John 04

Departure From Judea

4:1 Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John

The Pharisees were not very happy with John or Jesus. John accused the Pharisees of teaching poisonous doctrine. Jesus overturned the money tables of the Annas family, depriving them of profit and making them look greedy in front of the public. 

4:2 (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were),

Jesus was teaching the word of God. His disciples were baptizing those who wanted to be identified with Jesus instead of Judaism.

4:3 he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee.

Jesus left Judea, which was Pharisee territory and went to Galilee, which the Pharisees despised.

Conversation With a Samaritan Woman

4:4 But he had to pass through Samaria.

At one time, Samaria was part of the northern kingdom which fell to Assyria. Assyrians moved into the territory and intermarried with the northern Jews. This brought about a half-breed race of Jews. The Jews of this region synchronized their religion with that of the Assyrian pagans. However, by the time of Jesus, they reverted back to monotheism, but they only believed in the first five books of the Bible. They believed that Moses was the first prophet and there would be another prophet to follow him, who would be the Messiah.

The Jews looked down upon the Samaritans, because the Jews considered them as half-breed Jews who had intermarried with pagan Gentile dogs. The Samaritans rejected over half of the Old Testament, so the Jews saw them as incomplete in their theology. The Jews and Samaritans would not trade with each other. The Jews would not travel through Samaria territory. They chose to take the long way around instead of the shortcut through Samaria. Basically, the Jews and Samaritans hated each other and wanted nothing to do with each other.

4:5 Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Being Jewish, Jesus was traveling in dangerous Samaritan territory. 

4:6 Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon.

This was one of the original wells that the patriarch Jacob had dug himself. The humanity of Jesus is seen in this passage as He possessed the human ability to feel fatigued. Noon was the warmest part of the day.

4:7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.”

When a Samaritan woman was pulling water at noon alone, then she must have been a prostitute or a woman with very few women friends. Usually, the women in villages traveled together in packs early in the morning when it was cooler. A Jewish man would have never spoken to a Samaritan woman. When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, this must have greatly shocked her.

4:8 (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.)

The disciples would have been shocked also, had they been there. Jesus had sent them off to purchase supplies, knowing that He would have a divine appointment with this Samaritan woman.

4:9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you – a Jew – ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)

When the Samaritan woman called Jesus a "Jew," she was not being kind.

4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

The woman was expecting to receive an insult back from this Jewish intruder, but what she received instead was an invitation to drink "living water." What is living water? This question must have raced in her mind.

4:11 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water?

The Samaritan woman called Jesus "Sir" instead of "Jew," showing him more respect. She was curious about this "living water."

4:12 Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”

The Samaritans were half-breed Jews, so they were also descendants of Jacob. She asked Jesus a smart-aleck and flippant question. The answer was yes, Jesus was greater than her ancestor Jacob. Jesus was the one who confirmed the Abrahamic Covenant with him. However, Jesus did not boast of His identity. 

4:13 Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again.

Jesus was patient with her. After all, she was one of the elect. The woman just did not know it quite yet.

4:14 But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”

Jesus made the Samaritan woman a bold promise. If she would drink His water, she would be assured eternal life.

4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

The Samaritan woman has more respect for this "Jew." She again called him "Sir." She asked for the water that would quench her thirst forever.

4:16 He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.”

Before Jesus gives the water to her, he must deal with her sin. 

4:17 The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’

The woman told the truth, but not all of the truth. Her sin still was not confessed. Jesus could read her mind. He was sovereign over her entire life. He knew everything about her.

4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”

It was true that she currently did not have a husband, but she was living with another man who was not her husband. She had also been divorced five times. Jesus had read her mind and revealed her sin.

4:19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

The Samaritan woman saw Jesus as a prophet, but He was more than just a prophet.

4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

The Samaritans were monotheistic. They worshipped Jehovah on Mount Gerazim. Jesus and the Samaritan woman were standing on this mountain. The Mosaic Law commanded that all Jews worship in Jerusalem. Since this woman was a half-breed Jewish woman, she was still under the Mosaic Law. She was worshipping at the wrong location.

4:21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

At this time, all Jews and Samaritans were under the Mosaic Law and required to worship in Jerusalem. However, after the Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself for atonement, then the Mosaic Law would come to an end. Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles would be able to worship God wherever they wanted.

4:22 You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews.

The Samaritans were still into syncretism. They worshipped Jehovah, but not the Jehovah of the entire Old Testament. The Jews were worshipping the correct Jehovah, but their leadership had become corrupt.

4:23 But a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers.

When the dispensation of the Law ended with Christ, the dispensation of grace began. During the age of grace, believers all over the world can worship God wherever and whenever they choose.

4:24 God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

God is an invisible spirit. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. The Samaritan syncretism had some truth in it, but it was not all truth. The cults and isms have some truth in them, but they are not all truth.

4:25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.”

Moses predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15 that a prophet would come to Israel. The Samaritans believed that the Messiah was this prophet predicted by Moses.

4:26 Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

Jesus point blank told the Samaritan woman that He was the Messiah predicted by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15.

The Disciples Return

4:27 Now at that very moment his disciples came back. They were shocked because he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you speaking with her?”

The disciples were shocked that Jesus was speaking to a Samaritan woman. This was why Jesus sent them away.

4:28 Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people,

The woman believed Jesus and became the first Samaritan believer mentioned in Scripture. She went to the Samaritan town to spread the good news about Jesus. The good news at this time was that the Messiah had arrived to bring in the Messianic Kingdom.

4:29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Surely he can’t be the Messiah, can he?”

She told the people that she had met the Messiah. She mentioned to the people that the Messiah was omniscient, knowing everything about her.

4:30 So they left the town and began coming to him.

Many Samaritans from the town came to listen to the Messiah. The woman's testimony brought many to the feet of Christ.

Workers for the Harvest

4:31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

The disciples went to town to purchase food. Now that they were back, they urged Jesus to eat.

4:32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Jesus fed Himself the Word of God on a daily basis.

4:33 So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did they?”

The disciples did not understand the statement of Jesus.

4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work.

The food of Jesus was to produce divine good works.

4:35 Don’t you say, ‘There are four more months and then comes the harvest?’ I tell you, look up and see that the fields are already white for harvest!

Jesus told the disciples that the harvest had begun. There was a large harvest in Samaria which needed to be gathered.

4:36 The one who reaps receives pay and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together.

Jesus sows the seeds, but He allows others to reap the harvest.

4:37 For in this instance the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’

Jesus sows and the believers reap.

4:38 I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

Others sowed the seed, but the disciples would reap from their results. 

The Samaritans Respond

4:39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”

The Samaritans heard the gospel from the woman and believed. The harvest had started. Many Jews had rejected Jesus, but the half-breed Samaritans did not. They heard the same message as the Jews, but they believed it.

4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days,

The Samaritans asked the Jewish Jesus and the Jewish disciples to stay with them in their own homes. The Jews never asked Jesus or the disciples to stay with them.

4:41 and because of his word many more believed.

Jesus spoke to many more Samaritans, and they believed as well. There was a huge harvest of Samaritans.

4:42 They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world.”

The Greek word for "know" is οἶδα (oida), a perfect active indicative verb meaning to see and understand with spiritual eyes. The perfect tense means that the action was a past tense action which continues into eternity. The Samaritans saw and understood with their spiritual mind that Jesus was the Savior of the world. According to the perfect tense, they will continue this understanding throughout eternity. The perfect active indicative verb proves the doctrine of eternal security.

Onward to Galilee

4:43 After the two days he departed from there to Galilee.

After two days of teaching, the Samaritans understood that Jesus was the Savior of the world. He was a Savior to Jews, the Gentiles, and the Samaritans. After these Samaritans understood this message, Jesus departed and returned to Galilee.

4:44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)

Nazareth was in Galilee. Those in the region of Galilee and those in the city of Nazareth did not honor Jesus as a prophet. They were totally depraved and evil. They could not see the identity of Jesus, because they were blinded.

4:45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem at the feast (for they themselves had gone to the feast).

There were some messianic Jewish believers in Galilee. They had seen the miracles and believed. They were the Jewish Remnant. 

Healing the Royal Official’s Son

4:46 Now he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the water wine. In Capernaum there was a certain royal official whose son was sick.

Capernaum was about twenty miles away from Cana.

4:47 When he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

The royal official begged Jesus to travel twenty miles away to heal his son.

4:48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will never believe!”

The people wanted to see magic acts. They were more interested in the miracles of Jesus than they were in His message.

4:49 “Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my child dies.”

The royal official asked Jesus a second time.

4:50 Jesus told him, “Go home; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and set off for home.

Jesus did not have to give this man a sign. Jesus simply gave him His word. The man believed and set off for home, expecting his son to be healed.  

Faith healers use this verse to falsely teach that one can ask Jesus for a miracle.  And if they have enough faith, then Jesus will answer it. However, this is nothing but white magic. Man does not have the power to say words and manipulate Jesus into performing a miracle. The miracle recorded in this instance was a miracle of authentication to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. This was simply a historical event that John observed and recorded in his gospel. The Gospels and Acts give the history of the early church, not the doctrine of the modern church. The doctrine of the New Testament church is found in Paul's epistles.

4:51 While he was on his way down, his slaves met him and told him that his son was going to live.

The slaves confirmed that the boy was healed, just as Jesus predicted. However, the servants had no knowledge of this prophecy.

4:52 So he asked them the time when his condition began to improve, and they told him, “Yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon the fever left him.”

This would be 7 PM Roman time, or 1 PM Jewish time.

4:53 Then the father realized that it was the very time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed along with his entire household.

This was another example of how Jesus called His elect to salvation.

4:54 Jesus did this as his second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.

This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus had performed in Galilee.