Living Water

Jesus revealed that the worship of God is no longer limited to geographic locations or man-made structures – John 4:20-24.

Jesus revealed the proper form and location of the worship of the Father to a Samaritan woman. With the arrival of the Messiah, concepts and traditions about holy space were irrelevant. The presence of Jesus renders the historical debate over the location of the Temple pointless. Worship must be performed in Spirit and Truth – (John 4:20-24).

Even at this early point in his ministry, Jesus experienced opposition from the Temple authorities, and quite possibly, this is why he left Judea for Galilee, perhaps seeking more receptive hearts.

[Worship - Photo by Nathan Dumlao (Los Angeles) on Unsplash]

The most direct route to Galilee was through Samaria, a region more scrupulous Jews avoided by taking a more circuitous journey between Jerusalem and Galilee. Jesus chose the direct route, which brought him into contact with the Samaritan woman - (John 4:1-3).

• (John 4:20-22) – “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where we must worship. Jesus said to her: Believe me, woman! An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship that which you know not. We worship that which we know, because salvation is of the Jews.”

He encountered the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and asked her for a drink of water. This surprised her since devout Jews avoided contact with Samaritans, and it was socially awkward for a Jewish male to communicate with an unrelated and unaccompanied female. Nevertheless, Christ responded:

• “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is speaking to you, you would ask, and he would give you living water.”

The woman assumed he meant water from the well and asked how he could draw any with no vessel, and then asked Jesus, “Are you greater than Jacob, who gave us the well?” Jesus responded again, this time alluding to scriptural promises:

• “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. Whoever drinks the water I will give will never thirst. In him, it will become a well of water, springing up into everlasting life” – (John 4:13-14).

• “Now, on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believes in me, as the scripture has said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke of the Spirit, which they that believed in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” – (John 7:37-39).

• “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring” – (Isaiah 44:3).

Scripture and Jesus promised that God’s saints would experience abundant life when they received the Gift of the Spirit. This expectation is anticipated in this declaration to the Samaritan woman, which looks forward to the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost:

• “But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall bear witness of me” – (John 15:26).

• “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you” – (John 16:7).

The woman instinctively requested this “living water,” but Jesus told her to “summon your husband.” She claimed to have no husband, but he retorted:

• “You have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truly.”

THE TRUE PLACE OF WORSHIP

The woman now perceived Jesus to be a prophet and asked about the old dispute between the Jews and Samaritans regarding the proper location of the Temple – “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place necessary to worship!”

The Samaritans also worshipped the God of Israel, but unlike the Jews, they recognized only the books of Moses as authoritative scripture, and they disagreed with the Jews about the proper location for the Temple of Yahweh.

Moses directed Israel to worship at the place which Yahweh would designate. However, that location is not specified anywhere in the five books of Moses. Because the Jews accepted the rest of the Old Testament as authoritative, they assumed the correct site was Jerusalem based on numerous passages from the later books of the Hebrew Bible.

The Samaritans claimed that Mount Gerizim of Samaria was the correct location, and they pointed to the Book of Genesis where God promised to give Shechem, the city of Samaria, to Abraham and his “seed” – (Genesis 12:6-7, 1 Kings 12:25). But Jesus responded with a most unexpected declaration:

• “There is coming an hour when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father <…> When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for even such as these is the Father seeking as his worshipers. God is spirit. They that worship him must worship in spirit and truth” - (John 4:23-24).

Jesus did not attempt to resolve the old dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. Instead, he described the new order of worship that would be established through him. Questions and debates about holy sites and seasons were now pointless. Christ’s words pointed to the obsolescence of the old Temple, including its rituals and religious concerns over holy space and time.

• “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental principles to which you desire to be enslaved over again? You narrowly observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have spent labour on you in vain” – (Galatians 4:9-11).

• “Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is Christ's” – (Colossians 2:16-17).

• “For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, complete those who draw near” – (Hebrews 10:1).

What is important is not where God’s people worship Him, but how - (“An hour is coming and now is”). The followers of Jesus must worship God as Father in spirit and truth. Likewise, the division between Jews and Samaritans reached its termination point, just as Jesus also dismantled the wall separating Jews and Gentiles:

• “But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and dismantled the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace” – (Ephesians 2:13-15).

The declaration that the time “now is” means the old order began to pass away in the life and ministry of Jesus. As elsewhere in John’s gospel account, the term “hour” refers to his death, “the hour” of Christ’s “glorification.” The Messiah of Israel is ushering in a new era and reality where external rituals are replaced by spiritual worship. Scripture reiterates that God is not contained by temples “made with hands”:

• “For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite” - (Isaiah 57:15).

• “The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands, as said the prophet, The heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet: What manner of house will you build me, asks the Lord, Or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?” - (Acts 7:48-50).

With Christ’s Death and Resurrection, traditional regulations governing space and time have become irrelevant. The presence of God is not limited to buildings, geographic locations, or specific “seasons” of the year, or days of the month or week. The time to worship is “now!”

“The Son of Man” is the person and place where the glory of God is manifested for all men to see. He is the means of access between Heaven and Earth, and the Greater Temple raised up by God “after three days” - (John 1:14, 1:47-51, 2:17-22).

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SEE ALSO:

• The Greater Tabernacle - (Ever since the Word became flesh, God’s Glory has been manifested in Jesus of Nazareth, and all who believe in him behold God’s splendor)

• His Habitation in the Spirit - (The New Testament applies Tabernacle language and imagery from the Hebrew Bible to the Body of Christ, the Habitation of God’s Holy Spirit)

• The Assembly - (The Christian use of the term church or ekklésia is derived from the assembly of Yahweh gathered for worship in the Hebrew Bible)

• Véritable Adoration - (Jésus a révélé que l'adoration de Dieu ne se limite plus à des lieux géographiques ou à des structures artificielles - Jean 4:20-24)