She was a brilliant young psychology major at University of Manchester. Her father was a lecturer at Cambridge. While studying for her Master's she met and fell in love with an engineering student from Ecuador. He developed cancer of the pancreas during his time in England. As the disease progressed he sought medical attention, but nothing would prove effective to cure him.

He returned to his native land to die, and my friend came with him. I first met her on a singles retreat sponsored by one of the local churches. The theme that week end was the "Sensation of Being Somebody." She came up to me after each session and asked many questions. Our friendship continued to develop during the months thereafter. My wife and I shared the Good News in Christ on numerous occasions. Then one Christmas night after the observance of the Lord's Supper, she came up and said, "Wil, I almost took communion tonight." I replied, "Well, why didn't you?" She responded, "You evangelicals keep talking about this 'new birth' stuff. You know, I'm almost there." My response was, "You know everything that you need to know to put your trust in Christ. I've explained to you again and again what you must do to be saved. Why don't you go ahead and believe on Him as your savior, now?"

We set an appointment for the next afternoon at my office. She threw out a few pseudo intellectual questions and then said, "You know, Wil, you have shot down every excuse I have proposed to you. I want to receive Christ as my personal Savior." We prayed together. She shed a few tears, and a radiant smile glowed across her face. As we left the office she exclaimed, "You didn't tell me it would be like this! Peace! Peace! Peace! I have never had such peace in all my life."

Two strangers met beside a well on a hot afternoon in Samaria. One was a woman. The other was a man. We don't know the woman's name. The man was Jesus.

JESUS MAKES CONTACT WITH THE WOMAN (4:1-9)

The journey to Samaria was a divine assignment (v. 4). He was compelled to go. Jesus "had to pass through Samaria." The necessity lies in the mission of Jesus. He "must" go to see a woman in Samaria. 

Jesus didn't take the usual road to Galilee. The bigoted Jews in Judea hardly ever traveled to Galilee through Samaria. They took a longer route through Perea. They completely bypassed the region. However, Jesus "had to pass through Samaria." It was a divine "must."

Jesus made an intentional break in His ministry in Judea, and returned to work in Galilee. Judea had rejected Him as the Messiah. Their hearts were hardened and indifferent.

Jacob's well

Jesus and His disciples arrived at Jacob's well near the city of Sychar. The disciples went on into town to purchase some provisions. Jesus was weary and tired so He sat down on the top stone edge of the well that also served as a seat for the weary travelers. John, who consistently brings out the deity of Jesus, makes us aware of the true humanity of Jesus, as well. He got tired and thirsty just like we do.

While Jesus is sitting there a Samaritan woman came to draw water from Jacob's cistern. There is ample archaeological data on the well and its location. It is a hole about 100 feet deep today, probably deeper in Jesus' day. The water in Jacob's well was good water, but it could not satisfy one's thirst indefinitely. There was no rope there and the woman came with her rope and leather bucket to contain the water. A modern traveler watched an Arab woman come down from the arid hills to draw water at the well. The tradition has probably been carried on down through the centuries. "She unfolded and opened her goatskin bottle, and then untwined a cord, and attached it to a very small leathern bucket which she carried, by means of which she slowly filled her skin, fastened its mouth, place it on her shoulder, and bucket in hand, climbed the mountain."

The Samaritans

The woman was a Samaritan (v. 7, 9). She was a member of a race of people who inherited the general area. Bitter hatred existed between the Jews and Samaritans ever since 721 B.C. The Assyrians swept through the Northern Kingdom of Israel and took the captives to Assyria. Only the poor people were left in the land. Into this area, the Assyrians brought captives from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim (2 Kings 17:24-41). It wasn't long before the foreigners began to intermarry with those left behind in the Northern Kingdom. This was the unforgivable sin among the Jewish people. They were no longer racially pure, and they took on the gods of the foreigners. The Jews who were carried away to other geographical locations in the Assyrian kingdom never came back. They were also assimilated into the countries to which they were taken. Both groups lost their Jewish identity and the right to be called Jews.

When the Southern Kingdom of Judah was captured and carried away into exile in Babylon in 586 B.C. they did not lose their national identity like the Northern Kingdom. The very exile made them obstinate Jews among their captors. After seventy years these exiles returned to Jerusalem. The Samaritans, the half-bred Jews of the captivity in Northern Israel, offered to help their southern kin to rebuild the Temple and repair the city. Because they were no longer pure Jews their help was neither wanted nor needed. Non-Jews were not allowed to work on the rebuilding of the Temple. Because of this openly hostile, obstinate attitude of the people of Jerusalem and Judea the Samaritans bitterly opposed the Jews even until the days of Jesus 450 years later.

The bitter opposition and hatred became even more heated when a Jew by the name of Manasseh married a daughter of Sanballat, a Samaritan. He set up a rival temple on mount Gerizim in Samaria.

Jewish rabbis of that time said, "Let no man eat the bread of the Samaritans, for he who eats their bread is as he who eats swine's flesh." A popular prayer was, "And Lord, do not remember the Samaritans in the resurrection." This was shear hatred that went from insult to injury. Another command went, "If any one receives a Samaritan into his house and ministers to him, he will cause his children to be carried into captivity."

A Samaritan woman

To make matters worse it was a Samaritan woman who came to the well. A Jewish rabbi would never speak to a woman in public, even his wife, daughter or sister. This woman was a Samaritan, a notorious Samaritan woman. Moreover, the Jews would not drink from a Samaritan's vessel for fear of becoming ceremonially unclean. It was a religious thing with them. One rabbinical saying went, "Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not with his own wife." Another taught, "Better that the words of the law should be burned than delivered to women."

What a contrast those ancient ideas were to true Christianity which is not anti-womanhood. Jesus Christ is the great liberator of women.

After five centuries of hostility and hatred, would Jesus risk His reputation by speaking to this woman? Jesus broke the ice that afternoon with a simple request. Jesus said to the woman, "Give Me a drink" (v. 7). The Jewish man appealed to her kindness. This is the reason for the divine must to go to Samaria.

Often the best way to gain a soul is to ask a service of it. Jesus engaged her in conversation.

The woman was amazed and bewildered. "What? You are a Jew, and you ask me for a drink––me, a Samaritan!" (Moffatt).

Jesus crossed the cultural barrier. He tore down the ancient prejudices and subdued her stubborn will. The woman's coming to the well was no accident. There are no chance meetings in the world that is presided over by a living God.

Jesus tenderly and patiently led this sinful woman, step by step, touching her heart, searching her conscience, awakening her soul to a conviction of her desperate need for spiritual water. Spiritually she was poverty-stricken. She was bankrupt. Jesus confronted her helplessness and awakened within her a sense of spiritual poverty.

JESUS CHALLENGES THE WOMAN (4:10-14)

Jesus lifts the conversation with the woman to a higher level by answering her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water" (v. 10).

The gift of God

"If you knew the gift of God." That is the whole issue. She had no idea of who it was speaking to her.

Who is this stranger? What gives Him the credibility and authority to offer "living water"? This is no commoner, and this is no everyday offer. Is there anyone here who can make such an offer?

Jesus "had to pass through Samaria" (v. 4) to speak to this woman about living water. God's grace reached out to this desperate woman. Salvation does not come to us in response to our giving to God anything. God is the giver. We are the recipients.

"If you knew the gift of God." What is this gift of God? It is the "living water." It is Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, who gives the Spirit who gives spiritual life. Jesus alone gives living water that issues forth in eternal life. The living water Jesus is referring to is the Holy Spirit, and the life He gives. Jesus will say later, "If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" John adds, "But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:37-39).

The "gift" of God stresses that it is free, with no strings attached. There is no “fine print.” It is a free gift.

Jesus was ready to give if she was willing to receive. He is always the giver and we are the receivers. We try to reverse the roles. We try to give to God so we can manipulate Him. We want to go to Him on our grounds and our conditions, but He will have none of it.

Are you thirsty?

Before we are willing to receive God's gift, He has to reveal our need and create in the heart of the sinner an acute thirst for the Water of Life.

This is what Christ did for this woman of Samaria. She was not saved because of her seeking; she was sought out by a divine will. Jesus "must" go through Samaria. This was the reason why He is there.

In every situation in the Gospels where we find Jesus confronting men and women, we find Him meeting each person according to their needs. To Nicodemus Jesus said, "You must be born again." To the woman caught in adultery He said, "Did no one condemn you . . . Neither do I condemn you, go your way; from now on sin no more." To this woman He comes in grace and says, "If you knew the gift of God . . . you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water."

Jesus was creating and revealing to the woman that unsatisfied longing that only Christ can satisfy.

What was her thirst? There is a thirst in the human heart that only Jesus Christ can satisfy Augustine said that our hearts are restless "till they find rest in Thee." God put a longing for eternity in the human heart. That "thirst" will always be in the human soul until Jesus Christ fills it with Himself. The soul's deepest thirst is for a living relationship with God.

The Gospel meets men right where they are in life. Nicodemus had moral character, social standing, religious reputation; the woman at the well was immoral, bottom of the social rung and was a religious outcast. He was a ruler of Israel and she was a Samaritan adulteress.

However, in the eyes of a holy God both were on the same level. Both were dead in trespasses and sins and needed to be born again.

That is how He comes to us. He comes in His grace revealing His all sufficiency to meet us in our depravity.

Living water

Are you thirsty? Jesus gives "living water." Jesus develops the analogy between physical and spiritual water (vv. 10-14).

The Jewish people believed that "living water" came from a stream or river "that took away defilement and made acceptable worshippers out of unclean men" (Morris).

Jesus is not referring to Himself as the living water, but the ministry of the Holy Spirit whom He will give after He returns to heaven. Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit who brings salvation to the individual who believes on Christ. Jesus uses a word that contrasts Jacob's stagnant cistern. Jesus says He gives "living water" which is running water that is like a spring, bubbling up, and gushing forth with fresh refreshing water. The water Jesus gives creates and maintains life.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit speaks to the now and the yet to be. The Holy Spirit dwells in every believer as a permanent wellspring of spiritual life. He gives the daily refreshment we need to live the Christian life. Moreover, the fountain of living water is resident in the believer, and as we drink of that fountain we partake of the gift of the age to come.

Jesus is speaking of fresh flowing water that creates and maintains life. It is water that is always coming up, always bubbling up from an unfailing source, ever fresh. Jesus gives a fountain of spiritual water that swells into a river, and the river expands and loosing itself in the great ocean of eternity. Jesus Christ is the source of eternal life. He gives the water of life. When we drink from His fountain, we receive eternal life.

Where is your water pot?

The woman's response is quite interesting in verse eleven. "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?" The woman is so preoccupied with water pots that she cannot listen to God.

Do you have any water pots in your life? We get so occupied with water pots that we cannot hear the still small voice of God. The devil uses wells and buckets, material things we need, and depend upon, our duties and obligations, pleasures to keep our minds occupied so we will not listen to God when He speaks. These are not necessarily evil things that the devil uses to distract us from God. Most of the time they are good things, well intended things our families need, as well as our obligations, our reputations, pleasures, amusements, making a good living for our family, etc.

Do you have a "water pot" in your life that distracts you from the things of God? It simply keeps the soul preoccupied so you will not concentrate on the presence of God. Christ gets crowded out of our inner life. Satan will use anything to keep us from Christ. He will even use religion. If he can get your mind off on to your efforts, your good merits, religious distractions, rather than Christ He will keep you occupied with everything but Christ.

We need to get alone with God. Salvation comes by God's grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

Satan will try to cause you to put limits on Christ. "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?" Is Christ all-sufficient to save? Is the death of Christ sufficient to atone for every sin you shall ever commit? Is He so insufficient that you must add your religious works and good deeds, and penitent suffering to atone for your sins? The devil would have you believe this error.

Another one he likes to use is: "The well is deep preacher. If you only knew how sinful I really am. How can God possibly save me? The well is too deep." We go from one extreme to the other. We either excuse ourselves by insisting that we are too far-gone a sinner, or we deny the depths of our depravity and thus excuse ourselves. We are all sinners, preacher.

The lady does not yield. She tries to sidetrack Jesus off onto religion and denominations. She had a religious background. Yeah, but it was "our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank of it himself." Things are heating up and she tries to side step Jesus. "You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?"

Like the woman we take off in the opposite extreme––religion. The well is too deep for our short ropes. How then shall we gain eternal life? Why not try the law? The "living water," Jesus tells us is not a wage to be earned, but a "gift of God." It is God's free gift in Jesus Christ. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23). There has never been but one way of salvation since the fall of man and that is salvation by grace through faith. It has never been by works.

Only Jesus can satisfy

Humanism will make you thirstier. Philosophy, politics, economics and social reforms will not satisfy the "thirst" of the soul. The New Age movements will leave you in worse condition that when you got into it. The "thirst" is too deep for the waters of this earth to satisfy. They are shallow and they are muddy. The "thirst" in man's soul is a spiritual thirst.

Jesus answered her, "Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again . . ." (v. 13). Everyone who keeps on drinking this humanism will keep on getting thirsty. It will never quench, or satisfy. It can't. It doesn't have what it takes to solve the problem. It can't get to the soul of man. Religion will always make you thirsty. It won't satisfy. Only an intimate personal love relationship with Jesus Christ will satisfy the deep longings of the soul. The cracked cisterns of the world's religious systems will not hold the "water of life." Nothing but the "living water" that Jesus offers will quench our dry, parched thirsty souls. Only Jesus will satisfy. The unsaved person will thirst forever and ever in hell. There is not a drop of cool water in hell.

Look at the contrast Jesus draws in verses 13-14. "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."

You will forever keep on drinking at an old broken religious cistern, but if you "drink" of the water Jesus gives you will never thirst. That is what He said. Jesus says come and drink. Come and receive to the soul that which refreshes, strengthens, and nourishes it unto eternal life. He says come and drink it once and for all. Jesus will give the thirsty, burnt out life living water, and give it in such as fashion that it shall be within the life, a well, springing up.

The believer now has a well of spiritual water gushing up from within him. It is ever fresh and flowing. It never becomes stale. Jesus said, "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst . . ." The original language allows a double negative. "Shall not thirst, no, never." That is much stronger than our English word "never."

You shall never thirst! Never! It is the full gospel and it satisfies. It satisfies because Christ satisfies. This is another powerful argument for eternal security in Christ. Every lost soul will thirst forever in hell. However, the "living water" that Jesus gives is something the believer now possesses within him. It is a gift of grace freely received. You ask, receive, and are satisfied. It is a present possession, imparted by the grace of God. You receive these living waters when you are born again. The Spirit of God moves forever upon the waters. The soul that is satisfied receives more and more because it can receive more.

Jesus continued: " . . . but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Spring is probably a better word than "well" because a spring is a source of living water that is always coming and bubbling up as an unfailing source of ever fresh water. Don't miss the imagery here. That spring of ever-fresh water is "leaping,” "springing up" or "gushing up." It is not a stagnant cistern; it is full of life and action. The fountain is a vigorous "springing up," or leaping. The word is used of a quick movement like jumping by living beings.

The life in the Spirit is an abundant life (10:10).

Calvin reminds us that this quenching of our spiritual thirst does not exclude a legitimate thirsting after God on a daily basis. "Christ's words do not contradict the fact that believers to the very end of their lives ardently desire more abundant grace. For He does not mean that we drink so that we are fully satisfied from the very first day, but only that the Holy Spirit is a constantly flowing well. So there is no danger of those who are renewed by spiritual grace becoming dry."

The invitation is to come and "drink." All you have to do is receive it. Faith is a personal action of appropriation of Christ. The water is eternal life. You cannot purchase it, earn it, merit it, beg or plead for it. It is a gift that is received through personal faith in Christ alone. It is like receiving a cold glass of fresh water. It is already paid for. It is a gracious act of mercy. All you need do is take it. Receive it in good faith. Take it, drink, and quench your thirsty soul.

Why would anyone want to pass up such a gift freely given that satisfies the greatest needs in your life?

How do you think the woman will respond to that offer of the gift of God?

JESUS CONFRONTS AND CONVICTS THE WOMAN (4:15-20)

She said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw." Isn't that the way the world thinks? Like Nicodemus, she is thinking of worldly things. Her mind drifts back on the physical needs. Man, you give me this water and I won't have to work so hard. I will have it made in the shade. I won't have to keep on coming and making this long journey down this dusty road to get this stagnant water.

She is confused and Jesus is patient with her. He has helped her see her spiritual thirst with its deep needs and she keeps coming back to the material things. Jesus removes her masks. He takes this woman, in her pain and confusion, and helps her see her spiritual need and God's solution. Then she suddenly caught sight of her true need. Jesus compelled her to face herself when He brought her sin out into the open. This is always true when we come into the presence of Christ.

Go call your husband

"Go call your husband, and come here" (v. 16).

Those words shot like an arrow into her evil heart. How did Jesus know she had five husbands? The same reason He "had to pass through Samaria."

Plummer captures the event saying, "in the fewest possible words she tries to stop a dangerous subject at once." She said, "I have no husband."

Wait. You are not being fair preacher. You are now meddling where angels fear to tread. Those must have been solemn and searching words.

Jesus cut to the heart of her spiritual problem. She had a history of burning passion and it was still unquenched. She said, "I have no husband." Jesus' reply was devastating, "You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly" (vv. 17-18).

Did the woman have a bad reputation in the community? What did other women think of her? Is this the reason she came in the middle of the day when it was hot?

How thirsty is she? Is she thirsty enough to want to drink of this spiritual fountain? How great is her need? Are you thirsty enough to deal with the root of your sin problem? We never receive the water of eternal life until we become convicted of our sin and confess it to God and believe on Christ. Is your thirst desperate enough to come to Him?

We do like the Samaritan woman did. We go through life making excuses and blaming other people for our troubles rather than facing up to the reality of our depravity. We play the blame game, and play mental games of diversion. Jesus cut to the core of the problem.

You can only come and drink from the fountain of Jesus as a convicted, contrite sinner.

You are a prophet

The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship" (vv. 19-20).

Here we see the first sign of change, yet she still tries to sidetrack Jesus again with the religious issues of the day. Not only did she think Jesus was a prophet, but she is beginning to realize that He is the prophet of whom Moses spoke in Deuteronomy 18:15, 18. The Samaritans only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament. Moses was the only prophet they accepted. He wrote, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you . . . the LORD said . . . I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him."

The woman told her companions in the city, "Come, see a man, who told me all things that ever I did." John shows the woman and us an example of Jesus' more than human knowledge of people and events. He reveals some of Christ's deity to his readers. He is no ordinary person; He is God with us.

We have a choice to rather remain in sin and unbelief or receive His free gift. Jesus heightens the woman's sense of conviction.

JESUS CONVERTS THE WOMAN (4:21-26)

Jesus explains that true worship is centered in "sprit and truth." It is not limited to a place, a method or a ritual. All true worship is centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Real worship is spiritual. True and genuine worship is "in spirit and truth."

Jesus refused to be drawn into an argument and said, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in 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 an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 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 (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He" (vv. 21-26).

The woman understood that the Messiah was a supernatural person who would declare the truth about the LORD God. The Messiah had to be a Jew. Jesus is a Jew. He could not be a Samaritan. The only salvation God promises is realized in His incarnate son (John 20:31).

When Jesus acknowledged to her that He was the Messiah He used the emphatic pronoun in the style of deity (cf. John 8:58). There is no "he" in the Greek text. Jesus says literally, "I that speak to you, I am." Jesus is God's answer to the sin of the world. Only the Messiah can give "living water" of salvation.

There was immediate evidence that this woman believed on Jesus Christ as the "anointed of God" who came to save her from her sins and give her eternal life. Jesus poured the water of life had been poured into her soul. She left her water pot and ran to tell others about the living water she had received. She believed in her heart and confessed Him with her mouth.

The apostle Paul stated what she need to do succinctly when he wrote: "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heat man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation" (Romans 10:9, 10).

Some abiding principles and personal applications

When Jesus comes our way, He is always on a divine mission.

"No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:44). He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; and no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). The one who shares Christ with you is there because he "must" be there. He is on a divine mission. He is sent of God to introduce you to the Giver of life.

When Jesus comes He reveals our thirst (Romans 5:6).

When Jesus comes He exposes our true self, and reveals our deepest need. Jesus compelled the Samaritan woman to face herself. When He comes to us He compels us to face our true selves and reveals our deepest spiritual needs. Jesus staggers our imagination when He reveals our innermost being. He always reveals what He sees in our hearts.

A small girl along with her mother were listening to C. H. Spurgeon preach a powerful message. The girl leaned over to her mother and whispered, "Mother, how does he know what goes on in our house?"

When Jesus comes, He invites us to receive "God's gift" of living water.

Jesus Christ is "running water." He is always fresh, clear and refreshing. He is never stale or stagnant. When He comes into your life, He is like a fresh bubbling spring within your life.

Jesus comes to us and lays hold upon us, arouses our attention, illuminates our darkened understanding that we might accept the truth about Him and be saved.  The Holy Spirit comes and proves our hearts and quickens our conscience, convicting us of our need of the Savior and the reality of His saving grace. In that sense, Christ receives all who call upon His name.

Do you hide behind some wall of prejudice toward Christ?

Are you settling for some cheap substitute instead of "living water"? The Lamb of God leads us to the springs of living water. Jesus gives us an invitation, "I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost" (Revelation 21:6). In his great invitation Isaiah says, "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost" (Isaiah 55:1). How do you buy without money and without cost? It is free! It is God's offer of grace! These are blessings and gifts of divine grace and obtained only by a sense of need and a readiness to accept it by faith. The Lord Jesus is the fountain of living water. Come, receive today the living waters of eternal life.

When Jesus gives you living water, you want to share it!

When you come face to face with the Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and surrender to Him as your savior, you want to "leave your pot" and go out and tell everyone (vv. 28-30). "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Messiah, is it?" The next verse gives a panoramic picture of a long procession of people in the city of Sychar who kept coming to Jesus. When Christ changes your life, you want to go and tell others that they too may come and see for themselves.

Title: John 4:1-26  Living Water

Series: People in Life of Christ