As You Go (John 4:1–9)

Series: John: Life in Christ’s NameText: John 4:1–9

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: January 15, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

Few passages rivet the church and its mission like the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18–20. We read Jesus say there, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” It’s easy to assume that this commands us to leave wherever we are to share the gospel; after all, verse nineteen starts with the word, “Go.”

In fact, many preachers have stated as much; I remember hearing a missionary preach once that every Christian should leave the comforts of home and be willing to go to a foreign land. I agree that we should consider this possibility; I just left the comforts of the warm South for a blue state (which I mean in more ways than one)! However, that missionary, in his zeal, was wrongly binding Christian consciouses, as God calls many Christians to stay where they are and influence their families and communities for Christ. In fact, his interpretation of the passage was wrong.

The word “go” isn’t a command — it isn’t even a verb in the Greek, it’s a participle, an “ing” word. We could translate it, “Going therefore,” or “As you go, therefore.” Why is it often translated “go?” It seems to be part of Matthew’s style throughout his gospel (cf. 2:8; 9:13; 11:4; 17:27; 28:7), but the main command is to “make disciples.” Some people will do this where they are, and others will need to leave to accomplish this.

To determine this isn’t clear, as God doesn’t often open the heavens and give us detailed instructions. Sometimes, we find ourselves going just based on circumstances; we have to move, so we move. In the case of the early church in Acts, it was persecution that pushed many of them from Jerusalem.

In our text this morning, we see something similar. Our Lord made disciples as He went along, and that’s what we should endeavor to do, as well. First, we see the circumstances of going (vv. 1–3). Second, we see the process of going (vv. 4–6). Third, we see the reason for going (vv. 7–9).

First, we see the circumstances of going (vv. 1–3).

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee.

For the most part until now, except for the wedding of Cana to the north, we’ve been with Jesus in southern Israel — an area called Judea. In northern Israel, we’ll be seeing Jesus in a region called Galilee. In between these areas is a region known as Samaria. Since this is the focus of this chapter until v. 46, we’ll talk about that area today.

Before we get there, let’s consider the situation we’ve been discussing for the past couple of weeks. Back in 2:13, we saw that Jesus came south for the Passover, which can fall in March or April. It was then in Jerusalem that Jesus had that private conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus then went out to the countryside and was ministering in the same area as John the Baptist was (which John’s disciples saw as competition). In v. 35 of this chapter, we see that it is now four months to harvest, which would be in October. With that said, Jesus’s ministry may have overlapped John the Baptist’s for around six months in the Judean countryside.

Again, John’s disciples weren’t the only ones who noticed more and more people coming to Jesus. In fact, Jesus “knew that the Pharisees had heard that [He] was making and baptizing more disciples than John.” The dispute that John’s disciples had with that unnamed Jew in John 3:25 have originated with the Pharisees, as they already were confronting John back in chapter one. They were conspiring, and this may turn into an issue with Jesus’s ministry.

Incidentally, again, people today still have disputes concerning purification and baptism. It’s interesting that the author here clarifies that Jesus wasn’t personally baptizing. There’s no doubt Jesus would perfectly baptize a person, but He allows His flawed disciples to do it. In fact, He still directs people like us to conduct these baptisms. After all, His main baptism, if you’ll recall, is not of physical water but of the Holy Spirit.

Because Jesus doesn’t personally dunk all those who come, we cannot conclude that water baptism is essential for salvation. Consider that later, Christ will send His apostle Paul on an evangelistic mission, but Paul will also baptize very few people personally. In fact, Paul separates the command to preach the gospel from baptizing people (1 Cor. 1:17). It’s only after a person hears and accepts the gospel that the new disciple receives instruction on his next steps, such as water baptism. Therefore, the concept that we must be baptized to receive regeneration biblically holds no water!

Back here in John 4, though, we find that the Pharisees did not like people coming in and preaching without their blessing and oversight (a drive that isn’t entirely wrong, had they truly cared for God’s Word and His people). The only Pharisee we’ve met so far which had a positive attitude toward Jesus was Nicodemus, and there may have been others (for instance, we know also of Joseph of Arimathea in John 19:38–39). However, the vast majority of them will reject Jesus’s claims, and they may see Jesus at this time as mimicking John’s ministry. The fact that Jesus is now more popular than John makes Him a new threat.

The Lord knew it wasn’t time to draw the ire of the Pharisees. Persecution would be a real possibility, and Jesus knows His hour has not yet come. Indeed, Jesus will later tell His disciples that they don’t have to brave such hostility; in Matthew 10:23, He says, “But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next.” Many Christians in dangerous parts of the world can rest in this, knowing they aren’t in sin for getting their families to safety when a wave of persecution flares up — they can preach the gospel elsewhere.

Now, I don’t want you to think that the Pharisees just have Jesus on the run. He moves because He is keeping control of the situation; He’s avoiding unnecessary conflict from occurring too early. He had been successful in making disciples in the South, it was now necessary to move on and make disciples elsewhere. We see that evangelism and teaching is the drive of the Lord, and that should be our drive, as well. We should strive to make disciples as we go.

So, He’s heading to Galilee again. In v. 46, we will see that He returns to Cana of Galilee. But, before He gets there, He will pass through Samaria, bringing us to the next point.

Second, we see the process of going (vv. 4–6).

And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

We read first that “He had to pass through Samaria.” It was necessary for Him to do that. Now, there were multiple roads to Galilee, and as we’ve mentioned, the Jews typically avoided Samaria. So, there could generally be only two reasons why that may be necessary for Him to pass through Samaria: either Jesus was in such great haste that this route was necessary, or it may have been necessary due to the plan of God.

Now, I’ve already said the Pharisees did not have Jesus on the run. There’s no indication that they were even pursuing Him; even if they had, as John 7:30 says, “So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” No, He’s in control of the situation, and it’s not as though He’s afraid! The best we could say with this first option is that He just wanted to go the shorter route, perhaps because He did not like the tension between the Jews and the Samaritans and thought it a waste of time to go the long way around.

The second option is that it was necessary because God willed it to be so. Throughout this Gospel, we see Jesus saying that He is following His Father’s will. He knew when His hour would be, for instance, as He said to His mother in John 2:4. He knew there would eventually be work in Samaria, as we see in the Book of Acts, and He may have also knew that there was a woman and a town there ready to hear His message. While the Jews may have despised these people, and vice versa, He is coming and will make all things new.

Of course, the second option doesn’t preclude the first option. God arranges all circumstances in our lives, and we may find ourselves in unexpected places. Even so, we may find an opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ wherever we find ourselves, and even if that person rejects the message, we can honestly say it was a divinely appointed moment.

Jesus is making disciples as He goes. Now with Samaria as a backdrop, there is an added layer of tension with this account. Antipathy exists between the Jews and the Samaritans, with each despising the other. As a result, Jews preferred to avoid Samaria on journeys, and the Samaritans preferred it that way. What may have caused this?

To answer this, we would have to go back several hundred years. We could go back even further than that to the time of the patriarchs, when Jacob himself walked through this area, but let us first consider the time of the Divided Kingdom. Remember that, after King Solomon died, the Kingdom of Israel split in half. The godly Israelites moved or remained in the south, while the ungodly Yankees remained in the north (some things don’t change). As the northern kingdom continued in spiritual decline, God sent prophets warning of coming judgment. With those warnings ignored, God allowed the Assyrians to capture the people in 722 bc, and this is all recorded in 2 Kings 17.

The Assyrians were brutal. They killed many and deported many more. To ensure that no future generation would rise up against them, they divided families, shipped in non-Jewish immigrants, and forced the remaining Jews in the region to intermarry with them. That diabolical scheme aimed to destroy a people and its culture, and it’s from these unions that the Samaritans arise.

Some of the Samaritans tried to keep some of their heritage, even after God eventually allowed Babylon to sack Judah to the south and carry away those people captive. Unlike with the northern kingdom, though, the Babylonians were not nearly as thorough in attempting to destroy the lineage and culture of the Jews, and by God’s protecting hand, they survived the seventy years of exile to return to the land. We read about that return and the rebuilding of the temple and walls in Ezra and Nehemiah.

So, in Ezra 4, some Samaritans try to claim heritage in Jerusalem. In v.1 there, they are called “enemies,” though. They claim to have continued the sacrifices to God in v. 2, but they were engaged in impure worship that God had not commanded, defiled by the Assyrian influence. By offering to help, they may bring idols back into the refurbished temple, the very reason God sent the people of Judah into exile to begin with! So, in v. 3, we read that “Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, ‘You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.’ ” It appears that they were operating with wisdom, because the Samaritans then proceed in the next verses to discourage the people, to frighten them from building, and to frustrate their counsel before King Cyrus.

This isn’t all they did, as it sometimes turned violent, though that eased into an uncomfortable tension. During the intertestamental period (those 400 years between the Old and New Testaments), the Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim, and they decided to offer their sacrifices to God there. They also rejected all the prophetic and poetic writings, choosing instead to only see their version of the five books of Moses as authoritative.

So, when we read that the Jews avoided Samaria, it was more than just prejudice against the Samaritans not being full-blooded Jews. The Pharisees deemed them heretical, and Jesus will even confirm that in v. 22. On the part of the Samaritans, they were often unhospitable to Jewish travelers, so it was in everyone’s best interest to just avoid unnecessary contact.

Or so it seemed. Jesus taught a shocking message in Luke 10:25–37 that we remember as the story of the Good Samaritan. We can hear the Jews’ gasp echoing today — a good Samaritan? Many of the Jews wouldn’t have it, and they even came up the worst insult they could concerning Jesus in John 8:48: He was a Samaritan and had a demon (I wonder which they thought was worse!).

Nonetheless, the Lord Jesus saw the necessity for coming through this hated region, and He came upon the city of Sychar. This is the only time this town is mentioned in Scripture, so there’s some doubt as to where it exactly is. Some say this is an alternate spelling for Shechem, an explanation that goes all the way back to Jerome. The other explanation is a bit younger, going back to the middle ages, and it’s that this is the town of Askar. Either way, the well that Jesus comes upon is well attested, and it remains to this day.

The parcel of land here is one that Jacob purchased back in Genesis 33:18–19 after returning from Haran. He bought it from the leaders in neighboring Shechem, a town situated right between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. In Genesis 48:22, in Egypt, he bequeaths that land to Joseph and his sons. It’s after the Exodus from Egypt that the children of Israel return to the land by way of Shechem, and Joseph’s bones are buried on that land in Joshua 24:32.

That’s a lot of history for this one piece of land! It was while Jacob was there that he and his men dug the well mentioned here in John 4:6. The word for well here is interesting, as it’s usually translated spring, not well. Well, Jacob dug it 100 feet deep, where an underground spring causes the water to rise up within it high enough for people to lower buckets and retrieve it. So, we have this interesting term, one which Jesus will play on in v. 14, talking about the well of living water which springs up!

So, with all that history, we have a greater understanding of how Jesus was journeying. Ultimately, He chose to go north to Galilee, but He chose to do this by traveling through this area and to stop by this historic spot. This is all within the providence of God, as are all of our evangelistic encounters.

One more thing. Notice that Jesus got weary. I don’t want to pass this up because, as I said, this passage is ultimately about Him, not the Samaritan woman. Jesus grew tired, thirsty, and hungry, just like any of us would. For all His glory, all the accolades we read in John’s final testimony which ended chapter three, Jesus had a human nature as well as a divine one; He had two natures perfectly united within Himself. Why would He subject Himself to a human nature? To loosely quote Hebrews 4:15, this is so we can have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses.

He came, and it was the right time to meet someone there. We read that He arrived at the well around the sixth hour, which by Jewish reckoning would be about noon. Jesus was already wearied, and it was getting to be the hottest part of the day. It was around the time when the working world would begin taking its break for a few hours, like a siesta, until the day grew cooler. Yet, it was just the right place and time to meet someone who might want to avoid the crowds, perhaps a woman who needs spiritual life, which is exactly what we see next.

Third, we see the reason for going (vv. 7–9).

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

It’s here that we see why Jesus had to go through Samaria. In other encounters by wells, women came in groups and the Patriarchs were able to find wives, particularly Rebecca and later Rachel. Yet, here came a woman by herself at a time of day when it was getting a too hot to haul water. She was a social outcast coming to draw water for herself and, most likely, also for the man with whom she was illicitly living. She is someone who needed to hear the good news of the Gospel.

This woman serves as an interesting contrast to Nicodemus in the previous chapter, and these differences go well beyond her sex and ethnicity. She didn’t purposefully seek Jesus out, unlike Nicodemus. She was socially despised while Nicodemus was respected. She seems to have been initially a bit disrespectful with Jesus, while Nicodemus was respectful. She’s even there during the day by Jewish reckoning, while Nicodemus came at night. Even with all these differences, we’ll see that she also ultimately accepts Christ as Messiah and Savior, much faster it seems than Nicodemus did! This should give us hope that, despite the vast differences in background or attitude people have concerning Jesus, our Lord saves all kinds, every day.

Jesus then tells her to draw some water for Him. This might sound rude to modern hearers, but He has no receptacle with which He can draw water (v. 11) and this is a culture that values hospitality. According to v. 9, she interprets His command as a request. Moreover, according to that verse, it’s not so much His request that stuns her; it’s the fact that He’s a Jewish man asking her for water that causes her to stop short.

What shocked her was quite different. As one commentary notes, “Jewish men avoided speaking with women in public—even their own wives! Jewish rabbis wanted women to stay ‘in their place.’ Men certainly did not want to discuss theological issues with them.” Add to this that she was a Samaritan with all the baggage attached to that. Then, add to that the fact that the Jews thought sharing utensils with Samaritans would ceremonially defile them (something hinted in the language of v. 9). And yet, here is Jesus, who she somehow obviously sees is a Jew, asking her for water from her bucket.

Why did He ask for water? There’s no doubt that He asks for water because He is thirsty, just as there’s no doubt that He was weary. He needed water in His humanity; after all, recall on the cross, our Lord says “I am thirsty” (John 19:28). His disciples aren’t there, so He can’t ask them. Even so, as He talks to her, He switches to her need, which is greater than His. This is a divinely-appointed opportunity.

As we read back in 2:25, Jesus knows what is in each person, man or woman. He knows what her sins are, as we’ll see in vv. 16–19. Still, He speaks with her because He knows her need for life, and so, He offers her living water in verse ten.

Conclusion

We’ll talk more about her conversation with Jesus in the coming weeks. Of course, with all of Scripture, the point isn’t ultimately the story about this woman or any other human being. It’s about the Christ, the Messiah. The Lord of this account is still saving people today, so the question is whether you will accept His words. I hope you accept the Messiah who offers water.

If you do, I hope you see the Lord sovereignly arranges opportunities. We may find that we have to travel for some reason, but there may be someone there who needs to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Wherever you find yourself, as you go into the world, ask the Lord whether there may be a need to talk to someone about Him.