After our Lord is introduced to us in John 1, we then trace Him in His ministry, in the next chapters, 2-4. He goes from the highest elevation of ministerial power and glory, till He reaches the most marvelous condescending ministry of grace. As Lord of creation, He turns water into wine, not merely supplying but creating provisions for a feast. He is then, as Lord of life and death, saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:1919Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. (John 2:19)). Then as the One who knows the thoughts long before, like God searching the heart, we read of Him, “He needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (John 2:2525And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:25)). Then coming, as it were, out from the glory into the grace of ministry, He waits upon a poor, slow-hearted, timid soul, that sought Him by night, because, like Gideon (Judges 6:2727Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him: and so it was, because he feared his father's household, and the men of the city, that he could not do it by day, that he did it by night. (Judges 6:27)), he was afraid to seek Him by day. And at last, He seeks a poor outcast (John 4), and that, too, in the sweetest, richest condescension. He will be her debtor for the meanest of all gifts, a cup of cold water, that He may win her confidence. He will have all the secrets of her conscience out, that He may get Himself and His healing in. Wonderful! The One who began this course of ministry, as God turning the water into wine, here at the end of it appears as One who needed for Himself a cup of cold water at the hand of a stranger. What a path this is!
But it is not merely the perfection of ministerial grace that is seen in this last action. The fullness of divine strength and glory is also in it. This asking for a cup of cold water was just what none could have done but God Himself. Does this surprise us? It may at first, as the burning bush surprised Moses. But by listening and worshiping, we may find God in this action, as surely as Moses found Him in that bush.
The Boundary Wall
God Himself, at the very beginning, had raised a partition wall [a boundary] between Himself and His revolted creature. The cherubim at the gate of the garden, with his flaming sword, keeping every way the way of the tree of life, was a partition wall. The difference between clean and unclean, set up and instituted in the earliest patriarchal times, was the same (see Gen. 8:2020And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (Genesis 8:20)). And the same middle wall was but strengthened by a thousand hands, under the direction of the lawgiver afterward, God’s holiness demanding this testimony to itself in a polluted, departed world. God could not own such a dead and defiled thing. But God’s grace found out a way whereby to bring His banished home to Him. That is, He has found out a way whereby He might be just, while the justifier of a sinner. This is His glory, His own glory. “There is no God else beside Me, a just God and a Savior, there is none beside Me” (Isa. 45:2121Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. (Isaiah 45:21)). He who raised the middle wall [boundary] alone can break it down. But this He has done. This He did by the cross, by the blood of His own Lamb. As soon as that was shed, as soon as the life was yielded up in sacrifice and for reconciliation, God Himself broke down all partition walls. The veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom, the rocks were rent also, and the graves of the saints were broken up. This great vista was thrown wide open, from the high heavens to the place of the power of death. Both the veil and the grave gave way, when Jesus gave up the ghost. The brightness of the highest heavens beamed upon the eye of the captives of death.
This virtue of the cross is accordingly now, in this gospel age, declared. “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity” (Eph. 2:14-1514For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; (Ephesians 2:14‑15)). This great fact is published by the gospel, in order that sinners, believing that God Himself has done this — has, in grace, crossed the boundary, which separated us from Him—might, by faith, cross it after Him, and meet Him in the place of reconciliation.
The Woman of Sychar
Now, this is the very thing that the Lord Jesus is doing at the well of Sychar. A partition-wall was there: the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. Rightly so. The Lord Himself had said to the twelve, “Into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not” (Matt. 10:55These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: (Matthew 10:5)). God had raised all partition walls, whether by the ordinances of the law, among the circumcised patriarchs, or by the sword of the cherubim at the gate of Eden. And no hand of man or angel could, by his own authority or in his own strength, touch a stone of such a building. But God would not leave one stone of it upon another; and here, at the well of Sychar, Jesus anticipates that. He crosses the boundary. He asks drink of one who was a woman of Samaria. This was breaking down middle walls with a strong hand and crossing boundary lines with a firm step. But He who had raised them in righteousness can break them down in grace through righteousness. And that is what Jesus actually does in the cross, and what He anticipates here.
All this was enough to amaze her who was on the opposite side—and it did so. She sees the ruin of the wall, and she marvels. But the Lord did not build again that which He had destroyed but encourages her to do as He had done. In divine grace He had crossed the line from God’s side of it, and He would gladly draw her from that side of it where sinners lay in their separation from God. And He accomplishes this.
But it is always the conscience that must do this. It is conscience that has put us on the other side.
Conscience put Adam amongst the trees of the garden, and it is that which keeps us all “short of the glory of God,” or of the divine presence in peace. It is therefore the conscience that must cross the boundary, and it is that which Jesus brings across it on this occasion. He exposes her to herself, He convicts her, He lets her know all things that ever she did; but it is in that very character that she reaches him (see verse 29).
Have we crossed it, as she did? With all the recollections of conscience, without keeping back a secret, have we reached Him? If His glory were to break full in the twinkling of an eye, are we conscious at this moment, that we should not “come short” of it? This is, indeed, with this sinner of Samaria, to be on the right side of the boundary line; to be treading with firm foot, on the ruin of all partition-walls in His peaceful presence now and looking to be in His glorious presence forever!
The Remembrancer, 1900 (adapted)