A New Era Dawns

In John 4, while Jesus was talking with the woman at the well, we will learn about worship and what it means to worship from Christ himself.

Proskuneo, the Greek word for worship is used at least ten times in this section of scripture. Even though this section of scripture isn’t very long, it is power packed with a lot of what it means and how to worship God. It is the clearest teaching of the theme of worship in the New Testament.

We have seen through our study that worship isn’t supposed to be something that is part of our weekly schedule.

Worship is supposed to be a way of life.

We have looked at a definition of worship, examined the importance of worship, the nature of worship, and the object of worship. In John 4, we will not only see these things as well, but we will also shed more on the subject of worship.

A Divine Appointment

The beginning of this section of scripture starts with the events that will lead up to Jesus’ conversation with the woman.

John 4:3–9 ESV

he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Jews normally didn’t travel this route in order to avoid coming in contact with the Samaritan people. That Jesus stuck to this route was an unusual act to start.

The reason Jesus went this way was due to the fact He had an appointment to meet the Samaritan woman a the well. God was after this woman to become a true worshipper. So, He sent Jesus to go and meet her.

A House Divided

The Samaritan people have their origins in the Jewish people. When Israel was overthrown due to the behavior of the nation, most of the people were taken into captivity in Assyria. The ones who were left in the land were very poor. This is the reason the Assyrians didn’t take them. They would have been a charity case which the Assyrians didn’t want. The Babylonians started moving into the land that was left. They began to intermarry with the Israelites who were left, and thus formed the Samaritan people.

The Samaritan religious practices were a hodgepodge of the religions of the people groups who came through their land and they intermarried with. They “intermarried” their religions as well. They had some of the Jewish practices added into what they were trying to do, but it was idol worship at its best. The Samaritan people even asked for a Jewish priest to come and teach them how to worship, but the priests were so hung up on their own law, they refused to send anyone to help them.

Since they had no help, they established their own place to worship God the best way they knew how. The built a temple on Mount Gerizim.

The temple would be destroyed in 128BC and would never be rebuilt. Even though the number of Samaritans left in the world is very small, they still get together on the mount to worship God in their own way.

Is This Not the Christ?

Of course, we have studied how the Jewish people looked on the Samaritans. But if you haven’t, they were despised by the Jews since they didn’t keep themselves pure when the other people groups came through their area. This is why the woman was surprised to see Jesus there at the well and that He would even speak to her.

John 4:9–14 ESV

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus was offering her eternal life.

She knew He was sharing something which had spiritual significance. She knew Jesus was sharing a parable with her. The Samaritans were used to parables. Her response to Him comes in the same terminology He was using in what He was sharing with her.

John 4:15 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus reveals even more about how much He knew about this woman.

John 4:16–19 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Her response to Jesus knowing this information about her was He must be a prophet.

She recognized that He was a man of God, but she didn’t recognize Him as God’s Son yet.

The Samaritans recognized only the Pentateuch as revelation from God, it had enough about Messiah, they were anticipating His coming. With what Jesus shared to the woman about her past, when she went back and talked with the town’s people, she recognized that Jesus could be the Messiah.

John 4:29 ESV

“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

She recognized there was something very different about Jesus. Enough to make her wonder who He really was. She saw He had a message of spiritual truth for her and He knew what was humanly impossible for Him to know.

He had a divine message and divine perception

Knowing He was sent from God, she asked him about how her people worshipped and where they worshipped. She asked him since the Jews said you could only worship God in Jerusalem, who was right?

She wanted to know the proper way to worship

John 4:20 ESV

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

There was more to her question than just trying to find out if the fathers of her people were right or not. She was wanting to find the forgiveness which could only be offered to her by the God she wanted to find. However, in her question, you can see she was still associating worship with a place.

Everyone Did What Was Right In His Own Eyes

She was stuck between two religions in which she was trying to find her answer. the Jewish religion was very stuck on it’s rites and practices and laws. It was very legalistic. The Samaritan religion was a lot the same, it just wasn’t as elaborate, ornate, or sophisticated.

When Jesus answered her question, it must have been a shock to here since He told her they were both not worshipping correctly. Both groups were wrong.

He told her that both were wrong and their way of worship was getting ready to be replaced with a worship which didn’t focus on a place, but a spiritual encounter.

John 4:21–24 ESV

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.”

Something Old, Something New

Jesus could have been predicting her conversion in telling her she was getting ready to realize that true worship doesn’t happen in a location or place, but from within.

If we look at this broadly we could see that Jesus was sharing with her what was going to happen when He died on the cross. He was going to break every barrier that stood between man and God, and man would now be able to worship God without all the rituals that had been placed on man in order to worship Him.

In verse 23, Jesus is saying He is standing in between what was and what is to come in the form of worship.

The end of the Old Covenant was marked very dramatically by what happened in the Holy of Holies when Jesus died. The veil that separated the holiest part of the temple was ripped from top to bottom. This was to signify that man no longer had to go through someone else to worship God. He could now worship Him through a personal relationship.

Hebrews tells us about this new kind of worship that was brought on through the death and resurrection of Christ.

Hebrews 10:19–20 ESV

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,

Hebrews 10 deals with how the old system really was insufficient for covering the sins of man. The blood of animals wasn’t doing the job. The sacrifices of animals had to be performed over and over again.

The blood of Christ covered our sin. He only had to die once to do this.

Hebrews 10:14–18 ESV

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

The sacrificial system of the Old Covenant was done the moment Jesus died on the cross.

What About the Sabbath?

There are religions who still teach we must keep the Sabbath Saturday holy. They say it is the only way to bring acceptable worship to God. This contradicts what we have been studying in these scriptures.

In the Old Covenant, all religious activity revolved around the Sabbath.

There are many different kinds of Sabbaths. Some held more importance or prominence than others.

The fundamental concepts behind every Sabbath observance was rest and worship.

The entire Sabbath system was looking forward to the time Messiah would come and truly set the captive free and bring about the true worship they were all looking for. The Old Covenant was looking forward to the time the New Covenant would come and allow a worship that was based on a relationship as opposed to the rituals that were spelled out in the Old.

Jesus announced the arrival of this in Luke 4.

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus was saying here He was the fulfillment of the year of jubilee. This was a huge event in redemptive history.

Think about what is said in Matthew.

Matthew 11:28 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Jesus was fulfilling what the Sabbath was to provide. What the Sabbath symbolized was brought to fruition in what Jesus had to offer us.

He was the substance of which the Sabbaths were merely shadows.

If you look at Jesus and some of the things He did, it seems like He would go out of His way to demonstrate how the Sabbath had been interpreted by the religious leaders.

Colossians 2:16–17 ESV

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

We do not worship under the old system that was established in the Old Covenant.

We should be worshipping

Hebrews 10:20 ESV

by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,

Not Much Has Changed

Is the worship we offer our God today any different than the ritualistic worship that was offered from the Jewish people during Jesus’ time. I’m not talking about the sacrifices themselves, but all the things we say must happen during a worship service in order for it to be a worship service.

A.P. Gibbs describes this false worship which is in our churches today. I believe there is or are some denominations which he is targeting in this writing, but don’t get hung up in the dress he’s talking about, listen to the message as a whole and not the fine details.

“Much of the so-called “public worship” in Christendom is merely a form of Christianized Judaism, and, in some cases, thinly veiled paganism… In Judaism there was a separate priestly caste who alone could conduct the worship of Israel. In Christendom a man-made priesthood called “the clergy,” is essential to its worship, in spite of the plain teaching of the New Testament that all believers are priests. These priests of Judaism wore a distinctive dress, as also does the clergy. Judaism emphasized an earthly sanctuary, or building. In like manner, Christendom makes much of its consecrated “places of worship,” and miscalls the edifice “a church,” and refers to it as “the house of God.” Jewish priests had an altar on which were offered sacrifices to God. Christendom has erected “altars” in these ornate buildings, before which candles burn and incense is offered and, in many cases, on which a wafer is kept, which is looked upon as the body of Christ! It is hardly necessary to say that all this copying of Judaism is absolutely foreign to the teaching of the New Testament.

Thus Christendom has initiated its own specially educated and ordained priesthood, whose presence is indispensable to “administer the sacraments.” These men, robed in gorgeous vestments, from within a roped off “sanctuary,” stand before a bloodless “altar,” with a background of burning candles, crosses and smoking incense, and “conduct the worship” for the laity. With the use of an elaborate prepared ritual, with stereotyped prayers, and responses from the audience, the whole service proceeds smoothly and with mechanical precision. It is a marvel of human invention and ingenuity, with an undoubted appeal to the esthetic; but a tragic and sorry substitute for the spiritual worship which our Lord declared that His Father sought from His redeemed children.”

God would not only condemn this type of worship, but He would also condemn the style of worship that is more about and external show, superficial, without any depth, and ignorant of the holy, righteous Father we are supposed to be coming to worship.

“Christ ushered in the new era of true worship - worship that does not focus on the externals or on the symbolic but on the internal and genuine. That is what the Father seeks, and that is what the Son demands. Anything less falls short.”