John 4:1-14 | Dirty Water
Notes
Transcript
We are continuing in our series in the book of John today.
And looking at John 4 we move into a very practical example of Jesus’s ministry.
2 Weeks ago we looked at Jesus meeting the woman at the well.
And we looked at the well itslef and the history behind it
But today we are going to be looking more in depth at the woman’s response to what Jesus will tell her.
If you remember she is initially somewhat resistant and hesitant toward what Jesus has told her and we will see Jesus double down now on forcing her to encounter the truth.
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
How misogynistic of Jesus
“The Jesus that I like would never point out someone’s sin like that!”
Well if thats the Jesus you know than you don’t know the real Jesus.
Some may say “well Jesus wasn’t really pointing out her sin he was just using this as an opportunity to show who he was.”
He was using this as an opportunity to show that he had special power, but there were many other ways he could do this that would have been less direct to the woman
But the way Jesus went about this makes a lot more sense when you look at the context
They are discussing the living water
Jesus says whoever drinks of this water will never thirst again
She asks for the water, and Jesus responds with an accusation of her husband
You know who else this story makes me think of, another individual Jesus would interact with later in scripture.
A few chapters later in John, we see Jesus come in contact with another woman caught in the sin of adultery.
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?”
Now you may think based on how Jesus responded to the woman at the well, that he would be all for the stoning.
Like Jesus was just excited to jump at the first chance he could criticize the woman and punish her right?
This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.
So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”
Oh so Jesus is now going the opposite direction, now everyone can just sin and it doesn’t matter right
This somehow looks like sin is judged in a group setting
Only the worst sinners get punished
Or nobody gets punished because all sin
It appears that Jesus is sort of loose on the consistency of his judgement
One minute he is pointing out sin, another he seems to just forget about it and let it go
But noticed what happened
And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Now one of the greatest debates in all of scripture centers around these verses.
The question is, what did Jesus write on the ground.
And this is very important because whatever Jesus wrote was convicting enough to cause all of these Pharisees to drop this accusation and leave on the spot
And most theories include that he wrote the sins of the Pharisees, or he didn’t write anything and was just sort of ignoring them
But listen, I want to tell you something that you should never forget.
The greatest commentary of the Bible is the Bible.
And what I want to share with you here, is perhaps one the most interesting mostly unknown Biblical connection I have ever seen
And it exposes the true character of Jesus more than any of these theories
You see I believe I know for certain what Jesus wrote in the ground, but I don’t think that is as important as why he did this in the first place.
We cannot forget to look at everything in scripture in light of context.
And the context here is a a group of Pharisees, who knew their Old Testament scripture very well.
They were quite literally experts in the Law of Moses
And Jesus knew this, so his primary weapon was using the law itself against them
And this was one of those examples, and if we don’t understand the law, we will miss this
To get what Jesus was doing here, we have to go back to Numbers 5
It is here that we get the specific steps that the Israelite people should take if a woman is accused of committing adultery.
I won’t read the whole section for sake of time but I will summarize it for you
A husband brings an accusation of suspected adultery
no witnesses, no proof, not caught in the act—just suspicion stirring jealousy
2. The accused woman is brought before the priest and the husband offers a jealousy offering
barley meal offering)
3. The priest prepares the “bitter water”
he would take water that was set apart for the use of temple and put it in a jar,
then he would take dust from the ground, and mix it in with the water
4. The priest places her under oath of judgement
declaring that if she is innocent she will be unharmed
but if guilty she will come under a divine curse, and the curse was very specific
it was a physical affliction that would effect her ability to reproduce.
So her committing adultery would cause her to be unable to have children any longer.)
5. The priest writes the specific curse down
a formal, recorded judgment tied to the accusation
6. The written curse was then washed into the water
the ink dissolves into the water, symbolically placing the judgment into the drink itself
7. The woman is made to drink the bitter water
consuming water + dust + dissolved curse
placing the outcome fully in God’s hands
8. God renders the final verdict
if guilty, physical judgment follows;
if innocent, she is cleared and able to move forward
I hope you can see all the connections here.
In our story Jesus is approached by a group of Pharisees bringing a woman to him charged with adultery.
Notice they say that she is caught in the act, however there is a very important party missing here, THE MAN
If she was truly caught in the act then according to the law, the man had to be there too to justify stoning
“If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die—the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel.
So right away their claim that this woman should be stoned is not valid, because there is only accusation since the man is not present.
So according to the law, what is the correct procedure here? - Numbers 5
The correct procedure is for God to make the judgement himself, since it is just an accusation at this point
So what does Jesus do? Well he gives them a little reminder, a lesson in Old Testament law to set them straight
We see him bend down and start writing in the dust. Just like the priests would have picked up the dust from the floor of the tabernacle.
But there is something missing, where is the water? The priest would have made the bitter water for the woman to drink, but Jesus doesn’t have any water in this demonstration, OR DOES HE?
You see the day before, in John 7, we see Jesus is in the temple during the last day of what the Bible calls the great feast.
This was the feast of Tabernacles, a celebration of God’s provision over the people.
And each morning of this feast the priests would collect water from the pool of Siloam, and they would go back to the temple and pour it over the sacrifice being made
During all of this - Jesus stands at the temple, and says these words...
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
With the waters of the sacrifice flowing, Jesus stands as says he who believes in me will receive the living water
And the Pharisees don’t like this, so we see in John 7 they challenge him on his teachings, and then the day ends, Jesus goes to the mount of Olives, everyone else goes home.
And early the next morning, Jesus goes back to the temple, the Pharisees pull this stunt of bringing a woman accused of adultery to him to try and trip up the guy who just said that he offers living water into stoning the woman publicly
And Jesus bends down, and in the dirt of the temple grounds, where the water of the sacrifices were just flowing, he starts writing
We haven’t even got to what he was writing yet, but you see now how much more important Jesus writing in the ground at all was?
And honestly, I think the reason scripture doesn’t tell us what he wrote, was because it was so obvious what he was writing that it didn’t need to be mentioned
These Pharisees, in full understanding of what Jesus is doing, in complete error of their Old Testament process for how this should have been handled, now sees the true High Priest, when approached with a woman in adultery, remind them of their error in the process by mimicking the OT process, but at the same time show he wasnt just the great high priest, he was God, the one doing the judging, hes playing two parts in this picture
He told them day before that he offers a living water, in clear comparison to the water being used on the sacrifices, and now he includes the second part of the ritual, he includes the use of the temple grounds dirt
But instead of turning the attention of the ritual on the woman, like the OT would have him do, he instead takes the position as the judging God, and he addresses not yet the womans sin, but the sin of the pharisees
And he writes in the ground, and just like scripture tells us why he did this, I think it also tells us what he wrote...
O Lord, the hope of Israel,
All who forsake You shall be ashamed.
“Those who depart from Me
Shall be written in the earth,
Because they have forsaken the Lord,
The fountain of living waters.”
Jeremiah tells us that the Lord, who is called the FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS, will be forsaken and ashamed by Israel, and that the names of those who depart from him will be written in the earth
Seems pretty cut and dry to me
Yeah I think its clear...
I think Jesus wrote the names of the men in the dirt of the temple, immediately following his divisive teaching claiming to offer the living the water, that caused many in Israel to depart from him and forsake him. And I think the reason the Pharisees left immediately was because Jesus was reminding them....
1. Of their failure to follow the correct process for the accusation of this woman
2. of their own sinfulness
3. of Jeremiah 17:13, which I think they would have gotten the reference right away, and they knew at that moment, that this man was claiming to be God himself, and they were now the ones who forsaken God and got their names written in the earth as a result
This all makes sense, but what’s the point?
Well this whole picture isn’t just an interesting connection, it tells us something about Jesus and his relationship with us that we completely miss without this information.
In this process of judging the accused, the high priest deferred the judgement directly to God.
But here, Jesus is filling the role of the High Priest, and the the judge.
He is the one who the woman is brought to to be judged, and judge himself.
and when it comes to the accused adulterous woman, notice what he says...
When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”
She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
Jesus says, neither do I condemn you.
The High Priest would say, according to the law, I will defer this to God, and he will show us his choice through this ritual of drinking the bitter water
BUT JESUS SKIPS RIGHT TO THE JUDGEMENT AND SAYS, I DO NOT CONDEMN YOU
But the craziest part of all this, is what he says at the end, go and sin no more
You know what this implies, that she actually was guilty of what they accused her of
Jesus is implying here that she was in sin
But notice carefully what he says, he says I do not condemn you, but it is followed with a command to repentance of her sin
He doesn’t say you are off the hook of your sin, he says at this moment, I am not going to punish you for this sin
We know this because Jesus already said this in John 3:17
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Here is the whole point, Jesus didn’t come to the world to condemn, he came to save.
BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT OUR SIN IS JUST FORGOTTEN ABOUT, IN FACT IN MEANS THE VERY OPPOSITE.
THE FACT THAT JESUS CAME TO SAVE INSTEAD OF CONDEMN ACTUALLY MAKES OUR SIN A MUCH BIGGER DEAL THAN IF HE CAME TO CONDEMN
BECAUSE HIM JUST COMING TO CONDEMN WOULD BE HIM SERVING AS A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE, BUT HIM COMING TO SAVE MEANS THAT HE TOOK THE PAYMENT OF THAT SIN ON HIMSELF
WE SHOULD NEVER LOOK AT JESUS CHOOSING TO FORGOE PUNISHMENT IN THAT INSTANCE AS MINIMIZING THE WOMANS SIN, IN FACT HIM SAYING THAT HE CAME TO SAVE HER AND THE WORLD FROM THEIR SINS THROUGH HIS SACRIFICE ON THE CROSS SHOULD SHOW US JUST HOW MUCH THE SIN MATTERS
And that is the focus of his response
It is not “oh don’t worry about your sin, it’s not that big of a deal” instead he is calling here into a lifestyle of repentance away from her sin, that is only possible through his sacrifice on the cross
THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD IS FAIR AND JUST, BY BEING PLACED ON JESUS TO ACCEPT THAT JUDGEMENT FOR US, AND IN THE SALVATION FOUND THROUGH REPETANCE OF OUR SIN
So you say Zach I thought we were in John 4, why has this whole message been focused on John 8
Well lets look at her story again.
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
The woman is confused, she doesn’t understand who this is, but what does Jesus make very clear, he offers the living water to the sinner in need of a drink.
And just like the adulterous woman, he looks at this woman in the midst of her sin, and doesn’t condemn her, instead he exposes her sin, and shows how what he offers is so much better.
No next week we will touch on verses 27-38, but I want to skip down to verses 39-45 for a moment.
You see this is the response we don’t get see in John 8 with the adulterous woman. In that account we don’t see how she responds, but we get to see how this woman does.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word.
Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
Notice the response of the woman, what was the means by which she proved the message.
The woman told everyone that Jesus told her “all that she ever did”
IT WAS WITHIN HIS EXPOSING HER SIN, THAT SHE SAW HE WASN’T JUST A PROPHET, BUT HE WAS SPECIAL
At first the woman says what, that she perceives he must be a prophet, since he knows this, but it is through that exposure of her sin, and Jesus clearly telling her that he is the Messiah.....THAT SHE IS MOVED TO GO INTO THE CITY AND TELL EVERYONE ABOUT HIM
And they believe too, not just based on her witness, but on the words that Jesus told them too.
Can I just put all this together into a very simple application for you today.
Your sin matters.
It matters a lot.
And we should never think that our sin is not that serious because of how we see Jesus address sin during his ministry
BECAUSE THE WAY JESUS ADDRESSED SIN DURING HIS MINISTRY WAS BY BEING HUNG ON A CROSS FOR IT
And this is the integral truth of the faith, that we must never forget, OUR SIN MATTERS PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF WHAT IT COST JESUS
We must be careful to understand the difference in our status as a sinner, and our committing of individual sins
We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.
And when Jesus came to this earth, he came to make us right with God, by cleaning us of our sinful status, not by removing the presence of sin.
And this was precisely the issue with the woman brought to Jesus in adultery.
The pharisees focused on the act of the sin, Jesus focused on the status of the sin
While the pharisees say LOOK AT HER SIN
JESUS SAYS LOOK AT HER STATUS AND SINNER, AND HE MADE THEM LOOK AT THEIR STATUS TOO
And this is the foundational truth that we must understand in the christian life
This truth helps us rectify so many logical issues of salvation.
WELL I HAVE SINNED TOO MUCH FOR JESUS TO SAVE ME
Jesus came not to condemn but to save sinners
He cleansed the sinner of their title of sinner, and that title of sinner is just as accurate for the worst of the worst and the best of the best
among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
WELL I CAN LOSE MY SALVATION IF I FALL BACK INTO SIN
Jesus came not to condemn but to save sinners
His payment on the cross, for those who believe in him and repent of their sins, cleanses them and transform them from their status as sinner, and they will naturally show the fruit of that is there is true repentance
BUT IF THE PRESENCE OF SIN DISQUALIFIES THE SINNER FROM SALVATION, THEN THE INITIAL SALVATION WAS ONLY BASED ON COVERING UP ALREADY COMMITTED SINS, NOT ON CLEANSING THE SINNER OF THEIR STATUS.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
Are you living today in the bondage of sins, when Christ has saved you from sin itself?
Are you living like the Pharisees, searching out and focusing your life on sins that are already paid for.
You ask, well Zach I get our sin matters because of what it costs Jesus, but does that mean I wont ever be punished, that there is no physical reproduction for sin because its all in the past already, and NOW EVERYTHING I DO IS FORGIVEN AND FORGOTTEN?
No not all.
You see this is the most important aspect of this whole thing for the believer.
I am going to say a statement, that I want you to engrain into your mind, because it will forever shape how you view sin.
GOD NEVER CONDEMNS THE BELEIVER
The punishment for our sin was put on christ, all of it
So there is no more punishment for our sin, this is what Jesus meant when he said he didn’t come to condemn
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
God never condemns the believer, but he does correct, he does chastise.
A parent doesn’t punish their child to make right a wrong, that’s God’s job, and ultimately those wrongs were made right through christ, or through the eternal punishment of the unbeliever in hell
Instead a parent corrects, they chastise the child, they punish the child with the purpose to point them toward what is right
And so does God
So today, as you continue to live with sin, stop believing the lies of Satan those those sins in some way diminish the sacrifice of christ, or they effect your eternal salvation, or the most dangerous one… THAT THEY JUST AREN’T REALLY THAT IMPORTANT.
And instead realize the truth that Christ shows us through the woman at the well, and the adulterous woman, that he came to SAVE US FROM OUR SIN, NOT CONDEMN US FURTHER INTO IT.
