CHAPTER 4

(A.D. 30)

SYCHAR

¹When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (Him hearing this information portrays His Humanity; even though He was God, and never ceased to be God, He never used His Power of Personal Deity, but rather was led and guided by the Holy Spirit exactly as we are, or should be),

²(Though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His Disciples,) (His Baptism then was the same as that of John, the Baptism of Repentance, which was carried out by His Disciples).

³He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee (He did so at the behest of the Holy Spirit).

⁴And He must needs go through Samaria (this direction as well was instigated by the Holy Spirit; normally, Jews coming from Judaea up to Galilee went around Samaria, because they were not particularly enamored with Samaritans).

⁵Then comes He to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar (is said by some to refer to the ancient city of Shechem), near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph (proclaims, as is obvious, this spot having a long Bible history).

⁶Now Jacobs well was there (in fact, this well is still there, nearly four thousand years after Jacob). Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well (proclaims His Humanity; hence, John impresses upon us the full humanity, the definite human existence of Jesus; even as He was the Only Begotten Son of the Father, He was The Word made flesh): and it was about the sixth hour (if using Jewish time, it would have been 12 oclock noon).

⁷There comes a woman of Samaria to draw water (would prove to be the greatest moment of her life): Jesus said unto her, Give Me to drink (this must have startled the woman, because most Jews, as she knew Jesus to be, would not even speak to a Samaritan, much less ask a favor).

⁸(For His Disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) (Some feel that John was the one Disciple who remained behind; it was his custom not to mention himself when relating these experiences, even though he was present.)

⁹Then said the woman of Samaria unto Him (proclaims these two isolated hearts meeting His isolated by Holiness, for He was separate from sinners, hers by sin, for she was separate from society), How is it that You, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? (She was perplexed that He would address her at all, much less ask of her a favor!) for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans (referred to hospitality, for ordinary buying and selling were, in fact, carried on; however, Jesus didnt have this animosity!).

¹⁰Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the Gift of God (proclaims Jesus as that Gift, and the Salvation He Alone affords), and Who it is Who says to you, Give me to drink (proclaims her so close to Eternal Life, but yet at this moment, so far!); you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you Living Water (proclaims Him asking her for water to slake His physical thirst, while in turn He will give her Living Water, which refers to Salvation that will forever slake her spiritual thirst).

¹¹The woman said unto Him, Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep (she was right, the well was very deep, but we speak of the spiritual well!): from where do You get this Living Water? (She finds the phrase, Living Water, to be intriguing!)

¹²Are You greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? (Her emphasis had always been on Jacob, as was the emphasis of most Samaritans; Jesus will have to draw her away from that, without denigrating Jacob.)

¹³Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinks of this water (water of the world) shall thirst again (presents one of the most simple, common, yet at the same time, profound statements ever uttered; the things of the world can never satisfy the human heart and life, irrespective as to how much is acquired):

¹⁴But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst (Whosoever means exactly what it says! Christ accepted is spiritual thirst forever slaked!); but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into Everlasting Life (everything that the world or religion gives pertains to the externals; but this which Jesus gives deals with the very core of ones being, and is a perennial fountain).

¹⁵The woman said unto Him, Sir, give me this water (proclaims that she now has some understanding, although faint, of what Jesus is saying; she senses that it is not literal water of which He speaks, but rather something else altogether), that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw (she knows now that the water of which He speaks cannot be drawn from Jacobs well).

¹⁶Jesus said unto her, Go, call your husband, and come hither (a profession of Faith in Christ that ignores the question of sin, the Holiness of God, the spirituality of worship as distinct from sacerdotal ceremonies, the need of pardon, and the condition of trust in an Atoning and Revealed Saviour such a profession is worthless).

¹⁷The woman answered and said, I have no husband (presents a truth, but only partially so!). Jesus said unto her, You have well said, I have no husband (bores to the very heart of her problem; it speaks to her domestic and spiritual life, and points out her problem and the solution):

¹⁸For you have had five husbands (must have come as a shock to her, especially considering that she knew He did not know her; as well, the Samaritans worship five gods, so He will show her that her worship of five heathen gods has a great deal to do with her domestic problems of having had five husbands); and he whom you now have is not your husband: in that said you truly (the man she was now living with was not her husband, i.e., not one of the five).

¹⁹The woman said unto Him, Sir, I perceive that You are a Prophet (had to do with the belief of the Samaritans and their interpretation of Whom the Messiah would be).

²⁰Our fathers worshipped in this mountain (speaks of Mount Gerizim, which was about fifty miles north of Jerusalem; in a sense, they worshipped this mountain); and You say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship (she admitted that Jesus fit the profile of the Great Prophet Who would come as Moses had predicted, but she was perplexed because He was a Jew and worshipped in Jerusalem, which the Samaritans believed were false).

²¹Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe Me (He is telling her to hear carefully what He is saying, and then to believe it), the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father (Calvary, which did away with the entire Jewish system, would introduce a new way of Worship).

²²You worship you know not what (He minced no words, telling her plainly that the Samaritan way of worship held no validity with God; regrettably it is the same with most presently): we know what we worship: for Salvation is of the Jews (meaning that through the Jewish people, came the Word of God and, as well, the Son of God, Who Alone brought Salvation, and did so by going to the Cross).

²³But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth (God is not looking for Holy Worship; He is looking for Holy Worshippers; as stated, Calvary would make possible an entirely different type of worship, which did not require ceremonies or rituals, etc.): for the Father seeketh such to worship Him (means that by the word seeketh such are not easily found).

²⁴God is a Spirit (simply means that God is a Spirit Being): and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (man worships the Lord through and by his personal spirit, which is moved upon by the Holy Spirit; otherwise it is not worship which God will accept).

²⁵The woman said unto him, I know that Messiah comes, which is called Christ (the Samaritans had adopted the Hebrew word of Messiah, and they were looking for Him to come; Christ means the Anointed One): when He is come, He will tell us all things (constituted Truth, but not in the way this woman suspected).

²⁶Jesus said unto her, I Who speak unto you am He(it is nothing short of amazing that Jesus little revealed Himself to Nicodemus, except in a veiled way, but plainly and clearly reveals Himself to this woman a Samaritan at that! and to the seeking soul...).

²⁷And upon this came His Disciples, and marvelled that He talked with the woman (as stated, there were no dealings normally between Jews and Samaritans, and even above that, Rabbis did not converse with women in public or instruct them in the Law): yet no man said, What do You seek? or, Why do You talk with her? (This means that they kept their astonishment at Jesus actions to themselves.)

²⁸The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city (so a woman became the first Preacher of the Gospel to the Gentile nations, and so effective was her preaching that it caused a Revival), and said to the men (refers to the fact that she went directly to the leaders of the particular Samaritan religion),

²⁹Come, see a Man, which told me all things that ever I did (Christianity is not a philosophy nor a religion; it is really, as stated, a Man, the Man Christ Jesus): is not this the Christ? (Her question presupposes that, as stated, her fellow Samaritans were looking for a Messiah.)

³⁰Then they went out of the city, and came unto Him (the Holy Spirit knew there were hungry hearts in this place, and so would have Christ go through Samaria).

³¹In the mean while His Disciples prayed Him, saying, Master, eat (they urged Him to eat, out of concern for His Health).

³²But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that you know not of (the insensibility of the Disciples to spiritual realities is again evidenced in Verses 31 through 38; and His meat and harvest were the Samaritans, who at the moment were leaving the city and coming to Him, and believing on Him).

³³Therefore said the Disciples one to another, Has any man brought Him ought to eat? (At this stage, the Disciples could only think in carnal terms, whereas Jesus spoke almost exclusively in spiritual terms.)

³⁴Jesus said unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him Who sent Me (this statement, although brief, constitutes the whole duty of man [Eccl. 12:13-14]), and to finish His Work (the work is His, and not ours!).

³⁵Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? (The harvest is now!) behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields (simply means that we dont have to go very far to see the need); for they are white already to harvest.

³⁶And He who reaps receives wages (the wages are souls), and gathers fruit unto life eternal (the Salvation of a soul will bring forth fruit forever, and will be marked to the credit of the Sowers and Reapers; what an investment!): that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together (this speaks of all who play their parts, and do so without failure).

³⁷And herein is that saying true, One sows, and another reaps (God has a special Ministry for each individual; the Sowers are those who make it possible for the reapers to reap; the Preacher can only reap what has been sowed!).

³⁸I sent you to reap that whereon you bestowed no labour (whatever is done for Christ is brought to fruition as a result of much labor on the part of many different people): other men laboured, and you have entered into their labours (He is actually speaking here of the Prophets of Old; in Christ, their Prophecies are now coming to pass, and the Apostles will reap what they sowed down through the many centuries; it is the same with us presently, as it regards both the Prophets and the Apostles, etc.).

SALVATION

³⁹And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified (this is a perfect example of true Christianity in action), He told me all that ever I did (while Jesus did expose her sin, as the Gospel always does, it was not done in a negative, condemnatory fashion, but rather to deliver her from sin; He then gave her Eternal Life).

⁴⁰So when the Samaritans were come unto Him (bespoke hearts ready to receive from God), they besought Him that He would tarry with them (presents a request that was not denied and, in fact, a request that will never be denied): and He abode there two days (the greatest two days they would ever see and know).

⁴¹And many more believed because of His Own Word (this is what happened during the two days);

⁴²And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of your saying (should have been translated, not only because of your saying, because her saying was the testimony which originally brought them to Christ): for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world (proclaims one of the most profound statements ever made, which occurs only one other time in the Bible [I Jn. 4:14]; it fell from the lips of Samaritans; regrettably, toward the end of His Ministry, there were some Samaritans who would not receive Him [Lk. 9:51-56]).

GALILEE

⁴³Now after two days He departed thence, and went into Galilee.

⁴⁴For Jesus Himself testified, that a Prophet has no honour in His Own country (He would later extend this statement to say, and among His Own kin, and in His Own house [Mat. 13:57; Mk. 6:4]).

⁴⁵Then when He was come into Galilee, the Galilaeans received Him (Faith based on outward observances is at best feeble; but as feeble as their Faith might be, He, obedient to His Fathers Will, acted in Grace and Power whenever He met with Faith, however poor), having seen all the things that He did at Jerusalem at the Feast: for they also went unto the Feast (they needed the miracles to believe, with the evidence being that the Samaritans needed only His Word, for they had the greater Faith).

THE NOBLEMANS SON

⁴⁶So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine (His First Miracle). And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum (pertains to one who was an officer of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee).

⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto Him (the news had spread to Capernaum that Jesus was back in Galilee, even at Cana, only about twenty miles distant), and besought Him that He would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death (contains, buried within the text, the faint idea that due to his place and position in the political structure of Galilee that Jesus would be impressed by who he was, an officer in Herods Court; at any rate, he was desperate!).

⁴⁸Then said Jesus unto him, Except you see signs and wonders, you will not believe (proclaims Jesus knowing this mans heart and its unbelief, so He will draw him out; He will pull him to the highest Faith, taking Christ at His Word!).

⁴⁹The nobleman said unto Him, Sir, come down ere my child die (one can feel the pathos in this mans plea, with the mild rebuke preparing for what Jesus is about to say).

⁵⁰Jesus said unto him, Go your way; your son lives (presents a startling statement, and one which must have taken this man by surprise; his Faith is now being tested, and he will rise to the challenge). And the man believed the Word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way (back to Capernaum).

⁵¹And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Your son lives (the very words that Jesus had used).

⁵²Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend (portrays him putting the times together when Jesus had spoken the Word and when the boy was healed). And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him (if Roman time, 7 p.m. the day before).

⁵³So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Your son lives (his Faith, ever how weak it had previously been, was greatly rewarded): and himself believed, and his whole house (all became converts to Christ).

⁵⁴This is again the second Miracle that Jesus did (was speaking only of Galilee; actually, He had performed quite a number of Miracles in the last few days in Jerusalem [Jn. 2:23]), when He was come out of Judaea into Galilee (proclaims that everywhere He went, Miracles followed, plus the changing of lives; such was Jesus then, and such is Jesus now!).