Introduction
Having spoken to Nicodemus, the Pharisee, about his need of the new birth, the Lord and his disciples went to Judea for a time, where his disciples baptised a number of people. And then they headed for Galilee. And their journey to Galilee took them through Samaria. And at a well, outside the town of Sychar, the Lord met a Samaritan woman, who had come to the well to draw water. The Lord asked her for water and ended up speaking to her about living water and eternal life. And by referring to living water, the Lord meant the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus is the one who gives us his Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives us the new birth so that we’re able to turn from our sin in repentance and turn with faith to the Saviour. And whoever believes in the Saviour receives the hope of everlasting life in the presence of God.
And then, at the end of the conversation, the Lord revealed to the woman that he is the Christ: God’s Spirit-Anointed and Conquering King sent by God into the world to bring salvation to all of God’s people. He’s anointed with the Spirit and gives the Spirit.
And that’s as far as we got last week. Today we come to the rest of this passage. Let me go through it quickly and then there are several things for us to focus on.
The passage
The Lord revealed to the woman that he is the Christ. And just then, right at that moment, the Lord’s disciples returned. John told us back in verse 8 that his disciples had gone into town to buy food. And now they’ve returned from their shopping trip. And John tells us that they were surprised to find the Lord talking with a woman. Remember that this woman was a Samaritan and that Jews and Samaritans did not get on in those days. So, they would have been surprised that he was talking to a Samaritan. Furthermore, Jewish men would have considered Samaritan woman to be the lowest of the low. So, they would have been surprised that he was talking to, not just a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman.
They were surprised. And yet, none of them asked her what she wanted from him; nor did they ask the Lord why he was talking to her. They may have wondered about these things, but they did not voice them at the time.
But John then tells us that the woman left her water jar beside the well and returned to the town where she lived. Some commentators and preachers make a big deal of the fact that she left her jar behind. They say it symbolises how she’s no longer interested in earthly things, like water, now that the Lord has told her about heavenly things, like the Holy Spirit. Or leaving the water jar behind signifies how she has left her old life of sin behind to begin a new life. It seems to me though that the reason she left her water jar behind was because of her excitement and because of her desire to get back to the town as soon as possible to tell the people there about the Lord Jesus. A water jar, especially one filled with water, was a heavy thing to carry. It would have slowed her down. And she’s excited about meeting the Lord and wants to hurry back as fast as she can to tell the others about him.
And when she got back into town, she said to the people: ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.’ No doubt she’s referring to how the Lord Jesus knew that she has had five husbands before and she’s now living with a man who is not her husband. That hardly constitutes everything she has ever done. And so, she’s clearly exaggerating. But the Lord’s knowledge about her life and her present circumstances has so impressed her that it’s as if he knows all about her. And she went on to say to the townspeople: ‘Could this be the Christ?’ I explained last week that the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Bible as the word of God. But within those first five books, the Lord promised to send his people another prophet like Moses. And that’s what she’s thinking about when she wonders whether the Lord Jesus is the Christ. She means: could he be the new prophet like Moses who is to come? Since he knows all about me, might he be the one we’re waiting for?
I think we’re to take it that she believes he is indeed the Christ. But she’s now inviting the townspeople to see for themselves. And so, they came out of the town and made their way towards him.
John then switches our focus back to the Lord and his disciples. They’ve returned from buying food and they now urged him to eat some of it. But he said to them: ‘I have food to eat that you know nothing about.’
His disciples are puzzled by his answer. They wonder if someone else has brought him food. They might even be wondering whether the woman had given him something to eat. And their confusion recalls the conversation the Lord had with the woman, where he was using the image of living water to refer to the Holy Spirit, but she only had literal water — H2O — on her mind. And it recalls the conversation he had with Nicodemus, where the Lord was talking about being born again by the Holy Spirit, but Nicodemus was thinking about natural childbirth. On both occasions, the Lord referred to heavenly things, but Nicodemus and the woman were thinking of earthly things only. And the Lord is talking now about heavenly food: doing the will of his Father in heaven. But the disciples are thinking of earthly food only. And so, the Lord explained to them what he means. He said to them: ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’ That is to say, he gets satisfaction and joy, spiritual nourishment, from doing his Father’s will.
And then he likens his work to the work of a farmer. The farmer sows his seed in the field and then he must wait. And he must wait several months for the crops to grow and ripen. ‘Do you not say,’ the Lord asks, ‘“Four months more and then the harvest”?’ The harvest does not take place immediately, because you have to wait for it.
That’s the way it is with normal, earthly crops. But ‘open your eyes and look’, the Lord says in verse 35. Look at the fields. The crops are ripe now. The harvest is ready now. There’s work to be done right now.
And we can imagine the Lord pointing his disciples towards the town, because at that very time, there’s a crowd of Samaritans coming out of the town and through the fields towards the Lord Jesus. And all of those people are like crops in a field. The seed has already been sown and it’s already taken root and it’s begun to grow in their hearts and so, it’s time to get to work and to reap this harvest of people and to bring them in to eternal life.
When he says in verse 36 that the reaper draws his wages, he means that it’s now time to reap. The reaper can’t draw his wages if he’s not working. But once the harvest is ready, then he can draw his wages. The time for reaping has arrived.
And by saying the sower and the reaper are glad together, he means that this has happened suddenly. It’s happened quickly. So, see how quickly the people have responded! Only a minute ago the woman was telling them about the Lord and they’re already responding. It’s wonderful.
And I think what he’s doing in verse 37 is he’s stating a principle. So, he’s not just thinking about what was happening that day in Sychar, but he’s thinking about what is always the case in his kingdom, which is that one sows and another reaps. Different people have different roles to perform in Christ’s kingdom. And the disciples had one role to perform and there are others with a different role to perform. So, the Lord has sent his disciples to reap what they have not worked for. That is to say, the Lord has sent his disciples to reap what they did not sow. Others have done the hard work of sowing and they will reap the benefits of their labour.
It’s not clear who or what the Lord means when he refers to those who did the hard work. But what the Lord is making clear is that there is a harvest. Men and women and boys and girls will come to faith in Christ. They will be added to his kingdom. They will inherit eternal life. The word of God is sown and there will be a harvest.
And the passage ends with John telling us that many of the Samaritans from that town believed in the Lord. They believed because of the woman’s testimony about how he was able to tell her everything she ever did. This convinced them that he really was the one they were waiting for. And because they believed in him, they urged him to stay with them for longer. And he stayed with them in that Samaritan town for two days.
And because of the things he said to them during those two days, many more of them became believers. And so, some believed because of the woman’s word. Others believed because of Christ’s own word. And what did they believe about him? They believed that he is the Saviour of the world.
Sent
That’s the passage. I want to do a little theology now and focus on the word ‘sent’ in verse 34. The Lord Jesus said to his disciples: ‘My food … is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’
When the Lord refers to the one who sent him, he means God the Father. God the Father is the one who sent the Son to do his will and to finish his work. And the Lord Jesus will say several times during this gospel that the Father has sent him. And this is the first time he mentions it.
And this word, though small, is important, because the reason we know that there is a distinction in God and that God is three and not just one is because the Father sent the Son into the world and the Father and Son sent the Spirit into the world. By sending the Son and the Spirit into the world, God revealed to us that he is three and not just one. So, he is one God. But the one God we worship and adore exists eternally as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we only know this about God, because the Father sent the Son into the world at his incarnation; and the Father and the Son sent the Spirit into the world on the Day of Pentecost.
The Old Testament contains hints about the Trinity. For instance, one of the words for God in the Old Testament is Elohim, which is a plural word and suggests that there’s a plurality in God. And in Genesis 1:26, God said: ‘Let us make man in our image.’ He didn’t say ‘Let me make man’, but ‘Let us make man’. That too suggests that God is more than one. And in the Old Testament, we read about the Angel of the Lord, who is sometimes depicted as identical with God and who is sometimes depicted as someone distinct from God. That is, he’s someone who was God and who was also with God. In Proverbs, we read about Wisdom, who is depicted as a person and who was with God in the beginning when he created the world. And throughout the Old Testament we read about God’s Spirit, who is active in the world.
God therefore gave his Old Testament people these hints about the Trinity. But God only revealed himself clearly as the Trinity when he sent his Son into the world as one of us and when he sent his Spirit into the world at Pentecost. By sending them into the world, God revealed more clearly than ever before that he is one God in three persons. He revealed to us that there’s the Father who is God; and there’s the Son who is God; and there’s the Holy Spirit who is God. But they are not three gods, because there’s only one God.
And we believe that the Father, sending the Son into the world at the incarnation, matches what is true about God from all eternity. So, the Son comes from the Father, not just in time, but eternally. From all eternity, the Son comes from the Father. He proceeds from the Father. From all eternity, the Father sends forth the Son. And so, the Father is the source and the Son comes from him eternally. And the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son eternally too.
And so, for all eternity, God the Son has been coming forth from the Father; and, for all eternity, God the Holy Spirit has been coming forth from the Father and the Son. For all eternity, God has existed in this way: the Father has been sending the Son eternally and the Father and the Son have been sending the Spirit eternally.
And what happens in eternity is repeated in time, because the Son, who comes from the Father in eternity, came from the Father in time when he entered the world as one of us. And the Spirit, who comes from the Father and Son in eternity, came from the Father and the Son in time when he was poured out on the Day of Pentecost.
And so, the little word ‘sent’, which we read in verse 34 of today’s passage and which will appear again in this gospel, is a very significant word. It’s easy for us to overlook it, but it reveals the Trinity to us. It makes clear to us that there’s a distinction in God and that we can distinguish the Son from the Father. The Father and the Son are distinct, because one sends the other. But they are also one God, because the Son, who comes from the Father eternally and in time, possesses the same divine being as the Father.
And it’s important for us to note that they possess the same divine being, because when some people hear that the Father sent the Son into the world, they think that this must mean that the Father is over the Son. They think that the Father must have authority over the Son to be able to send him into the world. And so, they talk about there being subordination in God: the Son is subordinate to, or he’s below, the Father in authority. They think that the Father must have commanded the Son to come into the world.
But that’s not the case. The Father may be the source of the Son, but there’s no difference between them except that one comes from the other. In every other way, they’re the same. So, everything that is true of the Father as God is true of the Son as God. One is not greater than the other. One does not possess more authority than the other. One is not over the other. They are equal in glory and honour and power. And they are equal in glory and honour and power because they are the same as one another.
And since they are the same as one another, then they possess one and the same divine will. The Father, the Son and the Spirit willed as one God to send the Son into the world. And the Father, the Son and the Spirit willed as one God to send the Spirit into the world. It was the Father’s will to send the Son. But it was also the Son’s will to be sent. By doing the Father’s will, the Son was doing his own will too.
And just as it was the Father’s will to send his Son into the world to give up his life on the cross to pay for our sins, so it was the Son’s will to be sent into the world to give up his life on the cross to pay for our sins. The Father and the Son and the Spirit are one God and they’re united in their will to save us from our sin and misery in this world and to give us eternal life and happiness in the world to come.
Saviour of the world
And having thought about that one word ‘sent’ in verse 34, I now what to focus your attention on the beginning and the end of today’s passage and to think about how the Lord Jesus is the Saviour of the world.
We read that the Lord’s disciples returned from the town and were surprised to find the Lord talking with a woman. As I’ve said before, the Jews didn’t get on with the Samaritans and this woman was a Samaritan. And many Jewish men would have regarded a Samaritan woman as the lowest of the low. And so, the disciples were surprised. But the Lord was willing to cross these social and ethnic barriers in order to speak to this woman about living water and eternal life. He was willing to cross these barriers to reach this woman with the good news of the gospel.
I’ve said before that God has filled the world he made with great diversity. We’re not all the same. If we were all the same, life would be very boring, because we’d all look the same and talk the same and dress the same and we’d think the same. Uniformity is boring. But variety is interesting. Diversity is interesting. When we go on holiday, we enjoy eating different kinds of food and doing things which are different from what we normally do. Difference is interesting.
However, sin often turns difference into division. Instead of appreciating the diversity in the world, we build barriers and we oppose people who are different from us. We’re suspicious of them. We look down on them. And we build mental barriers to separate ourselves from some other group of people who are different from ourselves. Men and women. Young and old. Rich and poor. Middle class and working class. White collar workers and blue collar workers. Employers and employees. Black and white. Nation from nation. Religion from religion. And so on.
And so, in Bible times, Jews did not associate with Samaritans. And men looked down on woman. And it seemed that the disciples did not question the existence of these barriers. In fact, they wanted to question the Lord for crossing them.
But here’s the Son of God, through whom all things came to be, who was willing to cross over the barriers we’ve created and to reach out in love and mercy and compassion to this Samaritan woman with her messed up life.
That in itself was wonderful. But we should also marvel that he knew everything about her. He knew about her five husbands and he knew about the man she was living with who was not her husband. As I said last week, we don’t know the details of her life. Maybe her five husbands had died and she was widowed five times. Maybe they’ve all divorced her unfairly. Maybe the decision to live with a man was not her decision to make. We don’t know the details of her life. But it was a broken life. It was a messed up life. It was not a good life. And yet, the Lord did not hold these things against her. He still reached out to her with love and mercy and compassion to offer her living water and eternal life.
By contrast, when we know about a person’s broken, messed up life, we can so easily distance ourselves from them. We look down on them. We scold them. We criticise them. We create barriers. But the Lord looked on this woman with her broken life and he had compassion on her and offered her a better way.
And now think about the end of the passage. The woman went to the townspeople and told them about the Lord Jesus. They came out of the town and made their way towards him. And we soon discover that some of them have been convinced by what the woman told them and they believed in the Lord Jesus because of what she had said about him. And they came out to him and urged him to stay with them.
And so, the people in this Samaritan town were asking a Jewish man to stay with them. And he did. Jews do not normally associate with Samaritans. That’s what John told us. But this one did. The Lord Jesus was willing to cross the barrier that existed between Jews and Gentiles and to stay with them: to talk with them and to eat with them and to go into their homes and to sleep in their beds. He was willing to make that Samaritan town his home for the next two days.
And so, who is this man? The woman has convinced them that he’s the Christ: the great prophet they were expecting to come. But he’s more than that. He’s the Saviour. He’s the one who gives living water and eternal life to sinners. And as I said last week, the living water he gives us is the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit gives us new life through the new birth so that we’re able to trust in Christ for salvation. And the new life we receive by being born again of the Spirit goes on and on and on for ever. The Lord Jesus — the Saviour — gives us the Holy Spirit who gives us eternal life: life in the presence of God in the new heavens and earth which will never end.
And this Saviour is not the Saviour of one group of people only. He’s the Saviour of the world. He’s the Saviour of Jews and Samaritans and Gentiles. He’s the Saviour of all kinds of people. He’s the Saviour of everyone who believes. And he made that clear to the Samaritans by crossing the barrier between Jews and Samaritans and by offering living water and eternal life to this Samaritan woman and to this Samaritan town.
Conclusion
And so, when he speaks about a harvest in this passage, we’re to understand that this is a worldwide harvest. And because it’s a worldwide harvest, he sends preachers into all the world to sow the seed of his word by preaching to people everywhere in the power of his Spirit. And the Spirit will cause the seed of his word to bear fruit and to grow and to produce a harvest of men and women and boys and girls in every nation who will repent and believe and become part of the worldwide church of Jesus Christ.
The Son — who was sent by the Father into the world — now sends his people into the world to tell people everywhere the good news of salvation for all who believe.
And so, we can rejoice that the news has come to us here in Belfast. And those of us who believe can rejoice because he has saved us. Those of us who don’t yet believe must turn from your sin and unbelief and trust in him for salvation, because there is no other Saviour of the world apart from him. And we can pray for a great and mighty harvest of believers around the world: that all over the world and here in Belfast new believers will spring up and live. And they’ll live because of Christ the Saviour who died to pay for our sins and who was raised to give us life.
Sermons and Stuff 