On His return to Galilee, Jesus had to pass through Samaria. It was not geographic necessity that compelled Him to do so, despite the fact that it was the most direct of several routes. The road through Samaria was shorter than the coastal road or the road on the east side of the Jordan, which is why many Jews traveled on it, especially at the time of the major religious festivals. But so great was their disdain for the Samaritans that the stricter Jews avoided traveling through Samaria altogether. They preferred instead to be defiled by a lesser evil, thus they would cross the Jordan and travel up its east bank through the largely Gentile region of Perea. They would then cross back into Galilee north of Samaria. Jesus could have easily gone that way.

But the Lord was compelled to pass through Samaria and stop in a certain village, not to save time and steps, but because He had a divine appointment there. John frequently used the verb dei (had to) to speak of Jesus fulfilling the mission given Him by the Father (3:14; 9:4; 10:16; 12:34; 20:9). He was always conscious of doing the Father’s will, which was why He came to earth (6:38; cf. 4:34; 5:30; 17:4; Matt. 26:39).

As He traveled north toward Galilee, Jesus came to a city of Samaria called Sychar (probably the modern village of Askar), located on the slope of Mount Ebal, opposite Mt. Gerizim (cf. Deut. 11:29; Josh. 8:33). Samaria was the capital city of the northern kingdom, called Israel. The nation split in two after Solomon’s reign. King Omri named the city the capital of the northern kingdom (1 Kings 16:24). The name came to refer to the whole region and sometimes to the whole northern kingdom, which went into captivity in 722 B.C. (2 Kings 17:1–6) at the hands of the Assyrians. Sychar, a town in the district of Samaria, was near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. When he returned to the land of Canaan after twenty years in Haran (Gen. 27:43; 31:38), Jacob bought a piece of land near the Old Testament city of Shechem (33:18–19), not far from Sychar. Then, shortly before his death, Jacob bequeathed that property to his son Joseph (Gen. 48:22; “portion” [Heb., shechem] lit. means “shoulder,” or “ridge”). Many years later, Joseph was buried there after Israel conquered the land under Joshua (Josh. 24:32). It was thus a familiar and important site to both Jews and Samaritans.

According to well-attested ancient tradition, Jacob’s well was about half a mile south of Sychar. The precise location has been well established by tradition, and the well sits today near an unfinished Orthodox church. It was a deep well (approx. 100 feet), fed by a running spring (the word translated “well” in vv. 11–12 refers to a cistern or dugout well, while the word used here denotes a spring or fountain). The sixth hour, by Jewish reckoning, would have been the sixth hour after sunrise at about 6:00 A.M.; that is, noon. Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. As the incarnate divine Word (1:14) Jesus was without sin (8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5). But He was still subject to the physical limitations of His full humanity. As Gerald L. Borchert observes,

The stage was set; Jesus was in the right place at the right time for an encounter in God’s will. He was in reality keeping a divine appointment that He Himself had made before the foundation of the world.

THE CONTACT

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”(4:7–15)

As Jesus sat beside the well that evening, tired and thirsty from His journey, there came a woman of Samaria to draw water. The cool of the evening was the time when women customarily performed that chore (Gen. 24:11). This woman came at high noon, perhaps because of her desire to avoid public shame. What was also unusual was that this woman came such a long distance to this well when there were other sources of water closer to the village. But she, for reasons that will soon become evident, was an outcast. She would rather walk the extra distance in the hottest time of the day than face the hostility and scorn of the other women at the closer well earlier or later in the day.

The Lord’s simple request, “Give Me a drink,” was in that culture a shocking breach of social custom. Men did not speak with women in public—not even their wives. Nor did rabbis associate with immoral women (cf. Luke 7:39). Most significant of all in this situation, Jews customarily wanted nothing to do with Samaritans (cf. the discussion of v. 9 below). But Jesus shattered all of those barriers. The parenthetical note that the disciples had gone away into the city to buy food explains why Jesus was sitting at the well by Himself. It also indicates that our Lord did not pay attention to the taboos of the strict Jews, who would not eat food handled by Samaritans.

Taken aback that Jesus spoke to her, the Samaritan woman said in astonishment, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” As noted above, it was culturally incorrect for a man, especially a rabbi, to speak to any woman, particularly an immoral outcast. But her question reveals that what she found most surprising was that Jesus, being a Jew, would speak to her, a Samaritan woman since, as John explained in an understated way, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Even more astounding was His willingness to ceremonially defile Himself by drinking from her water pot, since He had no vessel of His own from which to drink (v. 11). (The word translated dealings in John’s explanatory note literally means “to use the same utensils.”) But Jesus was the infinitely holy God in human flesh. He could not be defiled by a Samaritan water pot. Whatever He touched—even corpses (Luke 7:12–15) or lepers (Matt. 8:2–3)—did not taint Him, but instead became clean.

The bitter rivalry between the Jews and the Samaritans had been going on for centuries. After the fall of the northern kingdom to the Assyrians, the ten tribes of

The foreign non-Jews intermarried with the population of Jews who had not been deported, forming a mixed race known as the Samaritans (the name derives from the region and capital city, both called Samaria). The new settlers brought their idolatrous religion with them (2 Kings 17:29–31), which became intermingled with the worship of Yahweh (vv. 25–28, 32–33, 41). In time, however, the Samaritans abandoned their idols and worshiped Yahweh alone, after their own fashion (for example, they accepted only the Pentateuch as canonical Scripture, and worshiped God on Mount Gerizim, not at Jerusalem).

When the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, their first priority was to rebuild the temple. Professing loyalty to Israel’s God, the Samaritans offered their assistance (Ezra 4:1–2). The Jews’ blunt refusal (Ezra 4:3) enraged the Samaritans, who then became their bitter enemies (Ezra 4:4ff.; Neh. 4:1–3, 7ff.). Rebuffed in their attempt to worship at Jerusalem, the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim (c. 400 B.C.). The Jews later destroyed that temple during the intertestamental period, further worsening relations between the two groups.

After centuries of mistrust, there was a deep animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. The writer of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus expressed the scorn and contempt the Jews felt for the Samaritans. Claiming that God detested the Samaritan people, he derisively referred to them as “the stupid people living at Shechem” (50:25–26). The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day manifested this same prejudice. In fact, when they wanted to insult Jesus, the worst they could do was to call Him a Samaritan (8:48). The Samaritans, of course, reciprocated the Jews’ hostility—as was illustrated when one of their villages refused to receive Jesus because He was on His way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–53).

In response to the woman’s query, Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The Lord’s reply turned the tables on her. When the conversation began, He was the thirsty one, and she the one with the water. Now He spoke as if she were the thirsty one and He the one with the water. The woman’s reply reflected her confusion. Still thinking in terms of physical water she asked, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep (cf. the discussion of v. 6 above); where then do You get that living water?” She did not understand that Jesus was talking about spiritual realities. The living water that He offered her was salvation in all its fullness, including forgiveness of sin and the ability and desire to live an obedient life that glorifies God.

The Old Testament uses the metaphor of living water to describe the spiritual cleansing and new life that comes at salvation through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Disobedient Israel was guilty of having foolishly “forsaken [God], the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). Later Jeremiah warned that “all who forsake [the Lord] will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the Lord” (17:13). Both passages emphasize that God is the only source of salvation; He alone is the “fountain of life” (Ps. 36:9), and in Him the redeemed “will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation” (Isa. 12:3; cf. Isa. 1:16–18). Isaiah 55:1 echoes God’s gracious offer of salvation: “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters,” and this invitation is reiterated in the book of Revelation (21:6; 22:17). As God Himself promised regarding the new covenant:

John applies these themes to Jesus as the living water, which symbolizes eternal life (v. 14; 6:35; 7:37–39).

The woman’s question, “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” expects a negative answer. She was skeptical of this stranger’s ability to provide the living water He offered. Even the revered patriarch Jacob could not provide water without expending the effort to dig this well. And in her mind this Jewish traveler certainly was not greater than Jacob. But as D. A. Carson notes, “Misunderstanding combines with irony to make the woman twice wrong: the ‘living water’ Jesus offers does not come from an ordinary well, and Jesus is in fact far greater than the patriarch Jacob” (The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 219).

Patiently, Jesus answered her skeptical question and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Jacob was rightly accorded a place of honor by both Jews and Samaritans. Yet, as Jesus pointed out, everyone who drank of the water from his well would thirst again. It is a measure of Jesus’ incomparable greatness that whoever drinks of the water that He will give him shall never thirst; but the water that He will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life (cf. Isa. 12:3). Here was the living water of spiritual life (cf. 7:38) that her parched soul desperately needed (cf. Ps. 143:6).

Still thinking primarily on the physical level, she replied eagerly,

“Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” Her response parallels that of the Galilean crowd, who responded to Jesus’ teaching about the bread from heaven, “Lord, always give us this [physical] bread” (6:34; cf. v. 26). Whatever else the living water did, she was ready to receive it if it would eliminate her daily trip to the well and give her also eternal life.

At this point, the woman does not appear to have been clear on the matter of spiritual transformation. Jesus had spoken to her about the water of eternal life, and she seemed willing to accept it, but no conditions had been stated. As with any lost sinner, this woman needed to understand two crucial issues before she could receive the living water of eternal life—namely, the reality of her sin and His identity as Savior. In these last two points, Jesus addressed both of those issues.

THE CONVICTION

He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. (4:16–19)

Since the woman failed to grasp the nature of the water He spoke of, Jesus moved the conversation to her need for repentance and salvation from sin. His command, “Go, call your husband and come here,” exposed the heart of the issue—her sin. Those who truly thirst for the righteousness God provides in salvation will confess and forsake their wicked ways (Isa. 55:6–7). Scripture knows nothing of a salvation without repentance, and that always involves turning from sin (Acts 26:19–20; 1 Thess. 1:9). Jesus did not come to grant sinners perfection in the next life while leaving them to continue in sin in this one (cf. Jer. 7:9–10; Rom. 3:5–8; 6:1–2). On the contrary, He “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14; cf. Acts 3:26; Eph. 5:25–27; Col. 1:20–23). As a result, those who come to Him and truly receive the living water of eternal salvation have “been freed from sin, [and become] slaves of righteousness … and enslaved to God” (Rom. 6:18, 22; cf. Eph. 6:6; Col. 3:24; 1 Peter 2:16). Jesus responded to the woman’s interest by offering her the opportunity to confess her sins and receive forgiveness to be purified and delivered from iniquity to righteousness.

Shocked and shamed by the unnerving realization that Jesus knew all about her morally debased life, the woman answered evasively, “I have no husband.” Although she was not lying, she was not telling the whole truth either. But her desperate attempt to conceal her sin from Jesus was futile; His devastating reply forced her to face it: “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” While commending her for her truthfulness (as far as it went), Jesus nonetheless unmasked her sin. It should also be noted that by refusing to call the man she was currently living with her husband, Jesus rejected the notion that merely living together constitutes marriage. The Bible views marriage as a formal, legal, public covenant between a man and a woman (Matt. 19:5–6).

Shaken by Jesus’ amazingly accurate knowledge of her sinful life, the woman said, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.” By calling Him a prophet, she affirmed that His knowledge of her sordid lifestyle was accurate. No longer did she attempt to hide her sin; rather, this statement constituted a confession by which she was turning from her sin, hoping to receive the water of eternal life.

THE CHRIST

“Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”(4:20–26)

Having been convicted of her sin and need for forgiveness, and having repented and agreed with Jesus’ indictment, the woman wondered where she should go to meet God and seek His grace and salvation. Since Jesus was obviously a prophet of God, she reasoned that He would know, so she said, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Her comment highlighted one of the major points of contention between Jews and Samaritans. Both believed that under the old covenant God directed His people to worship Him in a specific location (cf. Deut. 12:5; 16:2; 26:2). The Samaritans, accepting only the Pentateuch as canonical, chose Mount Gerizim. It was at nearby Shechem that Abraham first built an altar to God (Gen. 12:6–7), and it was from Mount Gerizim that the Israelites proclaimed the blessings of obedience to God’s commandments (Deut. 11:29). The Jews, accepting the complete Old Testament canon, recognized that God had chosen Jerusalem as the place where He was to be worshiped (2 Chron. 6:6; cf. Pss.48:1–2; 78:68–69; 132:13).

Jesus’ unexpected reply was that the issue would soon be irrelevant. In the near future, true worship would take place neither in this mountain (Gerizim) nor in Jerusalem. During the Jewish revolt against Rome a few decades later (A.D. 70), the temple at Jerusalem would be destroyed, and thousands of Samaritans would be slaughtered on Mount Gerizim. More significantly, the new covenant renders all external ceremonies and rituals, whether Jewish or Samaritan, obsolete.

However, at the time of Jesus’ dialogue with the woman, the Jews were right and the Samaritans wrong since the new covenant had not yet been initiated. Thus Jesus said, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” Because they rejected most of the Old Testament, the Samaritans lacked the full revelation that it contained. There is a twofold sense in which salvation is from the Jews; first, the revelation of salvation came first to them and then to the rest of the world (Rom. 3:1–2; 9:3–5); and, second, the source of salvation—namely, the Messiah—was Himself a Jew (Rom. 9:5).

Jesus’ point was that, under the new covenant, the place of worship will not be an issue, but rather the nature of worship. “An hour is coming,” Jesus informed the woman, ‘and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” Spirit does not refer to the Holy Spirit but the human spirit. Worship must be internal, not external conformity to ceremonies and rituals. It must be from the heart. Truth calls for this heart worship to be consistent with what Scripture teaches and centered on the incarnate Word. The worship of neither the Samaritans nor the Jews could be characterized as being in spirit and truth, even though the Jews had a more complete understanding of the truth. Both groups focused on external factors. They conformed outwardly to regulations, observed rituals, and offered sacrifices. But the time had arrived, since the Messiah had come, when true worshipers would no longer be identified by where they worshiped. True worshipers are those who worship the Father in spirit and truth. Paul calls them “the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). It is such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers by sovereignly drawing them to Himself (6:44, 65).

The phrase God is spirit is the classic biblical definition of the nature of God. Despite the heretical teaching of false cults, God is not an exalted man (Num. 23:19), “for a spirit does not have flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39). He is “the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; cf. 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 11:27), who “dwells in unapproachable light [cf. Ps. 104:2], whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16; cf. Ex. 33:20; John 1:18; 6:46). Had He not revealed Himself in Scripture and in Jesus Christ, God would be utterly incomprehensible.

Because God is spirit, those who would truly worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. True worship does not consist of mere outward conformity to religious standards and duties (Isa. 29:13; 48:1; Jer. 12:1–2; Matt. 15:7–9), but emanates from the inner spirit. It must also be consistent with the truth God has revealed about Himself in His Word. The extremes of dead orthodoxy (truth and no spirit) and zealous heterodoxy (spirit and no truth) must be avoided.

Still unable to fully comprehend what Jesus was telling her, the woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” She was still confused, but expressed her hope that one day the Messiah (whose coming the Samaritans also anticipated, based on Deut. 18:18) would clarify all of these vexing religious questions.

The story reached its powerful, dramatic climax in Jesus’ reply, “I who speak to you am He.” He had avoided such a forthright declaration to the Jewish people (cf. Matt. 16:20), because of the crassly political and militaristic expectations they had for the Messiah; they hoped for someone who would lead a revolt to throw off the yoke of the hated Romans (cf. John 6:15). The faith of this Samaritan woman, on the other hand, was not obstructed by such self-styled misconceptions (as her response in v. 29 indicates). The word He is not in the original text. Our Lord actually said, “I who speak to you am.” Here is another one of the “I am” statements that are so common in this gospel (cf. 8:58). Twenty-three times our Lord says, “I am,” and seven times adds rich metaphors (cf. 6:35, 41, 48, 51;8:12; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5).

Jesus’ words must have rocked the woman to the core of her being. The man who just a few minutes earlier had made a simple request for a drink of water now claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah. Unlike Nicodemus, she knew nothing of any signs and miracles Jesus had performed. But merely because of what He knew about her the woman did not doubt the veracity of His claim. That was great, God-given trust. Indeed, she went and proclaimed it in her village, a fact that strongly suggests that she had genuinely come to saving faith.

Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well illustrates three nonnegotiable truths about salvation. First, salvation comes only to those who recognize their desperate need for spiritual life they do not have. Living water will be received only by those who realize that they are spiritually thirsty. Second, salvation comes only to those who confess and repent of their sin and desire forgiveness. Before this promiscuous woman could embrace the Savior, she had to acknowledge the full weight of her iniquity. And, third, salvation comes only to those who embrace Jesus Christ as their Messiah and sin bearer. After all, salvation is found in no one else (cf. 14:6; Acts 4:12).