John 4:23, commentary and pictures

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the hour for true worship had already come, when worship of the Father would no longer be confined to Gerizim or Jerusalem or to any holy place, temple, or outward form. True worship is worship of the Father from the heart in spirit and in truth, not mere ceremony, display, or worship with the lips alone, but genuine heart-service wrought by the Holy Spirit who purifies the heart, renews the mind, and prompts sincere prayer and willing obedience. With Christ on earth calling people directly to God, the ritual service possessed no virtue in itself to save, for He presented Himself as its fulfillment and opened a spiritual priesthood without approach through forms and ceremonies. The Father seeks such worshipers and receives them as His sons and daughters, without regard to birth, nationality, or social standing, even beyond Israel among sinful and despised strangers who open their hearts to receive Him.

Conversation at the Well

Jesus spoke these words to a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well at Sychar at noontide. He was faint from hunger and thirst after a long journey since morning, with cool refreshing water near yet inaccessible because the well was deep and He had no rope nor water-jar. Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies who avoided all dealing and social intercourse, and a Jew would not borrow from a Samaritan nor receive a kindness, not even bread or water. Though Maker of the ocean and Controller of the waters of the great deep and Opener of the springs and channels of the earth, He rested weary in His lot as man and depended on a stranger's kindness for even a drink of water. When the woman came to fill her pitcher He asked her for a drink rather than offering a kindness, because hatred would have rejected an offer while asking awakens trust, and He was seeking the key to her outcast heart.

He spoke after laying open her past life of five husbands and awakening conviction of sin, with a present unlawful union also exposed. To escape conviction she tried to turn the conversation to the religious dispute and controversy over whether Gerizim in the mountain or Jerusalem was the right place to worship, whether Samaritans should worship in the mountain or Jews at Jerusalem. The word about true worship awakened her moral nature and sense of higher need, and she believed the words were truth.

The conversation marks the commencement of His mission work and belongs with His positive invitations of mercy and goodness, showing that no one need remain in ignorance questioning whether mercy, grace, salvation, answered prayer, and divine favor can be found in God. It belongs to the encounter at Jacob's well after He asked her, Give me to drink, and she raised the controversy that a Jew should ask drink of a Samaritan. There He offered living water, bringing spiritual refreshment and grace, fulfilling God's promise that the woman's Seed would bruise the serpent's head.

He offered living water and made the Father and acceptable worship known to a foreign, sinful woman beyond Israel. His teaching about His spiritual kingdom reached her, and receiving His life led her to share it. She told others about Him, brought her townspeople to hear Him, and many came to hear and believe.

He opened His richest instruction to this despised woman at Sychar because He discerned an open mind and receptive spirit, showing that true worship and spiritual understanding are not limited by social standing or outward circumstances. The interview gave Him satisfaction because He could freely teach her and offer the water of life. She carried His message to her countrymen until many believed He was the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Her receptiveness as a sinner contrasts with the religious leaders who rejected truth when it challenged their interpretations.

Jesus found a place for His truth in her heart even though she was a sinner, so she became a bottle into which He could put the new wine. The scribes and Pharisees were like old, dried-up skin bottles that could not hold the new wine of His kingdom and gave Him no place for the precious lessons He came to give.

He crossed Jewish prejudice by welcoming and teaching the Samaritans, setting aside national prejudice and Pharisaic custom. As a Jew He mingled with the despised Samaritans, accepted their hospitality, slept under their roofs, ate with them at their tables partaking of food prepared and served by their hands, taught in their streets, and treated them with kindness, courtesy, sympathy, and social kindliness that recognized the dignity of humanity in these outcasts. His words fell on their thirsty souls with life-giving power, awakening new impulses and opening the possibility of a new life. Through human sympathy He drew their hearts to Himself, and His divine grace brought them the salvation the Jews rejected.

His preaching at Sychar showed that salvation, worship, and God's grace were for all mankind and not restricted by race, nation, or to the Jews alone. His visit showed His love extended to the Samaritans despite their rejection of Him and prepared His disciples to take the gospel to them, so that after His ascension the Samaritans welcomed the messengers and many became believers. People outside Israel could know God and receive the good news.

The Samaritans who came out to hear Him showed that people who had not previously heard the truth could be more receptive than those who had received evidence of God's work but resisted it. His talk came just before He told His disciples to lift up their eyes because the fields are white already for harvest. Eager, attentive crowds such as those in Brisbane and Newcastle show the same harvest readiness that followed that talk.

Hour Has Arrived

The hour had come and was then present and had already begun, when worship of the Father would be neither in that mountain nor at Jerusalem nor confined to any one place or outward form. It was spoken after a past life of five husbands with a present unlawful union was laid open and conviction of sin was awakened, when to escape conviction the conversation was turned to the religious dispute over whether Gerizim in the mountain or Jerusalem was the right place to worship. The word about true worship awakened the moral nature and sense of higher need, and it was believed as truth, for God is a Spirit and the Father seeks those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. Because worship is no longer confined to Jerusalem or any one place, truth is to be carried to every accessible place rather than concentrated in one locality.

With Christ on earth calling people directly to God and to Himself, the ritual service was passing away and possessed no virtue in itself, and strict keeping of ceremony and form cannot save because the kingdom of God is spiritual in nature. He presented a spiritual priesthood that places the sinful human agent at the footstool of mercy without approach through forms and ceremonies, calling attention directly to Himself and to God. He presented Himself as the fulfillment of the Jewish ceremonial service and types, in whom ceremonies and types found their fulfillment, so true worship is centered on Christ. This true worship in spirit and in truth is true circumcision, the worship of Christ in spirit and truth without hypocritical pretense or outward display, the religion of a purified character rather than ceremonial observance.

The change to worldwide worship in spirit and in truth followed the death of Christ, which brought to an end what was abolished by it and ended the system that had made worship dependent on the temple and its ceremonies. True believers may therefore worship God throughout the world, not only in temples made by human hands. Stephen understood that the time had come for this worldwide worship and saw that the abolished system had reached its end.

Worship Beyond Sacred Places

The hour announced means true worship no longer depends on a holy mountain or a sacred temple, on Jerusalem or any one place, locality, or earthly temple made by human hands. True worshipers throughout the world can worship the Father in spirit and in truth wherever they are, for God's Spirit is at work everywhere. So no single town is a special center to which everyone must travel, and those who seek to learn and follow truth can be taught and blessed where they are.

Freedom from worship centered in one locality is the ground for carrying the light of truth to every place people can be reached, to all nations and to places where it is not yet known, including places barren of truth and righteousness, rather than restricting or concentrating it in a few locations. Receiving the truth as it is in Jesus brings heartfelt praise to God and blessing through the One on whom people's hope of eternal life rests.

God is not confined to splendid buildings and does not dwell in temples made with hands, yet He honors His people's gatherings and meets with them by His Spirit when they seek Him, confess their sins, and pray for one another. Even a very humble place of worship, lowly house, hillside, cave, forest, barn, or tent is fully acknowledged by God and becomes as the gate of heaven to those who worship there in holiness and in the beauty of holiness, and even when the company is few they are very precious in His sight. An impressive cathedral is repulsive to God when it encloses pride, empty forms, and hypocrisy. When people have means and make their own comfort and honor a priority while giving God and His worship an inferior place, their worship does not bring His blessing, while assembling without putting away evil is of no avail.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

True worship is worship offered to the Father in spirit and in truth, rooted in the heart rather than confined to outward forms, ceremonies, ritual observance, display, or worship with the lips alone. It is genuine heart-service and a living service of the heart, not hypocritical pretense, and merely meeting for prayer and religious instruction or being counted among worshipers does not by itself make anyone a true worshiper. The time for this worship had arrived and was then present, when it would no longer depend on a holy mountain or sacred temple, for with Christ on earth calling people directly to God the ritual service was passing away and possessed no virtue in itself. He presented Himself as the fulfillment of the Jewish ceremonial service and types, so that true worship is worship of Christ in spirit and truth and the religion of a purified character that purifies the life and leads to good works. It is serving God in truth and with freedom of spirit according to God's requirements rather than human inventions mixed with divine precepts, for traditional ceremonies have no virtue when they hide the sacred truths they were meant to teach and such faithless service brings no peace.

Such worship is the work of the Holy Spirit and comes from the divine Spirit within, not from sacred place, temple, or outward ceremony. Being born of the Spirit purifies the heart, renews the mind, gives a new capacity to know and love God, and produces watchfulness and willing obedience to all His requirements. The Spirit prompts sincere prayer that God accepts, and wherever a soul reaches out to God the Spirit is at work and God reveals Himself. The Father seeks these worshipers, receives them, and makes them His sons and daughters.

Worship in spirit and truth depends on inward renewal, cleansing, regeneration, and thorough conversion that make people children of God and prepare them to worship truly. It is learned by much prayer, by laying hold of the strength of Omnipotence, and by the working of the Holy Spirit upon the human heart as the Word of God is explained and its light shines forth. It is learned by coming to Christ and to the investigation of the Scriptures in a teachable spirit with the heart emptied of prejudice and evil, bringing ideas to Scripture to be corrected rather than bringing Scripture to ideas, believing His word without demanding miracles, discerning where God is working, and gladly receiving light. Prejudice shuts the heart even against mighty grace and miracles, as with those who saw and still rejected, while the teachable gladly receive and publish light to others as the Samaritan woman did.

The Son of God come from heaven as Teacher came to reveal the character of the Father to make spiritual, true worship possible, because strict keeping of ceremony and form cannot save since the kingdom of God is spiritual in nature. True worship rests on knowing God as the opposite of Satan's misrepresentations, as a paternal, loving Father who so loved the world that He gave His only Son, His only-begotten Son, so believers should not perish but have everlasting life, who is long-suffering, merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and full of goodness and truth. It involves prayer, repentance, confession, abandonment of sin, honesty, forbearance, mercy, compassion, and love not only for friends but for enemies and those who hate and mistreat, reflecting the Father. Those who accept this teaching come under the guardian care of angels commissioned to strengthen and enlighten them so truth renews and sanctifies the soul.

Because God is Spirit, genuine worship includes zeal, earnestness, and fervor with wholehearted devotion, with duty as the guiding principle of life. It is sincere in prayer and engages both the spirit and the understanding in song, with praise in the heart and on the lips both in the house of God and outside it. Such a life honors God by bearing fruit and sharing the truth with others.

Christ's work frees truth from error, superstition, and human traditions so people can see God's true character and worship Him rightly, and those who proclaim truth carry on this work by clearing away human traditions and errors rather than leading into false teaching. At His coming true worship had been displaced by ceremonies and traditions made by people and endless ceremonies that glorified human beings rather than God. Worship must therefore follow God's requirements rather than human inventions mixed with divine precepts.

Father Seeks True Worshipers

The Father is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of holiness. He reads the heart, knows each person's experience, and searches the heart to find worship acceptable to Him. Acceptance with Him requires sincere and upright hearts and fervent prayer. Such worship does not depend on sacred mountain, temple, or outward ceremony, but is the work of the divine Spirit within. The Spirit purifies the heart, renews the mind, gives a new capacity to know and love God, produces willing obedience to all His requirements, and prompts the sincere prayer that God accepts, so that wherever a soul reaches out to God the Spirit is at work and God reveals Himself, and those He receives He makes His sons and daughters.

He seeks such worshipers beyond the divisions, customs, and ethnic and religious barriers that separate communities, without regard to birth, nationality, or social standing. He reveals the Father and the worship He accepts to people of every nation, and none is excluded from His love or salvation, but He instructs those who are open to receive the truth. This was shown when Jewish prejudice was crossed to welcome and teach the Samaritans, accepting the hospitality of a people regarded with contempt and treating them with kindness, courtesy, and human sympathy that drew their hearts. That kindness and divine grace brought them the salvation rejected by many others.

Gathered Worship Honored by God

God honors the assemblies of His people with His presence when they come together to seek Him, acknowledge their sins, empty the heart of every evil thing, and pray for one another, worshiping in the beauty of holiness, and without this coming together is of no avail. Though He is not confined to temples made with human hands, He meets with them by His Spirit when they seek Him, confess their sins, and pray for one another. True worship is worship offered to the Father in spirit and in truth, not merely outward worship with the lips, and God seeks worshipers whose hearts and lives are sincere and holy, so that assembling to worship without putting away evil is of no avail. Gathered worship includes praise, earnest prayer, remembrance of God's works, and gratitude expressed in prayer and song, with angels joining this praise. Such worship drives back Satan's power, ends murmuring and complaint, and cultivates the love that prepares people for life in God's presence. Even a humble house of worship is heaven's gate to those who worship there in holiness, for worship pleasing to God does not depend on grandeur of place.

Earthly gatherings in spirit and truth are joined to the worship of heaven. Heavenly beings and unfallen beings listen to the saints' testimonies, prayers, praise, and thanksgiving, and the angelic choirs add and supplement their praise to the church's worship. They join their praise because Christ has died for fallen humanity. Earthly believers who gather to worship God in this way are part of one church with heaven, whose attention and joy attend their worship and their praise of Christ.

Believers offer God spiritual worship even when no minister is present, for a small company can worship by witnessing to God and Jesus, speaking to one another about God's love, and each person taking responsibility to make the meeting useful and faithful. A place of worship is where His people can gather to offer this worship in holiness. The Stanmore meetinghouse stood both for such gathering and as a memorial of the Sabbath given at Creation.

Worship in the spirit of truth and in the beauty of holiness requires being in right relation with God and close to the Saviour with His power and grace individually. It requires humbling the heart before God and putting away everything that interposes between the soul and Him, for neglect of duty leaves a person unprepared to meet God in such worship. It calls for far greater knowledge of how to worship in this way and far greater knowledge of the truths contained in the Word of God, which holds rich treasures needed by every soul with reproof and encouragement. Only by practicing the lessons given in the Word can men and women reflect the strength and beauty of Christian character, and all who worship God in the beauty of holiness receive strength for daily duty.

Worshiping in spirit and truth keeps God's glory in view, appears before Him cleansed and purified in the beauty of holiness to honor Him, and God is glorified by such true worship. This cleansing prepares worshipers to be taught what it means to be laborers together with God as His husbandry and building and His fellow workers. It means coming before God in obedience to the conditions He laid down for Israel at Sinai, which stand for the Israel of God for all time. Those who so cooperate with Him and obey Him receive the blessings He promised to Israel, are acknowledged as members of His royal family, and are honored above all nations.

Holy Life and Mission

True worship is rooted in the heart rather than confined to outward forms and ceremonies, and it purifies the life and leads to good works. It grows from love to God and is expressed in gratitude, humility, patience, self-sacrifice, forbearance, mercy, and forgiveness, leading to active service for others and sanctifying the whole life. Being counted among worshipers is not enough, for the heart must be brought into harmony with God's plans and worship must be spiritual. Those who worship in this way are living souls shaped by God rather than lifeless material, with defects of character removed as stones are shaped for a building so they become living stones fitted for His heavenly temple to reflect Christ, and they must not defile His temple with sin.

Such worship belongs to a life of faith and diligent service, with Christ's words made part of daily life and the character increasingly conformed to His spirit and will, joined with holiness, praise, and a deeper experience of God. God accepts those who worship Him in sincerity and truth, meaning a life-practice that is sincere and upright, pure, holy and undefiled, walking humbly before God and trusting alone in Him who is all-wise, all-merciful and full of compassion. As He is holy He requires His people to be holy, without which no one shall see the Lord, and those who worship this way walk in a safe path with God as defense, front-guard and rearward under the assuring protection of His everlasting covenant of love, triumphing with holy gladness when His judgments fall on all who transgress His law. This worship requires putting away all self-worship, receiving in the heart the love for God and for one another that filled Christ's heart, so that His commandment-keeping people drawn together in divine love manifest the Father's power through them until the world recognizes God as the Strength and Helper of His people. It means thorough conversion with every part of the intelligence going out to meet Christ and every part of the spiritual nature yearning for more of Him, separating from idols and every unclean thing and from the contaminating influences of the world, walking in the light, holding communion with the Saviour, bringing thought, word, and deed into conformity with the will of Christ, and making the highest aim to serve and glorify God.

Acceptable worship stands opposed to idolatry and the worship of self and must be offered in faith and hope with the life in harmony with it. God alone is to be worshiped and served through living faith rather than imagination or false images that diminish Him, for anything given undue thought and admiration, including pride or money, becomes an idol in place of Him, and genuine heart-service is distinguished by God from such idolatry. Idols and earthly objects placed between heaven and earth obscure the view of God, conceal Him from sight, and deny Him in the life, while true worship gives God the devotion of heart, mind, soul, and strength, uses the noblest powers to honor Him, conforms thoughts to His will and sanctifies affections to His service, opening to every sincere worker the door to light and intelligent knowledge of the truth. It requires putting strong personal will on the side of God's will, keeping the eye single to Jesus as Captain for orders, laying aside cherished personal ways as valueless when they block God's plans, being clothed with humility, and refusing to bow down to the idol of self. Standing without failing or discouragement, cooperating with heavenly intelligences, deriving efficiency from God so that the hand is upon a lever that will move the world, and working in the spirit of Christ with a sense of the peril of souls is done in earnest, unceasing prayer in public service and in secret joined with determined action wholly in His name. Neglecting spiritual watchfulness and prayer, or giving oneself over to amusement, misuses God's grace and turns the heart toward an idol instead of God, whereas those who receive divine enlightenment cherish it and use their God-given powers to do good and share what they have received.

Christ's living water was within Him, and that living water must also be within His followers, springing up to refresh those they influence. As shown by the Samaritan woman to whom He made truth known, those who receive Christ, the living water, become sources of life to others, for receiving the gospel makes a person a giver and missionary and true faith becomes practical service. Such worship grows from receiving God's provision through Christ's humiliation and death and equips believers to help bring God's light to the world. A desire to worship the Father in this way is joined with obedience to all His commandments and a life of obedience to the truth. Those who serve Him in spirit and in truth are promised joy, peace, love, and triumph as a sanctified people who show the truth in their lives and communicate light to others. Such service is joined with receiving the love, joy, peace, grace, power, and knowledge of the Holy Spirit's work that God offers, so His people can be ready for service and zealous in good works.

Christ's aim is to bring those who serve Him in spirit and truth to His heavenly temple, while heaven works to save the lost, surround people with light, and lead them back to God's service. His lessons are spirit and life, so human customs and authority must not control worship, and believers are to keep exploring the riches of truth. True worshipers of Jesus are spiritual worshipers of the crucified Jesus, set apart from worldly pleasures and devoted to the cross. God is glorified by true worship offered in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of holiness.