“When therefore the Lord knew,” (vss. 1-3). The history of the “man of the Pharisees,” the “teacher of Israel,” recognizing in Jesus a “teacher come from God,” ashamed to come to Him by day, yet unable to remain away, and then coming by night, interests every heart. But the Pharisees are not interesting as a class — from first to last the persistent adversaries of the Lord (John 11:46-53; 12:1946But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done. 47Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. 48If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. 49And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, 50Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. 51And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; 52And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. 53Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death. (John 11:46‑53)
19The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him. (John 12:19)), they represent simply the religion and mind of the flesh, that is enmity against God, relentless enmity, which therefore falls upon Jesus. “The reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me.” God’s grace to man is what the heart of a Pharisee will not endure. His righteous requirements he can recognize, because he flatters himself he can meet them. Look at the earliest and latest records of their thoughts about Jesus. In Matthew 9, when the devil was cast out and the multitudes said, “It was never so seen in Israel,” the Pharisees said, “He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.” Again, in Matthew 12; when the man who had his hand withered was healed, the Pharisees held a council against Him how they might destroy Him. When the devil was driven out of one blind and dumb, and all the people said, “Is not this the Son of David?” the Pharsees said, “It is all done by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.”
Now look at their latest recorded feelings towards the Lord in chapter 11. The Lord’s controversy with, and testimony to, them was all but ended, Lazarus had been raised from the dead, the glory of God had been manifested, and they were not persuaded, though a man had been raised from the dead. What do we? “they say, this man doeth many miracles”—they do not say here, “by Beelzebub,” the mighty deeds are admitted; but “all men,” they say, “will believe on Him,” and then they take counsel to kill Him. This gives us the true history of the Pharisees. They hate God manifest in the flesh, in the Person of Jesus, and stand between God and the people, to hinder the light and truth of what He is from reaching them, attributing to Satan’s power His mighty works in grace. Here (John 4:11When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (John 4:1)) they are evidently jealous of Jesus, and He withdrew for the present, to meet them again when the effect of the progress of the work should have brought them upon the scene.
“Jesus Himself baptized not,” it is said. In the day when He baptized, it would be with the Holy Ghost and with power. The gathering would not be to a Jewish Messiah on earth, but to the glorified Man at God’s right hand, Son of God as well as Son of Man, to whom the saints would be united by the Holy Ghost, but Jesus must first descend into the lower parts of the earth, taking captivity captive, and then ascend up far above all heavens, filling all things, before the baptism of the Holy Ghost could take place. To speak of these things then would have been out of place; the disciples baptized with water to a living Messiah (Acts 19:44Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. (Acts 19:4)), who ought to have been received as such; we, in being baptized to Christ, are baptized to His death.
But when Jesus hears about the Pharisees, He leaves Judaea, and goes into Galilee. He would not strive nor cry, nor should His voice be heard in the streets. It is thus God describes His Elect Servant, His Beloved, in whom His soul was well pleased. The passage from which I make this quotation tells us, that when the Pharisees took counsel to destroy Him, He merely withdrew Himself, and went on with His gracious work, great multitudes following Him. All the people, we read in the account of the next miracle in that chapter (Matt. 12), said, “Is not this the Son of David?” The Pharisees attribute it to the power of Beelzebub. I refer to these people again because of the really satanic character of their opposition. God was reaching the hearts and. consciences of His people by the blessed and only Mediator between God and man. He was there for God, toward man — God was in Christ reconciling, and here were these Pharisees stepping in between God and His people, the real adversaries of each.
On their first appearance in the gospel history, they are associated with infidel Sadducees in seeking the baptism of John, for them doubtless a mere matter of outward profession. But that John was not deceived by them, his terrible reproof clearly proves, “O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I have spoken of their associations on their first appearance, now look at them in their last, while the light was yet present amongst them. They come with Herodians, “to entangle Him in his talk; but Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites?” Pharisaism is the result of the effort to establish one’s own righteousness in ignorance of, or practical contempt for, the righteousness of God. But when the Lord had finished His life-testimony on earth, when the sheep had been reached (to Him the Porter opened, though the number of these adversaries had been legion), these hinderers of the work of God would not escape the two-edged sword that proceeds from His mouth. “Nowhere” is the divinely-given record of human iniquity accompanied by denunciations so awful; no mention of mercy here, they are called on to fill up “the measure of their fathers.” Their future history is given in these words, “Ye shall kill, etc., that upon you all the righteous blood shed upon the earth may come, ye serpents, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” They had sought to hinder God’s message of love reaching the souls of His people, what iniquity is like that? aggravated by pretensions to piety; they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, neither going in themselves, nor suffering those who were entering to go in. Like the doctors of the law, their teachers, they had taken away the key of knowledge. This is a terrible thing! the Dayspring from on high was giving light to them who sat in darkness, and these men would prevent the light from reaching them. The Lord felt it. How terrible to hear from His lips, “Woe unto you — your house is desolate,” and “ye shall see me no more.” Thus ends His last controversy with the Pharisees.
To return to our chapter. The Lord leaves Judaea, but not His work. He must pass through Samaria, He arrives at Jacob’s well, and sits on the well, a wearied Man, just as He was. Yes, to be sure! but Jesus was always, “just as He was,” inwardly equal to the position taken, to the heights of glory, as to the depths of humiliation, and to all that lay between. He was always, “just as He was,” as well as just what He said. When He died upon the tree, He died “just as He was,” “found in fashion as a man he humbled Himself . . . unto death, even the death of the cross”; and when He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, He sat down, “just as He was,” a risen victorious Man, though not more perfect there, than in the day of His weariness at the well. Whatever appertained to Him outwardly was answered in perfection from within, and He was conscious of it, but in absolute lowliness. The cross being the path appointed, He said, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God,” and with reference to it, “Now is the Son of Man glorified,” (morally upon earth). Referring to His position in glory, the throne of the Father, He said, “as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne,” just as He was, the glorious Overcomer! He — the Eternal — was a weary, needy, homeless One, when found in fashion as a Man, but thus it pleased Him to reveal Himself amongst men. His pathway did not lead to kings’ houses, but where death and darkness, sorrow and Satan’s power, had prevailed, there lay the pathway of the blessed Son of Man. In the synagogue at Nazareth, He “read Himself in,” to use a well-known phrase. There could be no second ordination like that, where the Minister and ministry, its source, power, and authority, united in one Person, were equally divine. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor,” and so forth. Such was His ministry here in this world; I speak not of that which stands for ever alone — His atoning death. Thus, then, weary from His journey, and in the loneliness of rejection (“His own received Him not”), sat the Hope of Israel at Jacob’s well, but He had by this path come into a place where He could meet all who were weary on account of their sins. He was not only anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, but He met them in their own path, that of the poor and needy in circumstances (and, if any were such, in spirit), Himself the poorest of them all. People are fond of talking of the force of circumstances. Was it the power of circumstances, or that of the anointing, which led Jesus when He passed by Jacob’s well on His way to Galilee? Did He not know the way He took, or was He unprepared to satisfy the need of those He should meet on the way? That very morning He had received freshly from the Lord God, in His place of dependent Man, a word to be spoken in season to the wearied. Well, that was the path He chose, and in it met the woman of Samaria. “For our sakes,” it is written, “He became poor,” but dwelt among us, “full “of grace and truth.”
The whole scene is of a character not to be surpassed for interest. The lonely, weary Man is the Lord of glory, the Savior of the world, and the Samaritan woman is a “chief of sinners.” They are well met, whatever the Pharisees might have said to the contrary: He, full of grace and truth; she, of sin and misery.
But there are no Pharisees here, nor pretension in the Samaritan woman, she was simply a poor lost sinner, apparently ashamed of her sinful life, coming to the well at that hour, not an unthinking, unreflecting person, nor one hardened against God. No, she did not know Him, and how could she know His gift, life eternal in the power of the Spirit, and who it was that said to her, “Give Me to drink, “the Son of God Himself in deepest grace! No, she knew nothing of all this wondrous truth — God was unknown! That was the unvarnished truth of her state, yet, in that hour, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were working in grace towards the lost one. She had sinned grievously, her life had been one of shame, yet it could be said of her, as another chief “of sinners” said of himself — she had sinned ignorantly and in unbelief. What knew she of the character of God? She had to learn from His own lips that God is a Spirit. “The light of life had never shone into that soul amidst its ruins, all was gloom there, for her the heavens were as dark as the scene surrounding her earthly path. Of God who gives, of Him who said, “Give me to drink,” and of the “living water,” she was wholly and equally ignorant. God was unknown. The Lord’s own words to her show how He under stood her special state, darkness brooded over her hapless soul. “If thou knewest,” He says, “thou wouldest have asked, and He would have given.” And these are the words of the only Mediator, who alone is to be heard on such a subject. How blessed to hear His voice, and to behold the wondrous sight, a new creation arising through the power of His word and Spirit! See how conscience is quickened, how intelligence is awakened, how the affections are brought into exercise: “Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?” What patient grace in Him, what enjoyment of the fruit of His toil, and delight in doing His Father’s will! And when at length she found herself in the presence of Messiah, fully revealed, we are not told what she said, or how she felt, this we must interpret for ourselves by what she did, or rather the Spirit interprets for us; she went into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?” What words from her lips could have equaled in pathos her testimony to Him, before the men of the city? The shame of her former life is all forgotten, and lost sight of in the depths of her newly-found happiness; former things were already passing away. Thus Israel, in the latter day; “I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me.” Israel will be near the place of her “springs” (Psa. 87:77As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee. (Psalm 87:7)). So it was with the woman of Samaria, her new-found springs were in Him. She forgot herself, true humility, blessed woman! For my part I do not believe that she said anything, when Jesus said, “I that speak unto thee am He.” What visions of blessing and glory must have burst upon her view! Messiah would tell her all things. Already He had been telling her of God the Giver; of a new well of living water; of the Father seeking the love and worship of His poor creatures; but first of God giving, and He Himself had asked her to give Him to drink, and yet knew all about her, her whole life, yet no reproach! Such divine sweetness and attractiveness, holiness and simplicity! above all, such loving interest in herself — “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” If she had been constrained to ask for the reason of a thing so strange, a Jew asking drink from a Samaritan, how stood matters now? The Jew was the Messiah of God, the Samaritan a guilty, lost creature, yet He had come to tell her of a well of living water for her-self, and had accepted the water of the well from her, even from her, the woman of Samaria. What boundless joy must have filled her soul! love, pure and holy, entering with the knowledge of Christ; now she knew who it was that said to her, “Give Me to drink.” “I know My sheep and am known of Mine,” was realized here. What pure delight to be loved of Him, after He had told her “all that ever she did”! What a secret to carry with her through this weary world! Christ loved her, soon she would be able to add, “and gave Himself for me.” There was no outward answer, it is true, to Jesus words, “I that speak unto thee am He. She spake in her heart, only . . . her voice was not heard.” In Luke 7, the tears were more eloquent than any voice, as the odor of the ointment in John 12, which filled the house, only the heart spake in that odor! A voice is heard indeed in the wilderness of this world, crying, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?” Her heart and voice spake in that cry. We have just glanced at the path which the Lord made for Himself to the heart of a lost sinner; what His heart was saying there, His lips uttered afterwards, in “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” This was the language of Jesus heart when the disciples came and found Him talking with the woman, no man said anything. There He revealed Himself to her, not as Son of God, or Son of the Father, or Son of Man, but as Messiah, and to her alone, I believe, as Messiah. To another woman, the once hapless Mary of Magdala, whom Satan had once claimed as all his own, was first revealed, in her mission to His brethren, the glorious truth that His God was their God, His Father their Father.
The prophets had spoken of the Anointed Man — a wonderful Person coming from God, as Isaiah says, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given . . . and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (The Jews looked rather at the human side). In that character, as Messiah, the Lord revealed Himself to her. The woman has got an Object that governs her whole life now, her thoughts and everything. She was more governed by that Object at that moment than the disciples themselves. She had led a life of infamy; how in a moment was its course changed! the source is now from above, it had been from beneath; now she can say to the men of the city, “Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did.” We Christians even, having known all the grace of the Father, do not like people to know all the things we have been saying and doing; but here is the effect of being really in the presence of Christ, “Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did.” Here we find her conscience exercised in the light of a revelation of grace which lifts her above the shame of former sins, where they abounded she finds a more abounding grace, which causes even the things of ordinary need to be forgotten (vss. 28, 29), for already her shoulder is being removed from the burden (of sin), her hands delivered from the pots! (Psa. 81:66I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots. (Psalm 81:6)) for, is not He that told her all things that ever she did, the Christ? So Israel, in the liberty of the day that is coming, will make mention of Rahab and Babylon (scenes of her former captivity and shame), to them that know her, for the captive daughter of Zion will have shaken herself from the dust in that day, and He whose birth in her midst is celebrated, is not that the Christ? (Psa. 87:66The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah. (Psalm 87:6)). There were two sentiments closely united in the heart of a Jew, one national and the other religious. His national polity belonged to his religion, and his religion could not be separated from his politics; Gods law, in Judaism, was their national law. So it was doubly painful to a Jew, the thought of being in subjection to a Gentile nation. But the holy remnant will so glory in their Messiah, that when they get back they will speak of Rahab and Babylon, where they were in captivity. It is just like this, “Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did.” In Daniel, the captivity is an existing fact, the shame and confusion of face a present sorrow. We are in Babylon now, the whole church is in Babylon in a spiritual sense, mixed up with the world, confusion written on her forehead. While that is the case, there are thousands of godly persons, thank God! like Daniel, who, though in it, are not of it. We may be entirely out of the spirit of it. If we are in spirit outside, we shall be all the more taking up the shame and sorrow of those who are in it. She left her waterpot, her earthly concerns. As one has written,
Thither she came, but, oh, her heart,
All filled with earthly care,
Dreamed not of Thee, nor thought to find
The Hope of Israel there.
Renewed in spirit, hardly conscious of it herself, she is already walking in the path of life, serving the Lord. The disciples come, and pray Him to eat. Jesus says, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work. We get what the woman was about here, what the disciples were about, what the men of the city were about, and what Christ was about. His was the hidden joy, by man as yet unshared, unknown, of doing the Father’s will for that wills sake, as well as of finishing His work. He was looking forward to the joy together, in the fruit gathered unto eternal life, but only the first of these things was His “present portion. The joy together He must wait for, He was ever the lonely One, ever solitary. The deepest sense of loneliness is not connected with place, but with men, when of all who surround you there are none who understand, none who participate in your feelings and tastes, thoughts and aspirations. “Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened? I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Ye know not what, spirit ye are of. Lord, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.” It was of no use to explain. But the Lord did not wait for people to share His thoughts, He went on with His work. He was down here, a Man all filled with the glorious thoughts and purposes of God, the Son of Man which is in heaven, looking forward to the results of God being glorified in Him, but He did not wait for people to enter into His feelings, He went on with His work.
Then there is another passage in John 12:2323And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. (John 12:23). “And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,” fruit of His work, but of the Father’s also, how could they be separated? “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”; “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” All was from the Father, but all was for Him also, at least in Jesus heart and in His hands. The waters flowed back only gladdened by their channel the heart that was unconscious of a motive not comprehended in its one and supreme Object. How that tells itself out in, “I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.”
All before Him, the voices that hailed Him as the Son of David, coming in the name of the Lord, had hardly died away when people of the nations (Gentiles) are announced as seeking to see Jesus. Did the King of nations hear of that unmoved? Yet in all that scene there was none lonely as He, who was to be the center of all it represented; for, of all the thoughts which filled His spirit at that moment, His glory and the path (of suffering) that led to it, who was there who had understanding, to whom could He look for sympathy?
Even His disciples understood not these things at the first, but when Jesus was glorified. Let us mark that. “The Spirit was not” (here) “because Jesus was not yet glorified, “and the crowd understood nothing about Messiah,” or “the Son of Man “(vss. 16, 24). But when were His thoughts intelligible to His own? “We cannot tell what He saith.” His works were incomprehensible, “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” When He prayed, they could not watch with Him, no, not for one hour. If He spoke of the earthly things, they did not believe, how could He then speak of the heavenly things? Thus, without sympathy from man, not in the pride of heroism, but in the sweet gentleness of one who, however, if he entered into battle, would overthrow the lord of this darkness; accepting fully His lowly position amongst men; the blessed Almighty Comforter Himself looking for comforters, and yet finding none, He traveled ever onwards till He reached the place where He could say, “Father, the hour is come,” the greatest hour of all time, and, if there were hours in eternity, the greatest of them also. Never did the heart or mind of Christ rest in the things done, or in present effects produced, whether on earth or in heaven. That would be the thought of man’s heart. The Father’s good pleasure and, glory in that which was presented to Him, was the one undivided object of Christ’s spirit. In, “Father, I thank Thee, for so it seemed good in Thy sight,” one learns the secret of the rest of heart of God’s holy Servant. Who but He could say, “I am meek and lowly in heart,” and “ye that are weary,” “shall find rest to your souls”?
I well remember a friend once saying that he could understand its being the Lord’s pleasure to set one of His servants in a position where his chief service would consist in endeavoring to recall the hearts of the worldly amongst His people to the all but forgotten claims of the Person and glory of their Master. He had come Himself not only to vindicate the heavenly throne, and for the truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers, but to reveal Him in the blessedness and deep grace of relationships hitherto unknown, unfolded in such words as these, “My God and your God, My Father and your Father.”
for service is the accomplishment of the will of Him that sent Him, as His truth is seen in seeking not His own glory, but that of Him who sent Him; such an One is true, no unrighteousness is in Him. The path terminated in an obedience bounded only by death (Phil. 2).
Verse 35. “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” There are three things referred to in this passage. The wages, the first instalment of which is received in this world, through communion in service with the great Worker Himself. The servants will receive the full recompense of reward in glory, with Him who said, when His work was done, “Now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self.” How will His presence in their midst, the First and Last in service in every dispensation, enhance the joy of His servants in that day! Then it will be known in power that He was the beginner, sustainer, and end of all true service, uniting in Himself the two characters of sower and reaper. This rejoicing together of sowers and reapers necessarily includes Himself. Rejoice together, “what would that mean apart from Him? Your labor may consist only in sowing, and that is not so pleasant as reaping; but if it be His will, His Spirit in us will say, “Even so, for thus it seemed good in Thy sight,” and soon it will be eternal joy together in the rest above. That our work be that which He has given us to do, and done in His name, should be our only care. “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” Never is our labor in the Lord in vain!
Verse 38. “I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor.” In other times, testimony had been borne by the Lord’s servants, and the disciples were entering into the fruit of their labors. The prophets had testified of Messiah, and thus it was that this poor Samaritan had heard about Him, not without some exercise of heart. “When he is come,” she says, “he will tell us all things.”
The reason the wages are put first in the verse seems to be because the laborer himself is immediately before the Lord here. How great would be his reward, in wages, in fruit gathered unto life eternal, in the rejoicing together of sower and reaper! nor could the gathered ones be left out of that scene of joy. Blessed scene of rested workers! fellowship with the Father and the Son in the fruits of labor, for the rest of God will have come, and His people will be there to participate in it (Heb. 4). How great the joy what tongue could ever tell? The wages or reward of faithful service from His own hand, the white stone and new name, is another, though a kindred, thought.
Verse 39. “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.” A beautiful instance of how the gospel often spreads in power and blessing through ways unthought of. Could man have told her that which brought conviction of sin to her soul, and at the same time lifted her above the shame which that conviction wrought? The power of God was there, the men of the city felt it. Samaria had known no day like that, and when the sun was setting there were souls in that city upon whom the light of life had just risen. “We have heard Him ourselves,” say these poor Samaritans, “and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
Here first, and by Samaritans, when rejected by His own, He is recognized by the title, “Savior of the world,” glorious title! Salvation was indeed of the Jews, “Israelites,” says Paul, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.” But salvation was no longer to be confined to them, the boughs of the tree of grace were already running over the wall. Israel shall be saved with an everlasting salvation, “saved in the Lord,” it is said. Not by works of righteousness, but in the power and grace of Jehovah. In that day they will behold the Man whose name is the Branch, He would build the temple and sit upon His throne, the Sustainer of “the glory”. The counsel of peace would be between them both, there Israel’s blessing begins. But what of the world and its inhabitants? The same prophet who announces Israel’s salvation, in the Lord, immediately adds, “Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God Himself that formed the earth and made it, He hath established it, He created it not empty [or chaotic, Gen. 1] He formed it to be inhabited, I am Jehovah and none else,” and then He says, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; I am God and none else.” And then, when Jehovah Jesus (the Son) dwelt among us, He commenced His ministry with the announcement of God’s love to the world. It is not Jew or Gentile that is before Him, but man as such. The first word about Him is, “Let Us make man in our image and likeness,” and revelation terminates with the announcement, The tabernacle of God is with men. “He so loved the world that He gave!” How sweetly sound in the ears of true pilgrims those blessed words! Yes, He created it not for emptiness; He formed it to be inhabited, His delights were to be with the sons of men, and when all was lost in the hand of His creature, He died for it in love — the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
What divine beauty and wisdom is observable in the order in which He reveals His ways! The presence of Christ was the revelation of God, and, at the same time, of man; in that light a Jew is no better than a Gentile, and so the world comes into view at once; but if it does, it is as in itself a condemned thing. “Now is the judgment of this world”; hence the cross, which knows no distinction, and is the alone path out of it, is everything here. But with the cross comes the revelation of eternal life to the believer. We are far beyond mere dispensational teaching here. The cross, eternal life, and Savior of the world, the great foundation truths, next to that of the glory of His Person, and inseparably connected, are found for the first time, in these chapters, with the announcement of the gift of living water, the spiritual nature of God, and the truth unrevealed before, that the Father in seeking worshipers — a wondrous truth! — accepts alone as worship that which is according to His nature. “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” According to this principle, God’s worldly sanctuary was already judged. Jerusalem and Geriziun are alike outside the sphere of these newly revealed ways and thoughts of God. Ritualism as a mode, and Jerusalem as the place, of worship, are equally rejected. Ritualism! what a discordant sound if uttered amid these newly revealed, eternal truths. It accorded well with the shadows, but they were never the truth, that was now present in the Person of Jesus. Ritualistic observances suited well a dispensation that made nothing perfect, and where man, as such, did not draw nigh to God. The high priest alone did so, outwardly, once a year. (Compare Heb. 10:19-22.) When God gave carnal commandments, He gave what was suited to a people in the flesh. Ritualistic worship, so-called, which in its very nature is suited to, and appointed for, the flesh, on the same principle as the institutions directly termed ordinances of the flesh, was in perfect keeping with the establishment of a worldly sanctuary. That worldly people, now as ever, should approve of this system is quite natural; how can people who have not the Spirit worship by the Spirit, or even understand what it means? Now, as in the beginning, there is a turning back to the weak and beggarly elements, after having known God (Gal. 4). The important fact is that Christ, in setting aside the place of ritualistic worship, substitutes for that a worship in spirit and in truth, according to the nature of God Himself, now revealed. I only add, that figures and shadows are not the truth. Grace and truth subsist by Jesus Christ. He was, He is, the truth, and nothing else is that. The only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father alone revealed the Father, who had never before claimed to be worshiped, never was worshiped, in that name, by which He was unknown to His people. In what heart had the Spirit of the Son, sent forth by God (on the ground of the saints being in the relationship of sons) cried, Abba, Father? What conscience had been made good, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ? (1 Pet. 3) or perfect, by the sprinkling of His precious blood? (Heb. 10). Thus heart and conscience were alike unfit for this spiritual worship. Who could find His way into the holiest? for it was not yet made manifest (Heb. 9:99Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; (Hebrews 9:9)). Or how could the blood of Jesus give any one boldness to enter by the new and living way, when Jesus had not shed His precious blood? It is clear that ritualistic worship was conducted, as men say (a very proper word according to their thoughts), in and by the flesh. But Paul, writing to Christians, says, “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you,” and “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” I have said much more than I had intended on this subject, but it is too serious and important to be treated hastily.
Before the veil was rent, who could draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith? For what is it that gives truth of heart towards God? Or what is the object of faith which gives it assurance before Him? It is in His atoning death that the veil is rent. But these thoughts present no obstacle to the flesh, for it never draws nigh, all its worship is afar off; rules and liturgies even now, after the gift of the Holy Ghost by Jesus glorified, are often adopted as a substitute for the presence, power, and leading of the Spirit amongst His people. Paul indeed says, “We . . . who worship God by the Spirit” (Phil. 3:33For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3)); was he thinking of the ritual of the temple? “But,” some one will say, “you have not yet told us what worship is, in what does it consist?” I quote a passage in which this question, “What is worship?” is answered, not by a definition, which a man might carry away as an addition to his knowledge, but by a picture of its realization, given by the same Spirit which produced it, and was its strength, in that feeble human heart; for though the Spirit was not then given (in the sense of ch. 7 and kindred.passages), He ever acted upon souls, according to the will of God.
Worship is not the occupation of a heart still seeking a standing place before God, but rather the overflowing towards Himself of one which has found its all in Him who has already set it there in peace. “And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment “(Luke 7:37-3837And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, 38And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. (Luke 7:37‑38)). Should it be said, “All cannot worship after this pattern,” the answer is, the Father does not seek those who cannot. He only seeks true worshipers, Jesus tells us.
“Many of the Samaritans of that city believed on Him for the saying of the woman . . . many more believed because of His own word.” Thus despised Samaria stretches out her hands to God, and Galilee, the region of darkness and of the shadow of death, receives Him when rejected, by Jerusalem. The light springing up in the place of darkness — rejected elsewhere it might be, but hidden, save in judgment, never. And where was poor Jerusalem? Already Jehovah was covering the daughter of Sion with a cloud, the beauty of Israel was being cast from heaven to earth. Their rejection of Christ was the occasion of fulfilling the prophecy, “Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive.” “The Son of Man hath not where to lay His head,” He tells us Himself, a homeless stranger in the world His hands had made; but the Galileans saw He was a stranger, and took Him in.” It will not be forgotten unto them in the day of Jesus Christ. No, their sins and transgressions only will be forgotten in that day. Doubtless they knew that, before His sojourn amongst them was ended. Could the Savior of the world tarry with them two days, and leave them without the knowledge of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world? The Galileans received Him. What the privileges of receiving such an One might be, John 1:1212But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12) tells us: “As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to be children of God” (JND). This was the great turning point now for every soul; the Son, the Creator, was present as Savior in a lost world, would they receive Him and what He brought? It is written, “His own received him not”! “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I — but ye would not.” The will, the mind, the heart of man were in league against Him! Though often denied with the mouth, yet conscience, in her secret chamber, knoweth that this is true.
Galilee of the Gentiles, hitherto the region of darkness and the shadow of death, becomes the scene of the manifestation of His glory; when that day is come, the manner of keeping the good wine until now will need no explanation. Jesus had the power of life, and arrests that of death in the nobleman’s son. The father, whatever others might seek, needed neither sign nor wonder. Synagogue and priest were equally powerless here; for him Jesus sufficed: “Sir, come down ere My child die.” “Thy son lives.” He believed the word of Jesus, and went his way, it was unto him according to his faith, and Jesus word, “Thy son lives.” Does His written word yield in authority to the words of His mouth? “But if ye do not believe Moses writings, how shall ye believe My words?” (John 5:4747But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:47)). Or is it that the gracious words which proceeded from His lips are less intelligible when communicated in writing by inspiration of God? In 1 Corinthians 2 we find two classes of men, natural and spiritual; there is not a word, here at least, about clergy and laity, but about natural and spiritual: the natural man is he who has not the Spirit of God, is unconverted; the spiritual man discerns all things, and is discerned of no man. No, not even if one called himself a priest, but no such class is contemplated in the New Testament. Peter indeed speaks of a holy and royal priesthood, but these terms included the whole company of the faithful, all were priests in the sense of that passage, and there was one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. But men, leaving the word of God for their traditions, tell us that priesthood is the privilege of a few, and that the mediators are many; setting aside, even in detail, the Word of God. In it I learn that He who loves His people has made them priests unto God, “priests unto His God and Father.” Admit a second mediator, or another advocate, and the foundations are destroyed. The helpless sinner betakes himself to those who call themselves priests. Temples and altars and ritual fill up the place that God has not in the unbelieving soul. The nobleman was in the presence of Jesus, (what place for an intermediary there?) when he said, “Sir, come down ere my child die.” When one goes to Jesus, it is on the ground of His own invitation; my burdens and my weary heart assure me I am the very person He wants. “I will give you rest,” He says; can man add to the authority and sweetness of His word for a believing soul? No, it is when His presence is unknown, or at least when one is not in it, that the traditions of a corrupted form of truth have any force. That He loves us, and has washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, is forgotten in such case, even if once truly known. It is remarkable that this passage is never heard from the lips of those who call themselves apostles and priests.
Sir, come down before my child die. “Thy son liveth.” So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.