“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in
Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman,
believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem
will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what
we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now
here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for
the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”” (John 4:20–24, ESV)
At this point I don’t know if the woman was raising
objections and questioning this man that she recognized as being from God, or
whether she was sincerely impressed and was questioning the way that her people
had gone about worshiping God. After all, she acknowledged Jesus as a prophet
of God, and He was a Jew who was there with her and proving Himself to be very
authoritative. Her next words were to question Him on the distinctions between
where the Samaritans chose to worship as opposed to the Jews. The Jews chose to
worship and build their temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans chose Mt. Gerizim
for their temple. Reading between the lines, we might go on to think she might
have been asking. “Who’s right?”
Rather than giving her a “yes” or “no” type of answer Jesus
went on to dig deeper. He told her that a time was coming when neither of these
places would be where God the Father is worshipped. There was quickly coming a
time when even the temple in Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. But long
before the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. we read the events when Jesus gave
up His life on the cross, “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and
yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two,
from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs
also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were
raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the
holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him,
keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were
filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”” (Matthew 27:50–54,
ESV)
Among all that happened in those moments the curtain which
had separated the Most Holy Place was torn from top to bottom. It was as if by
the very hand of God the curtain had been removed. With Christ’s death, resurrection,
and ascension the purpose for which He was sent was finished. Man could now
through Him receive forgiveness of sins (past, present, and future all at one
time and for all time) and be given eternal life. When Jesus gave up His life
the perfect sacrifice was completed and there was no longer any need for any
lesser sacrifice. The Great High Priest had made Himself personally available
to all who would call on His name. So, the questions the woman had about where the
proper place to worship might be really weren’t important in light of this
eternal perspective.
Beyond this Jesus went on to tell her that she and her
people had been missing many of the key pieces of information concerning the
coming Messiah. Since they only accepted the books of Moses as authoritative
they missed a lot of what God had declared through the prophets and others. As
such when they worshiped they might have done so intently, but only with
partial knowledge. The Jews, however, were the people with whom God had made a
special covenant and to whom He repeatedly revealed Himself and spoke through many
various people. This gave them the greater advantage in knowing God and
worshiping Him in truth. God’s promise was that through the seed of Abraham He
would send a Messiah, and as such it was through the Jews that the Savior of
the world would come. And the Jews were told all of this. Jesus went on to tell
the woman that a time was soon coming when all true worshipers (Jews or
Samaritans or any others) would worship not only based upon the truths which
they had been given but also in spirit. The time was coming when all true
worshipers of the Father would worship Him through the Son as a response from
their heart.
Up until the time that Christ came man had no real picture
of God that they could worship. Up until His coming what they knew of God is
what He revealed of Himself to be true. With the coming of Christ, God was
given a face through the physical life (incarnation) of the Son. With the
coming of Christ man was given the ability to see God in Him. Here are just a
few of the verses which Jesus spoke concerning our ability to see God in
Christ. “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side,
he has made him known.” (John 1:18, ESV) … “not that anyone has seen the Father
except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” (John 6:46, ESV) … “Jesus
said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me,
Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the
Father’?” (John 14:9, ESV)
Jesus told the woman that there was coming a time very soon
when those who really worship God will do so inwardly in such a way that it
also impacts their outward actions. The apostle Paul wrote of our spiritual
response to what Christ had done for us in Romans 12:1-2: “I appeal to you
therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your [reasonable] spiritual
worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal
of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is
good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2, ESV) These divisions between
Jews and Samaritans would melt away as those who worship the Father come
together as one in Christ.
Even us today, while we do not have the physical presence of
Christ or photos on our walls or even videos of Him performing miracles to
stream on the internet, we do have His life recorded for us in the gospels. We
have many of His words written for our benefit, and we have the record of those
who lived with Him who shared about what followed. We have the record of
Scripture to give us the truth, and we have been given the Spirit of God to
work even in our own hearts to make these truths alive and powerful.
Because God sent His Son we not only have been given the
greatest gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life, but we have been given a
living picture of our God to encourage us as we grow in His image. I love the
words of Mary Magdalene when she saw the resurrected Christ, “I have seen the
Lord!”
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