True Place of Worship

SYNOPSIS - To a Samaritan woman, Jesus revealed that the presence of God is no longer limited to specific locations or manmade structures – John 4:20-24. 

In the gospel of John, Jesus revealed the proper form and LOCATION for the worship of the Father. With the advent of the Messiah, the concepts of holy space and holy time no longer apply - His arrival and this new reality rendered the historical debate between the Jews and Samaritans over the location of the Temple moot. Worship performed in truth and the spirit requires no Temple rituals or designated holy places. - [Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash].

• (John 4:20-24) – “Our fathers in this mountain worshipped; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where to worship it behoveth. Jesus saith unto her—Believe me, woman! There cometh an hour when neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not; We worship that which we know; because salvation is of the Jews. But there cometh an hour, and now is,—when the real worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for even the Father is seeking such as these as his worshippers. God is spirit; and they that worship him in spirit and truth must needs worship.” - (The Emphasized Bible).

Even at this early point, Jesus experienced opposition from the Temple authorities; therefore, he determined to leaven Judea for more receptive ground in Galilee.  The most direct route was through the Samaritan territory, which many Jews avoided by taking a more circuitous route. Not so Jesus - (John 4:1-3).

On the way, he encountered a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and asked for water. This surprised her since devout Jews avoided contact with Samaritans. Furthermore, it was socially awkward for a Jewish male to communicate with an unrelated female in public.

Jesus responded - “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is speaking to you, you would ask, and he would give you living water.”  She assumed he meant water and asked how he could draw any from the well since he had no vessel, and then asked - “Are you greater than Jacob who gave us the well?” Jesus responded:

• “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. Whoever drinks of the water I will give will never thirst; it will become in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

The woman then asked for this “living water.” In turn, Jesus told her to “summon your husband.” She claimed to have no husband but he responded - “You have had five husbands and he whom you now have is not your husband; you have spoken truly.”

The woman perceived that Jesus was a prophet, therefore, she asked him about the old dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans - “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain and you say that in Jerusalem is the place necessary to worship!”

The Samaritans were a mixed-race that worshipped the God of Israel.  Unlike the Jews, they recognized only the five books of Moses as Scripture and they disputed with the Jews over the proper location of the Temple.

Moses directed Israel to worship Yahweh at the place He would designate but did not specify its location. Because the Jews accepted the rest of the Old Testament, they assumed the correct site was Jerusalem. The Samaritans argued for Mount Gerizim in Samaria, pointing for scriptural authorization to the book of Genesis:

• (Genesis 12:6-7) - “Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh...And Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there built he an altar unto Yahweh” - (Compare - Deuteronomy 11:29-30, 12:5).

Jesus responded with a most unexpected declaration:

1. “There is coming an hour when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…there is coming an hour and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for even such as these is the Father seeking as his worshippers. God is spirit; they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus did not attempt to resolve the dispute. Instead, he described a new order of worship that was being established in him, one in which questions about holy sites were pointless. His words indicated the obsolescence of the old Temple or any other religious structure.

What mattered was not where God’s people worshipped but how - (“An hour is coming and now is”). Regardless of ethnicity, the people of God must now worship him as Father by means of spirit and truth. Likewise, the division between Jew and Samaritan (and Gentile) had reached its termination point.

As elsewhere, “hour” in John refers to the death of Jesus, the “hour” of his glorification. He was ushering in a new reality in which external rituals would be replaced by spiritual worship:

• (John 7:37-39) – “Now, on the last—the great—day of the feast, Jesus was standing, and he cried aloud, saying—If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink: He that believeth on me—just as said the Scripture,—River from within him shall flow of living water. Now, this spake he concerning the Spirit which they who believed on him were about to receive; for, not yet, was there Spirit, because Jesus not yet was glorified!”

With the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, traditional restrictions and regulations based on holy space and holy time were no longer relevant. God’s presence could not be limited to buildings, geographic locations, or specific “seasons” of the year.  Jesus was now the true “holy place” where God was to be worshipped, the place of Yahweh’s presence.

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