John 4:20

The woman is not offended at Christ’s rebuke. She does not leave Him, and go away. Far from it: her admiration for Him is raised: The woman said to Him, Sir, I perceive that you are a Prophet: as if she said, Your knowledge of me is unaccountable, you must be a prophet.

The husband was beginning to come to her, though He had not yet fully come. She thought our Lord a prophet, and He was a prophet: for He says of Himself, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country.

And having come to this belief she asks no questions relating to this life, the health or sickness of the body: she is not troubled about thirst, she is eager for doctrine.

And she begins inquiries on a subject that perplexed her; Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. This was a great dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews. The Jews worshipped in the temple built by Solomon, and made this a ground of boasting over the Samaritans. The Samaritans replied, Why boast you, because you have a temple which we have not? Did our fathers, who pleased God, worship in that temple? Is it not better to pray to God in this mountain, where our fathers worshipped?

By, our fathers, she means Abraham, who is said to have offered up Isaac here.

Or thus; The Samaritans regarded Mount Gerizim, near which Jacob dwelt, as sacred, and worshipped upon it; while the sacred place of the Jews was Mount Sion, God’s own choice. The Jews being the people from whom salvation came, are the type of true believers; the Samaritans of heretics. Gerizim, which signifies division, becomes the Samaritans; Sion, which signifies watch-tower, becomes the Jews.

Christ however does not solve this question immediately, but leads the woman to higher things, of which He had not spoken till she acknowledged Him to be a prophet, and therefore listened with a more full belief: Jesus said to her, Woman, believe Me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. He says, Believe me, because we have need of faith, the mother of all good, the medicine of salvation, in order to obtain any real good. They who endeavor without it, are like men who venture on the sea without a boat, and, being able to swim only a little way, are drowned.

Believe Me, our Lord says with fitness, as the husband is now present. For now there is one in thee that believes, you have begun to be present in the understanding, but if you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.

In saying, the hour comes, He refers to the Gospel dispensation, which was now approaching; under which the shadows of types were to withdraw, and the pure light of truth was to enlighten the minds of believers.

There was no necessity for Christ to show why the fathers worshipped in the mountain, and the Jews in Jerusalem. He therefore was silent on that question; but nevertheless asserted the religious superiority of the Jews on another ground, the ground not of place, but of knowledge; You worship you know not what, we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews.

You, literally refers to the Samaritans, but mystically, to all who understand the Scriptures in an heretical sense. We again literally means the Jews, but mystically, I the Word, and all who conformed to My Image, obtain salvation from the Jewish Scriptures.

The Samaritans worshipped they knew not what, a local, a partial God, as they imagined, of whom they had the same notion that they had of their idols. And therefore they mingled the worship of God with the worship of idols. But the Jews were free from this superstition: indeed they knew God to be the God of the whole world; wherefore He says, We worship what we know. He reckons Himself among the Jews, in condescension to the woman’s idea of Him; and says as if He were a Jewish prophet, We worship, though it is certain that He is the Being who is worshipped by all. The words, For salvation is of the Jews, mean that every thing calculated to save and amend the world, the knowledge of God, the abhorrence of idols, and all other doctrines of that nature, and even the very origin of our religion, comes originally from the Jews. In salvation too He includes His own presence, which He says is of the Jews, as we are told by the Apostle, Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came. See how He exalts the Old Testament, which He shows to be the root of every thing good; thus proving in every way that He Himself is not opposed to the Law.

It is saying much for the Jews, to declare in their name, We worship what we know. But He does not spear; for the reprobate Jews, but for that party from whom the Apostles and the Prophets came. Such were all those saints who laid the prices of their possessions at the Apostle’s feet.

The Jewish worship then was far higher than the Samaritan; but even it shall be abolished; The hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. He says, and now is, to show that this was not a prediction, like those of the ancient Prophets, to be fulfilled the course of ages. The event, He says, is now at hand, it is approaching your very doors. The words, true worshipers, are by way of distinction: for there are false worshipers, who pray for temporal and frail benefits, or whose actions are ever contradicting their prayers.

Or by saying, true, he excludes the Jews together with the Samaritans. For the Jews, though better than the Samaritans, were yet as much inferior to those who were to succeed them, as the type is to the reality. The true worshipers do not confine the worship of God to place, but worship in the spirit; as Paul said, Whom I serve with my spirit.

Twice it is said, The hour comes, and the first time without the addition, and now is. The first seems to allude to that purely spiritual worship which is suited only to a state of perfection; the second to earthly worship, perfected as far as is consistent with human nature. When that hour comes, which our Lord speaks of, the mountain of the Samaritans must be avoided, and God must be worshipped in Sion, where is Jerusalem, which is called by Christ the city of the Great King. And this is the Church, where sacred oblations and spiritual victims are offered up by those who understand the spiritual law. So that when the fullness of time shall have come, the true worship, we must suppose, will no longer be attached to Jerusalem, i.e. to the present Church: for the Angels do not worship the Father at Jerusalem: and thus those who have obtained the likeness of the Jews, worship the Father better than they who are at Jerusalem. And when this hour is come, we shall be accounted by the Father as sons. Wherefore it is not said, Worship God, but, Worship the Father. But for the present the true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

He speaks here of the Church; wherein there is true worship, and such as becomes God; and therefore adds, For the Father seeks such to worship Him. For though formerly He willed that mankind should linger under a dispensation of types and figures, this was only done in condescension to human frailty, and to prepare men for the reception of the truth.

But if the Father seeks, He seeks through Jesus, Who came to seek and to save that which was lost, and to teach men what true worship was. God is a Spirit; i.e. He constitutes our real life, just as our breath (spirit) constitutes our bodily life.

Or it signifies that God is incorporeal; and that therefore He ought to be worshipped not with the body, but with the soul, by the offering up a pure mind, i.e. that they who worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Jews neglected the soul, but paid great attention to the body, and had various kinds of purification. Our Lord seems here to refer to this, and to say, not by cleansing of the body, but by the incorporeal nature within us, i. e. the understanding, which He calls the spirit, that we must worship the incorporeal God.

Or, by saying that God being a Spirit ought to be worshipped in spirit, He indicates the freedom and knowledge of the worshipers, and the uncircumscribed nature of the worship: according to the saying of the Apostle, Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

And that we are to worship in truth, means that whereas the former ordinances were typical; that is to say, circumcision, burnt offerings, and sacrifices; now, on the contrary, every thing is real.

Or, because many think that they worship God in the spirit, i.e. with the mind, who yet held heretical doctrines concerning Him, for this reason He adds, and in truth. May not the words too refer to the two kinds of philosophy among us, i. e. active and contemplative; the spirit standing for action, according to the Apostle, As many as are led by the Spirit of God; truth, on the other hand, for contemplation. Or, (to take another view,) as the Samaritans thought that God was confined to a certain place, and ought to be worshipped in that place; in opposition to this notion, our Lord may mean to teach them here, that the true worshipers worship not locally, but spiritually. Or again, all being a type and shadow in the Jewish system, the meaning may be that the true worshipers will worship not in type, but in truth. God being a Spirit, seeks for spiritual worshipers; being the truth, for true ones.

O for a mountain to pray on, you cry, high and inaccessible, that I may be nearer to God, and God may hear me better, for He dwells on high. Yes, God dwells on high, but He has respect to the humble. Wherefore descend that you may ascend. “Ways on high are in their heart,” it is said, “passing in the valley of tears,” and in “tears” is humility. Would you pray in the temple? pray in yourself; but first do you become the temple of God.

Then, turning to His disciples, He says: “Woe unto him through whom offences come! It were better for him if he had not been born, or if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones,” that is, one of His disciples. Judge, then, what the sort of punishment is which He so severely threatens. For it is no stranger who is to avenge the offence done to His disciples. Recognise also in Him the Judge, and one too, who expresses Himself on the safety of His followers with the same tenderness as that which the Creator long ago exhibited: “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye.” Such identity of care proceeds from one and the same Being. A trespassing brother He will have rebuked. …

From the side of its pertinence to the Gospel, the question of the parables indeed has by this time been disposed of. If, however, the Lord, by His deeds withal, issued any such proclamation in favour of sinners; as when He permitted contact even with his own body to the “woman, a sinner,”, washing, as she did, His feet with tears, and wiping them with her hair, and inaugurating His sepulture with ointment; as when to the Samaritaness, not an adulteress by her now sixth marriage, but a prostitute, He showed (what He did show readily to any one) who He was; no benefit is hence conferred upon our adversaries, even if it had been to such as were already Christians that He (in these several cases) granted pardon. …

4. But we must pass on to the language of the Gospel itself, in which it is declared that “God is a Spirit,” and where we have to show how that is to be understood agreeably to what we have stated. For let us inquire on what occasion these words were spoken by the Saviour, before whom He uttered them, and what was the subject of investigation. We find, without any doubt, that He spoke these words to the Samaritan woman, saying to her, who thought, agreeably to the Samaritan view, that God ought to be worshipped on Mount Gerizim, that “God is a Spirit.” For the Samaritan woman, believing Him to be a Jew, was inquiring of Him whether God ought to be worshipped in Jerusalem or on this mountain; and her words were, “All our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship.” To this opinion of the Samaritan woman, therefore, who imagined …

Ver. 20 . “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain,” (meaning Abraham and his family, for thither they say that he led up his son,) “and how say ye that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship?” [3.] Seest thou how much more elevated in mind she has become? She who was anxious that she might not be troubled for thirst, now questions concerning doctrines. What then doth Christ? He doth not resolve the question, (for to answer simply to men’s words was not His care, for it was needless,) but leads the woman on to the greater height, and doth not converse with her on these matters, until she has confessed that He was a Prophet, so that afterwards she might hear His Word with abundant belief; for having been persuaded of this, she could no longer doubt concerning what should be said to her.

31. But the words of the Gospel, For God is Spirit , need careful examination as to their sense and their purpose. For every saying has an antecedent cause and an aim which must be ascertained by study of the meaning. We must bear this in mind lest, on the strength of the words, God is Spirit , we deny not only the Name, but also the work and the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Lord was speaking with a woman of Samaria, for He had come to be the Redeemer for all mankind. After He had discoursed at length of the living water, and of her five husbands, and of him whom she then had who was not her husband, the woman answered, Lord, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship . …