Chapter 4
Jesus hears that the Pharisees are making a big deal out of Jesus' disciples baptizing more people than John the Baptist. So Jesus goes back to Galilee.
2022 - Note that Jesus had been to Jerusalem, and had talked to Nicodemus there. From Jerusalem, he goes "into the Judean countryside", Jn 3:22, and continues to teach and minister. And the disciples of John, and I'm sure many others, go to him and are baptized, so much so that word gets to the Pharisees that, as if John the Baptist wasn't already a big enough problem, now Jesus has even more followers than John. So here, while things are apparently going well, Jesus decides to head home to Galilee. Why? So that the confrontation with the Pharisees would not happen yet. It was not time. It was not the Passover, Herod and Pilate were not both in town, and so on. Jesus heads home And they go through Samaria, instead of skirting around it.
On the way, there is the woman at the well near Sychar.
2024 - I don't think I've ever associated the woman at the well with a specific town. I just sort of had this story floating around unattached to geography. But John, at least, is very specific about where this takes place.
A lot goes on in this conversation. Jesus' witness is that He has the water of eternal life. He "turns" the conversation from physical thirst to spiritual thirst. He is talking to a female Gentile, showing that this new covenant will not be exclusive to Israel. Another contrast between the Mosaic and the New. Then Jesus tells her about her sin. First, he instills a desire for the living water, and then he declares/reminds/convicts her of the sin that keeps her from that water.
She switches to talking about the place where the Samaritans worship, and points out that the Jew's say you have to worship in Jerusalem. She is saying that what the Jews have is denied to the Samaritans, and the Jews say that the Samaritans worship in vain, because of where they worship. Jesus answer is this:
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. [Jhn 4:21 ESV]
He says that before long, the WHERE of worship won't matter - to either Jew or Samaritan. Jesus says that up to that time, salvation was for the Jews. This is the verse:
2020 - 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. [Jhn 4:22 ESV]
MSB says the Samaritans didn't really understand God, but the Jews did, through their OT scriptures. How would that be true? It was always faith that saved. How can that be what this means? True, those resettled to Samaria by the Assyrians worshiped both God and the gods of their homelands. They mixed God with gods. So those early ones truly did not completely understand God. Even before, the Samaritans worshiped the two golden calves set up by Jeroboam. So I guess their history from the separation after Solomon's reign was incomplete. As a people, they never really understood that "The Lord our God, the Lord is One".
The plan was for the Jews, through the Mosaic law and the temple and the sacrifices. Through the scriptures that they had, and that they partly understood - as through a glass darkly. Sure, those who joined them and worshiped likewise were in favor, but the plan was for the Jews. This all changes with Jesus' appearance, with the New Covenant. Geography won't matter any more, birthright won't matter any more. Worshiping in spirit and truth will matter. Jesus tells her that he is the Messiah.
2022 - These verses:
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." [Jhn 4:23-24 ESV]. I think, this year, that these verses tie back to Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, and the idea that Jesus, this time, as Suffering Servant, is about a spiritual kingdom on earth. That is the same Kingdom John came to proclaim. Elijah does announce the coming of a Kingdom, but not THE earthly Kingdom of the promises. "worship the Father in spirit and truth" is surely about the church, the age of the Gentiles. Because God is spirit, He must be worshiped in spirit. Or...through the Spirit? "en" is just a little word. No need to over complicate it. Vs 23 also gives us a sense that Jesus knows his purpose. A time is coming, when worship will change completely, from Mosaic sacrificial worship to spiritual worship anywhere at anytime as church - a supernatural spiritual kingdom called the church. That time is in fact "here", in that Jesus is in the world to usher in that kingdom. John was here as precursor to the Messiah. Jesus was here as precursor to the spiritual kingdom of God on earth, a Kingdom over which Jesus presides. It was coming, but it was here. Jesus had full knowledge of it.
2022 - And then this profound verse:
26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." [Jhn 4:26 ESV]. Jesus tells her that he is himself the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. So in these short verses, and to the Samaritan woman at a well sunk by Jacob the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jesus tells us that he is the Messiah, and that he is the prophet before the Spiritual Kingdom of God. His own Kingdom. The liberals might say that these verses were inserted later, to sync John up with Paul...but they usually only say that about the Synoptics. What do they say about John?
I don't really get vss 34-38, and the MSB note about it does not help. It might mean that all that has gone before - from Adam and the fall through Noah, Moses and the law, the prophets - all these things - all this labor - was to bring the world to this very point, Now, finally, the redeemer is here, and all that has pointed to him is about to be fulfilled. That is, the spiritual harvest of what was planted at the creation of the world is now ripe to the bursting point. Jesus is here for the harvest, and the disciples will participate with him in reaping the results of all that has gone before. (2022 - Or the harvest is about the Gentiles, about the rest of the world outside of Israel?)
Jesus stays there for two days. Many many people in this little town of Sychar are saved, from the woman's witness and from Jesus' teaching while he is there those two days. (2022 - We can surely call this the beginning of revival among the Gentiles. The first door opening to the Gentiles in the world, and to a worldwide spiritual kingdom.)
2022- Jn 4:42b, what they believed, exactly, is that Jesus was the Savior of the world. Does that title equate to Messiah or Christ? They believed him to be far more than the return of prophets to the land. They saw him as unique and unprecedented. That is how we ought to see him also.
Possible FB post.
Then he continues to Galilee, where he is welcomed by people who saw the things he had done during Passover.
The story of the official from Capernaum who came to Cana where Jesus was and asked Jesus to come and heal his son. Jesus heals the son without making the journey, and the official determines that at the moment Jesus said "Your son is healed" in Cana, the son was healed far away in Capernaum. So the father believes along with his household.
The chapter concludes with John telling us this was the second sign in Galilee. Surely there were many signs when Jesus was in Jerusalem, as evidenced by vs 45.
2022 - 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. [Jhn 4:54 ESV]. But...what was the first? The prophecies about the woman at the well? Was that a miracle, or is John implying that there was another one that he hasn't told us about? Do the other gospels talk about it? No...there is nothing in the harmony that precedes this. All four gospels record the great Galilean ministry of Jesus. The introductory words are very "sweeping" in the Synoptics. But John records the first "event" we know about. The Harmony does say that so much happened it is hard to keep things in the right order. So perhaps there is a miracle in there before this one in John...we just cannot know.