《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

We have heard him ourselves.—Found out by our hearing, so that we now know. [This is a higher order of faith connected with knowledge and personal experience (“come and see,” John 1:39; John 1:46), while formerly it rested only on external authority. Difference of the Roman Catholic and the higher Evangelical Protestant conception of faith. Grotius: “Notarunt veteres in hac Samaritidi ecclesiæ esse figuram, quæ nos adducit ad verbum divinum; nos verbo, maxime propter ipsius majestatem et sanctitatem, credimus.”—P. S.]

That this is the Saviour of the world [Only here and 1 John 4:14],—Tholuck doubtfully (after a doubtful expression of Lücke): “Whether the idea contained in ὁ σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου is lent to the people by the evangelist, is a question.” But this puts in question the whole point of the great narrative. Meyer better: “A confession sufficiently intelligible as the fruit of the two days’ instruction of Jesus, the more since the Samaritan Messianic faith was more accessible to a universality of salvation [see Gesenius, De Samarit. Theol., p 41 sqq.] than the Jewish with its concrete and rigorous particularism.” As Samaritans they had peculiar reason to express themselves thus: Yea verily, He is not only a Messiah for the Jews, but also for us and the Gentiles; in Him the divided world again becomes one.^[FN92]

The work of Jesus in Samaria laid the foundation for the subsequent conversion of that people under the Apostles, Acts 8.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Respecting the pretended contradiction between this history and Matthew 10:5 (Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and in part Weisse), it should be remarked that the case in Matthew is that of a special mission of the disciples in a particular direction towards Jerusalem, not of the general itinerancy of the Lord. And when He Himself gave out, in reference to His earthly office, that He was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel [ Matthew 15:24], He referred to the divine law of His work, and did not exclude the Samaritans from an incidental share of His labors. It was consonant with the historical position of the Samaritans, with their susceptibility, with the directions of the Lord Himself ( Acts 1:8), and with the subsequent spread of Christianity from Judea over Samaria and the Gentile world, that He already appeared for once among them; as, on the other hand, it was in conformity with the economy of His work, that this visit was only incidental, and not for a protracted ministry. Thus were the disciples exercised beforehand in the true order of preaching the gospel. Acts 8:5 is supposed to have occasioned the mythical invention of the story before us; whereas that great conversion rather points to a historical preparation. Meyer justly calls attention to the perfect naturalness of the several features of the story, which could not have proceeded from a poetizing spirit. It may be added, that the several stumbling-blocks which have been found in it, such as the misapprehensions of the woman, are simply so many misapprehensions of criticism and exegesis. The remarkable directness of the representation also, in respect to season, locality, the individuality of the woman, rabbinical custom, etc., must be noted. With Baur this history dissolves into a type: “The woman of Samaria, representing susceptible heathendom, readily opening itself to faith, and offering a wide field of harvest, the counterpart of Nicodemus, who is the type of unsusceptible Judaism.” Neither rhyme nor reason, and a further proof of the legend like fantasticism of a criticism past its crisis, in its last stage of consumption.

2. On the history of the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans comp. Robinson, III, p339 sqq.; Leben Jesu, II, 2, p539.

3. On Hengstenberg’s reference of the five husbands, etc., to the five gods of old Samaria, see Leben Jesu, II, 2, p540. [Comp. my annotations on John 4:18. Hengstenberg’s allegorical interpretation is at least more sensible than that of Augustine (Tract, xv. c19), who understands the five former husbands of the five senses, and explains the words, Call thy husband, to mean, Apply thy reason, by which thou must be governed, rather than by the bodily senses (adhibe intellectum, per quem docearis, quo regaris)! In another place he finds in the five husbands the five books of Moses, and in the sixth husband the Lord Himself, as if He said: Thou hast served the five books of Moses as five husbands; but now he whom thou hast, i.e., whom thou hearest, is not thy husband: for thou dost not yet believe in him!—P. S.]

3 b. John 4:7. “Give me to drink.” So God introduces Himself to us for our salvation: He asks of us a service. He does this from the beginning, and puts our whole earthly life to us as a serving of Him. Our daily labor is at least required of us as a patient submission to His condemnation: “In the sweat of thy face,” etc. And in His covenant of grace, as with Israel, it is consecrated to be primarily a devout serving of Him with tithes and first-fruits. Our ministry to one another is also a giving Christ meat, or drink, or otherwise ministering to Him. Our constitutional unbelief, the enmity of the carnal mind against God, like the natural enmity of Samaritans to Jews, makes us skeptical that He should have any such dealing with us. But if we only know the gift of this wonderful reciprocity established between us and God in Christ,—if we have a heart for it—it opens the deepest fountains of devotion and prayer in our souls. It gives us a wonderful introduction to God! In other words, this sort of presentation of Himself to us lays the foundation of substantial religion in ourselves, and thus also opens the way for the richest gifts of everlasting life from God.—E. D. Y.]

4. As Jesus appears in chap 1 higher than John the Baptist, in chapter 2 higher than the temple, in chap 3 higher than the rulers of the people, so here He appears greater than the sacred well of Jacob and its founder, as afterwards greater than the porches of Bethesda, the manna, the temple-light, the pool of Siloam, etc. And the superiority is at the same time antithetic: Christ is everything in truth (the ἀληθινός), in realized essence, which before Him was presented only in type. Thus Christ is here the real antitype of the typical patriarchal well-diggers, in particular the patriarch Jacob; hence His spiritual life is the real living water of a sacred well. To this main symbol of this chapter are attached the other symbols of the food, the harvest field, the Lord of the seed-field and harvest-field, the sowers, the reapers. In reference to each, see the exegesis.

5. As Christ makes light the symbol in manifold respects of His nature and life, so with the well, and water. Here He is evidently a giver of peace within one’s self, as in chap7. He is a giver of the Spirit communicating itself to others, while in chap5. He appears as the true well of healing. Thus the fountain of life is the fountain of peace, of healing, of the Spirit.

6. Jesus and women. Jesus was never married, because He was the Son of God as well as the Son of Prayer of Manasseh, and because He represents sinless and universal humanity. Hence no fallen creature and no single daughter of Eve even without sin, if there were such, but only the whole church of the redeemed is fit to be His bride. Nevertheless He had much intercourse with women, and this, as well as His dealing with children, forms an interesting chapter in His life and an evidence of Christianity, especially if we contrast it with the radically different position which woman holds at the source of other religions and licentious mythologies. The subject has not yet received the attention it deserves. In addition to my introductory remarks (p150), I shall give the views of Guizot,^[FN93] partly in opposition to Renan, the only writer of note, who, to his own discredit, has dared to cast a reflection on this relation so pure and Christlike. “The women,” says Guizot, “seem irresistibly attracted toward Him, with hearts moved, imaginations struck by His manner of life, His precepts, His miracles, His language. He inspires them with feelings of tender respect and confiding admiration. The Canaanitish woman comes and addresses to Him a timid prayer for the healing of her daughter. The woman of Samaria listens to Him with eagerness, though she does not know Him: Mary seats herself at His feet, absorbed in reflections suggested by His words; and Martha proffers to Him the frank complaint that her sister assists her not, but leaves her unaided in the performance of her domestic duties. The sinner draws near to Him in tears, pouring upon His feet a rare perfume, and wiping them with her hair. The adulteress, hurried into His presence by those who wished to stone her, in accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic law, remains motionless in His presence, even after her accusers have withdrawn, waiting in silence what He is about to say. Jesus receives the homage, and listens to the prayers of all these women with the gentle gravity and impartial sympathy of a being superior and strange to earthly passion. Pure and inflexible interpreter of the Divine law, He knows and understands man’s nature, and judges it with that equitable severity which nothing escapes, the excuse as little as the fault. Faith, sincerity, humanity, sorrow, repentance, touch Him without biasing the charity and the justice of His conclusions; and He expresses blame or announces pardon with the same calm serenity of authority, certain that His eye has read the depths of the heart to which His words will penetrate. In His relation with the women who approach Him, there Isaiah, in short, not the slightest trace of man; nowhere does the Godhead manifest itself more winningly and with greater purity. And when there is no longer any question of these particular relations and conversations, when Jesus has no longer before Him women suppliants and sinners, who are invoking His power or imploring His clemency: when it is with the position and the destiny of women in general that He is occupying Himself, He affirms and defends their claims and their dignity with a sympathy at once penetrating and severe. He knows that the happiness of mankind, as well as the moral position of women, depends essentially upon the married state; He makes of the sanctity of marriage a fundamental law of Christian religion, and society; He pursues adultery even into the recesses of the human heart, the human thought; He forbids divorce; He says of men, ‘Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female? For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.’…. Signal and striking testimony to the progressive action, of God upon the human race! Jesus Christ restores to the divine law of marriage the purity and the authority that Moses had not enjoined to the Hebrews ‘because of the hardness of their hearts.’ ”—P. S.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The retreat of Jesus from Judea to Galilee through Samaria, the first turning-point in His official life: 1. Motives (the Pharisees began to watch Him with hostile eye: the Baptist is imprisoned). 2. Character: Free consciousness (He retreats in free discretion, without fear; in holy discretion, hence: “the Lord knew”). 3. Rich results (beneficent sojourn in Samaria, beneficent results in Galilee). 4. Significancy (He ceases to baptize, tarries in Samaria on His return).—Symbolical import of baptismal water and drinking water in Christianity. (In John 3. Jesus baptized with water: in John 4he passes to offer a living water to be drunk.)—The resting of the Lord on Jacob’s well, a living emblem of the old patriarchal days and the new evangelistic time in one.—Christ in His human weakness and divine exaltation, (1) weary, and yet the rest of a weary soul; (2) thirsty, and yet a fountain; (3) hungry, and yet enjoying heavenly food, the Lord of the harvest-field; (4) left alone, yet in spirit surrounded with approaching nations.—Christ a Saviour even from the religious perversities of fanaticism.—Fanaticism in its inhumanity and its immoral conduct.—The woman of Samaria, or a Samaritan Magdalene.—The condescending pity of Jesus in the conversion of the woman of Samaria.—How the grace and love of Christ can break through all conventional restrictions, for being the new law of the Spirit: the restrictions (1) of the ancient religious separation, (2) of the ancient national separation, (3) of the old social custom (as to the separation of the sexes), (4) of the old contempt for the fallen.—How many prejudices that one little word of Jesus: Give me to drink, abolishes: 1. The prejudice of the ancients against the female sex; 2. The prejudice of statute against the fallen; 3. The prejudice of nationality; 4. The prejudice of religion.—The wisdom and gentleness of the Lord in winning souls: 1. The opening of the conversation (Give me to drink; a token of common life). 2. The progress of the conversation (a. objective salvation in a sensible emblem: b. subjective need of salvation). 3. The goal: Manifestation of Christ to a sinful, penitent heart.—The stages of the religious instruction of the Samaritan woman: 1. The missionary stage; 2. The catechetical stage; 3. The church stage (see the exegesis).—How Christ sent back as an evangelist into her city a woman who came out of it a notorious sinner.—The day of grace (If thou knewest.)—The life of the Lord, living water (spring-water) in distinction from the stale water of this world’s life: 1. The latter provokes thirst, the former quenches thirst2. The one becomes foul, the other takes away foulness3. The one stands, in a marsh, the other gushes and flows4. The one sinks away, evaporates, the other becomes an eternal fountain.—Christ the life, as fountain of life.—The fountain of life, as a fountain of peace.—Jacob’s well, the pool of Bethesda, the fountain of Siloam, emblems of the salvation in Christ.—The water of life, which Christ bestows: 1. A draught which becomes a fountain; 2. A fountain which becomes a stream; 3. A stream which runs into the ocean of eternal life, without losing itself therein. The crystal spring of truth (that may be likened to spring water) in contrast with the turbid water of vanity and sin (which may be likened to salt water and puddles and ponds).—The miraculous virtue of self-reproduction in the water and the bread which Christ bestows.—The thirst of life, and the satisfaction of it in Christ.— Sirach, give me this water, or the unsatisfied longing of the poor, sinful heart: (1) Astray, deceived, debauched in sin; (2) led aright, purified, brought to itself by the awakening of repentance; (3) satisfied, transformed into blessed life by grace.—Call thy husband. Christ not only the knower of hearts, but also the knower of lives.—Christ aims at the conscience, to subdue the sinner.—The gradual awakening: 1. Awakening of reflection; 2. Awakening of conscience; 3. Awakening of faith.—The divine visitation in the hour when the dark human heart feels itself exposed and seen through by a heavenly eye.—The decision of Christ respecting the religious controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews, in its permanent typical import.—“Salvation comes from the Jews.”—But while they quarrel on over the old issue, a new and higher point of unity is present.—The future of religion: Worship of God in spirit and in truth.—The Messiah’s revelation of Himself for the woman of Samaria (compared with the self-presentation of the angel of the Lord to Hagar, of the risen Jesus to Magdalene).—The school which the disciples of Jesus went through in Samaria in reference (1) to the Samaritan woman, (2) to the Samaritans.—The marvelling of the disciples of Jesus at His talking with a woman, in conflict with their reverence.—The whole life discipline of the Christian an alternation of the spirit of captious and of reverential wonder.—The food of Jesus.—Heavenly remembering and reminding an earthly forgetting: 1. Christ forgets His earthly meat; 2. The woman forgets the earthen pitcher.—The difference between the Master and the disciples in their way of seeing: 1. The disciples still look upon the green growing fields (according to the earthly appearance); 2. The Master looks upon the white harvest fields (according to the spiritual reality).—The Samaritans on their way to Jesus, a sign of harvest;—a mission token.—The messengers of Christ not only sowers, but also reapers.—The miraculous relation between sowing and harvest in the kingdom of God: 1. The two infinitely far apart; 2. The two coincident.—The sowers and the reapers of the Lord: 1. How they for the most part do not know each other in this world2. How they rejoice with one another in the next.—The symbolism of the field (of the sown field and of the harvest field).—The double grounds of faith which the Samaritan had: 1. The account of the woman; 2. Acquaintance with Christ Himself.—The two days of the sojourn of Jesus in Samaria.—The dark side and the bright side of the Samaritan life: 1. Greater danger of the adulteration of Christianity with heathenism, than among the Jews; 2. Greater freedom from Jewish prejudice, and hence greater access for the word of faith.—The testimony of the Samaritans: This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world: 1. A fruit, ripened (a) under the sense of contempt from the Jews, (b) under the sense of free grace on the part of the Lord; 2. A bud which fully unfolded in subsequent faith and under the preaching of the Apostles.

Starke: Envy (with reference to the Pharisees).—(Cramer): Christians should take care of themselves, Matthew 10:23.—(Majus): The dignity and virtue of the sacraments depends not on persons who administer them.—Christ seeks the salvation of all men by all means and at all times.—There is no land entirely void of monuments of grace even from its antiquity.—Christ, as true Prayer of Manasseh, became weary.—If the Lord became weary for the good of His creatures, we should be incited to the patient endurance of the toilsomeness of our calling.—Man must also have his rest.—Canstein: Direct the necessary rest to the glory of God.—A picture of the grace which anticipates us and fondly persuades us.—Quesnel: Jesus voluntarily humbles Himself so far as to have need of His creatures, that we may not be ashamed to accept their help.—Thirst for the salvation of men was greater in Christ than bodily thirst for water.—Christianity consists not in secluding oneself and locking the room and sitting with the prayer book behind the stove; else the Lord would not have talked with the Samaritan woman. Majus: National hatred pernicious and sinful.—Canstein: We should not withhold the general duties of humanity on account of difference in religion.—The same: An inordinate estimate of our ancestry may sometimes be a hinderance to salvation.—Osiander: No earthly refreshing and delights can satisfy the heart.—Thirst a great need;—those who once drink from this fountain of life furnish themselves against all thirst for the world.—He who is to be converted, must be brought to a knowledge of his sin.—Canstein: Christ and His Spirit must disclose to a man his secret shame if they are to help him.—Bibl. Wirt.: Jesus looks especially upon one’s conduct of his married life.—Piscator: In matters of religion and faith no one should appeal to fathers or ancestry, unless their doctrine be first proved from the word of God.—Prayer and worship depend not on time, place, posture, bending of knees or folding of hands, but upon spirit and truth.—Worship in spirit and in truth by no means supersedes outward worship.—Canstein: The way of serving God must agree with the attributes of God.—Majus: If between contending parties there still is agreement or harmony in some points, one must not despise him, but endeavor as opportunity offers to turn it to edification.—Osiander: The true knowledge of Christ fills a man with heavenly joy.—Hedinger: Grace, when it is vitally kindled in the soul, gives joy and alacrity.—The same: Doing the will of God should be to us above eating and drinking and every necessity.—Quesnel: A great consolation for those in the church of God who labor much and see no fruit, that they are here assured that they shall lose nothing of their reward.—Hedinger: He who continues to depend on Prayer of Manasseh, attains not to divine certainty.—Christ a universal Saviour of the whole world, 1 Timothy 4:10; Titus 2:11; Titus 2:13.

Gossner: Where the true Christ comes, He first uncovers disgrace and shame, and then takes them away.—Braune: This is the fixed order in the kingdom of God, which is above all time: that it reaches over centuries, and every generation reaps what the preceding sowed, and in turn must sow what the succeeding may reap.

Gerlach:—Every sensuous form of worship, even that ordained by God Himself, is a symbolical worship, and therefore reaches its truth only in the spiritual,—without which it would be a false worship.—“Wouldst thou have a high, a holy place? consecrate thyself inwardly a temple of God; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are, 1 Corinthians 3:17. Wouldst thou pray in a temple, pray in thyself; but become first thyself a temple of God, for He hears him who calls to Him out of His temple.” (Augustine.)

Heubner: Jesus teaches us prudence, silent withdrawal; it is more illustrious than bold daring, challenge, resistance, and foolhardiness.—A blessing often still rests on old places.—The inward progress in the leading of souls.—“There cometh a woman.” How the steps of man are guided!—Request, an approach to the heart.—The gospel seems at first only to ask of the unconverted, but under this apparent asking the offer of the highest grace is covered.—The first apprehension of the soul by divine grace takes place so secretly and imperceptibly that the souls themselves do not at all suspect it.—Religious hatred the bitterest hatred among nations.—Jesus does not stop upon invidious partizan disputes.—He who begins to know Jesus, asks of Him, calls upon Him.—“The well is deep.” How deep then is the well of Jesus from which the flock of God is refreshed!—The natural man resists the demand of radical renewal with the pretence that godly ancestors have surely been saved by their mode.—“Greater than our father Jacob?” This was her standard. How imperfect in comparison with Jesus.—God compels man to reflect, to come to the knowledge of Himself.—Through Christianity the whole earth is to become a temple of God. The heavenly Jerusalem has no temple (Rev. John 20, 21).—Yet Christ does not teach syncretism, He compromises nothing of the truth.—The future in the germ already lies in the present.

John 4:24. Jerome well applies this passage to pilgrimage.

John 4:30. One coal kindles the others.—Eternal life equalizes all. In it all faithful laborers enjoy in common the fruit of the labor of all.—There is a faith at first hand and a faith at second hand. The latter must lead to the former, because the latter is not enough.—(From Schleiermacher: Why Christ did not baptize and why Paul acted in like manner, 1 Corinthians 1:14; both, on the contrary, preached, whereas among us the authority to preach comes before the authority to administer the sacraments, Vol. Ι., p237).—It is certainly false for a man to say, he must not speak of such (spiritual) things in social life, because they would be too high and deep. For the earthly and the spiritual are not so separate.—In those hot and dry countries where water was scarce, thirst became a tormenting sensation, such as we cannot share.—Soon the time will come when ye shall not use some this word, I some that word, to express a given Christian truth, but when men shall express themselves on the same subject in a manner in which controversy disappears.

[E. D. Yeomans:—The Saviour, wearied with ages of pilgrimage among us and of forbearance towards our heartless service of Him, sits on the well—at the sources of earthly life, which we frequent and throng, to draw,—a well of really holy memory, consecrated by the draughts of the patriarch’s faith,—and asks of us a drink, Himself the gift of God to us! If we but saw things Song of Solomon, what glad labors, what cheerful sufferings, what effectual prayers, what glorious hope, would make up our life!]

[Schaff:—Several idyllic scenes of Scripture, such as the meeting of Abraham’s servant with Rebecca ( Genesis 14), Jacob’s first interview with Rachel ( Genesis 29), Moses’ meeting with Zipporah in Midian ( Exodus 2), took place in the neighborhood of wells; but the most interesting and important event is that attached to Jacob’s well.—“Few can see the literal wells of Palestine, all can visit the better fountain of salvation, all can gather around the true Shepherd, lie down on the green pasture of His love, and drink of the still waters” (Macduff).—Christ’s divine-human dealing with women, as a friend and Saviour, securing both their affection and adoration—an evidence of Christianity.—Christ offering the same gospel to an ignorant, semi-heathenish woman, as to a learned, orthodox Pharisee ( John 3).—Christ’s discourse with the Samaritan woman a proof of His condescending love. (Calvin: Mirum bonitatis ejus exemplum! Quid enim, fuit in misera hac femina, ut ex scorto Filii Dei repente discipula fieret?)—Christ’s discourse with the Samaritan woman, in its effect, breaking down national and religious hatred and bigotry, and elevating woman to higher dignity.—Jewish and Samaritan bigotry continued in the sectarian quarrels of Christendom, contrary to the spirit of Christ. Catholics “have no dealings” with Protestants, nor Episcopalians with Presbyterians, Lutherans with Calvinists, Baptists with Pedobaptists, high churchmen with low churchmen, etc.—The weariness and thirst of Christ turned into an unfailing fountain of refreshment for a poor woman and for all thirsty souls.—A touching allusion to Christ’s weariness in the Dies iræ:

“Quærens me sedisti lassus,^[FN94]

Redemisti crucem passus:

Tantus labor non sit cassus.”

Weary sat’st Thou seeking me,

Died’st, redeeming, on the tree,

Let such toil not fruitless be.

Christ’s weariness, hunger and thirst—a proof of His true humanity, including our infirmities—“When we are carried easily, let us think on the weariness of our Master” (Henry).—The thirst of Christ’s soul for the salvation of man.—‘Christ weary in His work, but not of His work.’—Christ always more ready to give than we are to ask.—Christ, the great Fisher of Prayer of Manasseh, as eager to catch a single soul, as a vast multitude.—The priceless value of a single soul in the view of Christ.—Christ the model of a practical teacher in commencing a most spiritual discourse in a most natural way, and rising from physical wants to the wants of the soul.—How to spiritualize and Christianize the events and occasions of every-day life.

John 4:16-19. There is an avenue to every human heart.—Kindness often more effective than severity.—Reproof is most profitable when least provoking.—“Those who would win souls should make the best of them and work upon their good-nature; for if they make the worst of them, they certainly exasperate their ill-nature” (Henry).—”Amongst all sins the sin of uncleanness lies heaviest upon the conscience; for no sin is so directly opposite to holiness; no sin quenches the Holy Spirit like this” (Burkitt).—Christ keeps a record of our sins.—Conviction of sin the first step to conversion.

John 4:20. The right and wrong appeal to the fathers and to tradition.

John 4:21-24. The spirituality of worship distinct: 1. from formalism and ritualism; 2. from intellectualism; 3. from fanatic spiritualism.—True and false spirituality.—“O for a mountain to pray on, thou criest, high and inaccessible, that I may be nearer to God, and God may hear me better, for He dwelleth on high. Yes, God dwelleth on high, but He hath respect to the humble.… Wouldest thou pray in the temple? pray in thyself; but first do thou become the temple of God” (St. Augustine).—The right use and abuse of forms in worship.

John 4:28-30. The Samaritan woman a specimen of unpretending and effectual lay-preaching. (Origen, who himself preached before his ordination to the priesthood, calls her “the apostle of the Samaritans.”)

John 4:41-42. Two kinds of faith; faith resting on external authority or tradition (the woman’s λαλιά), and faith resting on personal experience (αὐτοὶ ἀκηκόαμεν καὶ οἴδαμεν).—The Samaritan woman a picture of the church in leading men to Christ that they may see and know for themselves.]