As we pursue our meditations on this wonderful scene at the well of Sychar, we are struck with the mode in which the woman urges her questions. No sooner does she receive an answer to one, than she brings forward another. The Lord had replied to her first “how?” by telling her of “the gift of God,” and she makes His very answer the foundation of another question. “The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?”
Poor woman! How little she knew, as yet, of the One she was addressing! The well might be deep, but there was something deeper still, even her soul’s deep need; and something deeper than that again, even the grace that had brought Him down from heaven to meet her need. But so little did she know of Him, that she could ask Him, “Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” She knew not that she was speaking to Jacob’s God — to the One who had formed Jacob and given him all he ever possessed. She knew nothing of this. Her eyes were yet closed, and this was the true secret of her “How?” and her “Whence?”
Thus it is in every case. Whenever you find people raising questions, you may be quite sure they want to have their eyes opened. The rationalist, and the skeptic, and the infidel are blind. It is their very blindness that causes them to raise questions, make difficulties, and create doubts. They seem to be very learned; but it is amazing what silly questions they raise. A child, in spiritual knowledge! might well smile at the questions of profound and hoary headed infidels.
However, in the case of the Samaritan, the questions were not so much the fruit of a hold infidelity as of nature’s blindness and ignorance, and therefore the Lord patiently waits on her. There were times when He knew how to silence and dismiss a querist, in a very summary manner. But there were also times in the which He could, in condescending grace, and perfect patience, wait on the poor ignorant inquirer, for the purpose of answering his questions, resolving his doubts, and removing his fears.
Thus it was at the well of Sychar. He was determined to make Himself known to this poor guilty one, and hence, He follows her in all her questionings, removes, one by one, her difficulties, and leaves her not until He perfectly satisfies her soul by the revelation of Himself. She thought the well was deep, and wondered if He were greater than her father Jacob. She could not conceive how He could get this water of which He spoke. “Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” Deep as the well was, it was shallow, after all, when compared with the thirst that had to be quenched. Earth’s deepest and fullest well can be fathomed and drained, and the soul remain thirsty after all. The inscription written by the hand of Jesus on the well of Sychar, may be written on all the wells of this poor passing world: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” The rich man, in Luke 16, had drunk deeply of this world’s wells; but he thirsted again. Oh! yes; reader, he lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torment, and craved, hut craved in vain, a single drop of water to cool his parched tongue. There is not so much as a drop of water in hell. Solemn thought! Solemn for all; but perfectly appalling for the sons and daughters of luxury, ease, and grandeur, who spend their time in running from well to well of this world, and think not of an eternity of burning thirst in the lake of fire. May God, by His Spirit, arrest such, and lead them to Jesus, the Giver of that living water of which whoso drinketh shall never thirst!
How refreshing is the thought! “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Here the soul is satisfied. It has gotten a well of living water within, ever fresh, ever flowing, ever springing up toward its native source; for water always finds its own level. Our Lord here speaks of the Holy Ghost who dwells in all true believers, and is the power of communion with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. In John 3:5,5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5) the Holy Ghost is spoken of in His quickening operation. In chapter 4:14, He is the power of communion; and, in chapter 7:38, He is the power of ministry. It is by the Holy Ghost, the soul is regenerated; by Him we are enabled to hold fellowship with God; and by Him we become channels of blessing to others. It is all by the Spirit who connects us, by an eternal link, to Christ the Head of the New Creation, in whom and through whom we enjoy all the blessings and privileges with which it hath pleased the Father to endow us.
But let us mark how all this comes out in our narrative. “The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” She is still in the dark. Nothing seems to reach her heart. Her eyes are closed, her understanding darkened. The Savior of sinners was before her, but she knew Him not. He was speaking words of grace to her, but she understood them not. He had asked her for a drink, and she replied with a “how?” He had told her of God’s gift, and she replied with a “whence?” He had spoken of an everlasting well, and she seeks only to be spared the trouble of coming to draw. What remains? Just this, “Go call thy husband and come hither.”
Here, we reach the grand turning point. Our blessed Lord is compelled, as it were, to take an arrow from His quiver and aim it directly at the woman’s conscience. She says, “Give me this water;” and He says, “Go, call thy husband.” It is as though He had said to her, “If you want this living water of which I have been telling you, you must get it as a poor convicted, broken-hearted sinner.” Wonderful! Truly wonderful! Who can attempt to fathom the depth of those two words “Go” and “Come?” She was not merely to go and call her husband, but to come back to Christ in her true character. And this was the way to get the living water. “Go, call thy husband.” Here truth shines in upon the woman’s conscience, in order to make manifest her true condition. But, “come hither” was the blessed expression of grace that could invite such a poor sinful creature to come to Him, just as she was, to receive the living water, as a free gift from His hand.
Now, the most cursory reader must see the powerful effect produced upon this woman by the entrance of the sharp arrow of conviction into her conscience. She now says, for the first time, “Sir, I perceive” This was something. Her eyes are beginning to open. She sees something. She finds herself in the presence of some mysterious personage whom she takes to be a prophet. It was through her conscience that the first faint beams of divine light were forced in upon her moral being. She discovers that the One who had asked her for a drink knew all about her, and yet He had asked her, and talked with her, and had not despised her. This, truly, was a turning point in her spiritual history.
Reader, have you ever yet reached this point? Has your conscience ever been really in the presence of that light which makes “all things” manifest? Have you ever seen yourself as a poor, lost, guilty, Christless, hell-deserving sinner? Has the arrow yet entered your conscience? Christ has various kinds of arrows in His quiver. He had an arrow for a man of the Pharisees, and He had an arrow for the woman of Sychar. They were different arrows; hat they did their work. “He that doeth truth cometh to the light” was the arrow for a man of the Pharisees. “Go, call thy husband,” was the arrow for the woman of Sychar. Quite different, no doubt, but each did its work. The conscience must be reached. The question of sin and righteousness must be settled in the presence of God. Say, reader, has your conscience been reached? Has this great and all-important question been settled between your soul and God? If so, you will be able to understand the remainder of this charming and inexhaustible narrative.
We may, at this point in our subject, remark that there are three things to be seen in the history of the Samaritan woman; namely, a detected sinner; a revealed Savior and a devoted saint. The words, “Go, call thy husband” detected the sinner. But do we not often find that when the conscience of a sinner is brought under exercise as to his sins and the claims of God, he is very apt to get occupied with questions about places of worship? Has it not been thus with most of us? Doubtless. There are few who have trodden the earlier stages of what is called religious life, without some exercise of heart as to the conflicting claims of churches or denominations. Where ought I to worship? To what denomination should I attach myself? What Church ought I to join? Which is the most scriptural body? These are questions which most of us have sat down to canvass, in our day; and that, too, long before our souls had found rest in a revealed Savior. Just like the poor woman of Sychar. No sooner had she given utterance to the words, “I perceive” than she begins to speak about places of worship. “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Some worship here; some worship there; where ought we to worship?
Now, without wishing to detract, in the smallest degree, from the interest of such questions, we do most distinctly declare they are not questions to be discussed by a detected or convicted sinner. The grand and all-engrossing point for such an one is to find himself in the presence of a revealed Savior. Yes; we repeat it, and that with emphasis, what a detected sinner needs is not a place of worship, a sect, a church, or a denomination; but a revealed Savior. Let this be deeply pondered, clearly understood, and carefully borne in mind. A convicted sinner can never become a devoted saint, until he finds his happy place at the feet of a revealed Savior.
We crave permission to urge this upon the serious notice of the reader. Immense damage has been done to souls and to the true interests of practical Christianity, by the heart being occupied with churches and denominations, instead of with a Savior-God. If I join a church before I have found Christ, I am in great danger of making the church a stepping-stone to Christ; and it too often happens that stepping-stones to Christ, prove, in the sequel, to be stepping-stones from Christ. We want no stepping-stones to Christ. He has come so very near to us as to leave no room for any such thing. What stepping-stone did the Samaritan adulteress require? None. Christ was at her side, though she knew Him not; and He was patiently dislodging her from every lurking-place in which she had ensconced herself, in order that she might see herself as a great sinner, and see Him as a great Savior, come down, in perfect grace, to save her, not only from the guilt and consequences of her sin, but also from the practice and the power thereof. What could “this mountain” or “Jerusalem” do for her? Was it not obvious that a prior, a paramount question claimed her serious attention, namely, what she was to do with her sins — how she was to be saved? Could she “Go, call her husband,” and betake herself to the mountain of Samaria, or to the temple at Jerusalem? What relief could those places afford to her burdened heart, or her guilty conscience? Could she find salvation there? Could she worship the Father, in spirit and in truth, there? “Was it not plain that she wanted salvation, ere she could worship anywhere?
To all these questions we have a full and faithful answer in Christ’s words. “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
Thus, then, our blessed Lord plainly showed the woman not only that she was a sinner, but also that it was useless her occupying her mind with questions about places of worship? She wanted salvation, and this salvation could only be had through the knowledge of God revealed as Father, in the face of Jesus Christ. Such was the ground of all true and spiritual worship. In order to worship the Father, we must know Him, and to know Him is salvation and everlasting life.
Christian reader, let us bear away with us from the well of Sychar a holy and much-needed lesson as to the right mode of dealing with anxious souls. When such cross our path, let us not occupy them with questions about sects and parties, churches and denominations, creeds and confessions. It is positively cruel so to do. They want salvation—they want to know God—they want Christ. Let us seek to shut them up to this one thing, and charge them not to move one hair’s breadth thence, until they have found Christ. Church questions have their place, and their value, and their interest; but clearly they are not for anxious souls, thousands, we fear, have been kept from “digging deep” and “laying their foundation on the rock” by having church questions injudiciously forced upon their attention just as their eyes were being opened to “perceive,” and before they could say, “Jesus is mine.” We are all so foolishly anxious to swell the ranks of our party, that we are in danger of thinking more about getting people to join us than we are about leading them simply and fully to Christ. Let us judge this evil. Let us ponder the example of the Master, in his dealings with the woman of Sychar, and never lead precious souls to be occupied with the place of worship instead of the ground, the object, and the spirit thereof.
Mark the blessed result of His dealings. The woman is plainly shut up to one thing now. She is ready for a revealed Savior. “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” She seems to be done with her questions. She had asked “How?” and He had answered her. She had asked “Whence?” and He had answered her. She had asked “Where?” and He had answered her. And, now, what remains? I want Christ, she says. You have Him, He replies. “I that speak unto thee am he.” This is enough. All is settled now. She has found her all in Christ. It is not a mountain, nor a temple, Samaria, nor Jerusalem. She has found Jesus — a Savior-God. A detected sinner and a revealed Savior have met, face to face, and all is settled, once and forever. She discovered the wonderful fact that the One who had asked her for a drink knew all about her — could tell her all that ever she did, and yet He talked to her of salvation. What more did she want? Nothing. “She left her water-pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
Here, then, we have a devoted saint. The work was a thorough one. How could it be otherwise when the Master’s hand had wrought it? He had probed her conscience to its deepest depths— shown her herself — driven her from every lurking place and false refuge — taught her the fallacy of being occupied about places of worship — made her feel that nothing but Christ Himself could meet her need —finally, He revealed Himself to her, took full possession of hen soul, and caused her to prove, in her blissful experience, “the displacing power of a new affection.” She had left Sychar that morning, a poor degraded adulteress, and she returned a happy saint, and a devoted servant of Christ. She left her water-pot behind her, and returned to the scene of her crimes and her degradation, to make it the sphere of her brilliant and decided testimony for Christ: “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did.” Precious testimony: Precious invitation!
Christian reader, be this our work, henceforth. May our grand object be to invite sinners to come to Jesus. This woman began at once. No sooner had she found Christ for herself, than she forthwith entered upon the blessed work of leading others to His feet. Let us go and do likewise. Let us, by word and deed — “by all means,” as the apostle says, seek to gather as many as possible, around the Person of the Son of God. Some of us have to judge ourselves for lukewarmness in this blessed work. We see some rushing along the broad and well-trodden highway that leadeth down to eternal perdition, and yet, how little are we moved by the sight! How slow are we to sound in their ears, that true, that proper gospel note, “Come!” Oh! for more zeal, more energy, more fervor! May the Lord grant us such a deep sense of the value of immortal souls, the preciousness of Christ, and the awful solemnity of eternity, as shall constrain us to a more urgent, faithful dealing with the souls of men!