The intervention of God in grace is incomprehensible to the natural man. God, however, works that men should understand it, should share in it, and, as partakers of grace, seek to bring others to enjoy it likewise. For grace is expansive in its character, and has for its object, not the one who shows it, but the one who is to partake of it. Yet there is a joy, which he only knows from whom the grace flows out. And since God acts in saving grace, He has a joy in connection with it in which others may share but which they will never fathom. The shepherd called his friends to rejoice with him over his sheep which was lost. The servants rejoiced with the father when the prodigal son returned. All, however, will admit that the shepherd’s feelings, and the father’s joy, must be deeper than that of the angels of God. God has a joy in showing grace, the depth, the fullness of which is known only to Himself. Has He then had joy over all the readers of those lines, by their receiving salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
But there is more than simple rejoicing with God to which we are called. Angels can, and will, do that. In all, however, who are partakers of grace, and not merely spectators of its reception by others, there is a transforming; power which it exercises over them. New aims are theirs, and desires which they had never experienced spring up in their hearts. It could not be otherwise. We see this exemplified in the history of the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. When first she met the Lord she was a stranger to God’s grace, and could not understand the motives of the one who would manifest it. Ere she left His presence she had partaken of it, and what was more, had drunk into His spirit who shewed it.
One simple request from Him laid the train for a most interesting work. “Give me to drink” was the opening speech from the weary, thirsty man, who was the eternal Son of God as well. His motives for asking a drink of her she did not then understand. Her reply evinced that. “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?” How strange, she thought it, for one of the race who kept aloof from her people to solicit a favor from one of Samaria’s daughters. Ever after she must have admitted, that she had learned the object of that then strange request. He asked of her the drink of water that He might satisfy her with living water in the fullest, deepest sense. And though her first utterance was enough to repel a stranger, He would not be repulsed in His efforts to bless her soul. Her answer was a confession that she did not understand His motives. His rejoinder was an assertion that she was ignorant of grace, ignorant about Him, ignorant of what she needed, and of what He could give. “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.” The stranger, in her eyes a simple Jew, knew of something that she did not, and that something was the gift of God. Her surprise did not astonish Him, for it only attested her ignorance, and of that he was fully conscious. Had she done, as He suggested, asked Him for the living water, all her prejudices would have vanished, all the cherished enmity between Samaritans and Jews would, as far as she was concerned, have been dispelled at once, and forever. And the incongruity, and as she thought the inconsistency of a Jew seeking a favor at the hand of a Samaritan would have been explained, as she received from Him far more than He asked of her.
But as yet He was not understood. His reference to Himself procured an answer from her, which indicated what Isaiah had foretold, that to an outward observer there was no beauty in Him that they would desire Him. To her he was as yet only a Jew. “Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, his children, and his cattle?” He was greater than Jacob, for He had wrestled with him on the other side of Jordan at the brook Jabbok, when He humbled him in order to bless him. To that, however, the Lord made no reference. Nor did He work a miracle to dazzle, or startle her by such an exhibition of his power. Yet He made it known to her that He was greater than Jacob, by speaking, as He afterward did, to her conscience. He had made the patriarch feel his weakness. He taught her truth about herself, and of her needing divine grace. And as Jacob had to his dying day the mark of the angel’s contention with him: so she is known, and on that day she herself proclaimed it, as the one whose life was laid bare, and her sin detected by the simple word of the stranger who sat on the well.
To the question as to His person the Lord replied that He could, and was willing to give her water different from that which Jacob had provided by his industry and labor. Living water, as opposed to stagnant water, Jacob had indeed provided. It was in this sense she understood the term “living” here used by the Lord. Living water of a different character, and from a different source, Christ offered to that sinner. For if she once drank of it, she would never more thirst, and it would be in her a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. What an offer to make to such a character She had but to ask, to get the Holy Ghost to enable her to have communion with God as her Father. No preparation on her part was needed beyond the desire to have the willingness, believing His words, to receive. Grace such as Jacob could never have bestowed, the Lord was willing to give to the vilest creature on earth. But of what use was such an offer unless she was in a condition to profit by it. Who wants to drink of water unless he is thirsty? As yet she was not thirsty. The sense of need was one to which she was still a stranger.
To the class of people for whom such blessing is intended she certainly belonged, for she was a sinner. The condition required to partake of the proffered gift had yet to be formed. The Lord afterward effected that, when He put His finger upon her conscience. So her only reply to the full and frank offer which He made her, was to ask for the water that she might not come again to draw. She only thought of herself; her convenience, and her ease. How completely was she a stranger to grace! Grace is occupied with others. She was, as yet, only thinking of herself. What she was before she was a partaker of grace, her questions and her requests have manifested. She could not understand His answering her in the way He did. She did not see in Him anything different from other people. She only desired to be saved the trouble of coming to that well every day to satisfy her thirst.
The Lord gave her, not what she asked, but what she wanted. Often does He act in this way still. How changed did she become! His motives were ever after surely very clear to her. He, she learned, was indeed greater than Jacob. And instead of seeking her own ease she became an earnest, active worker for Him. Self was no longer her object. She shared His thoughts, His desires. The well to which she had not wished to return became to her the most attractive spot upon earth, for the Messiah was there; and all her efforts were directed to getting souls within the reach of His voice, and under the attractive power of the teaching of the Son of God.
What had wrought this change? She had partaken of grace. Who that reads the lines understands her actions, and shares in what were her feelings and her wishes? C. E. S.