True Worship

Jesus revealed that the presence and worship of God are no longer limited to geographic locations or man-made structures – John 4:20-24.

Jesus revealed the proper form and location of the worship of the Father to a Samaritan woman. With the arrival of Israel’s Messiah, concepts and traditions about holy space and holy time are irrelevant. The presence of the Son of God renders the historical debate over the location of the Temple pointless. From now on, worship must be performed in Spirit and Truth – (John 4:20-24).

Even at this early point in his ministry, Jesus experienced opposition from the Temple authorities, and quite possibly, that is why he left Judea for Galilee, perhaps seeking more receptive hearts.

[Assembly - Photo by Sincerely Media (South Africa) on Unsplash]

The most direct route to Galilee was through Samaria, a region more scrupulous Jews avoided by taking a more circuitous journey between Jerusalem and Galilee. Jesus instead chose the direct route, which brought him into contact with the Samaritan woman - (John 4:1-3).

• (John 4:20-22) – “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where we must worship. Jesus said to her: Believe me, woman! An hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship that which you know not. We worship that which we know, because salvation is of the Jews.”

Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and asked her for a drink of water. This surprised her since devout Jews avoided contact with Samaritans, and it was socially awkward for a Jewish male to communicate with an unrelated and unaccompanied female. Nevertheless, Christ 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.”

The woman assumed he meant water from the well and asked how he could draw any with no vessel, and then asked Jesus, “Are you greater than Jacob who gave us the well?” Jesus responded again:

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

The woman instinctively requested this “living water,” but Jesus told her to “summon your husband.” She claimed to have no husband, but he retorted:

• “You have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truly.”

The woman now perceived Jesus to be a prophet and asked about the old dispute between the Jews and Samaritans regarding the proper location of the Temple building – “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place necessary to worship!”

The Samaritans also worship the God of Israel, but unlike the Jews, they recognized only the books of Moses as authoritative scripture, and they disagreed with the Jews about the proper location for the Temple of Yahweh.

THE TRUE PLACE OF WORSHIP

Moses directed Israel to worship at the place which Yahweh would designate. However, that location is not specified anywhere in the five books of Moses. Because the Jews accepted the rest of the Old Testament as authoritative, they assumed the correct site was Jerusalem based on numerous passages from the later books of the Hebrew Bible.

The Samaritans claimed that Mount Gerizim in Samaria was the correct location of the Temple, and they pointed for scriptural authorization to the Book of Genesis where God promised to give Shechem, the city of Samaria, to Abraham and his “seed” – (Genesis 12:6-7, 1 Kings 12:25). But Jesus responded with a most unexpected declaration:

• “There is coming an hour when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father <…> When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for even such as these is the Father seeking as his worshipers. God is spirit. They that worship him must worship in spirit and truth” - (John 4:23-24).

Jesus did not attempt to resolve the old dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. Instead, he described the new order of worship that would be established in and by him. Questions and debates about holy sites and seasons were now pointless. Christ’s words pointed to the obsolescence of the old Temple, including its rituals and religious concerns over holy space.

• “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental principles to which you desire to be enslaved over again? You narrowly observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have spent labour on you in vain” – (Galatians 4:9-11).

• “Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is Christ's” – (Colossians 2:16-17).

• “For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, complete those who draw near” – (Hebrews 10:1).

What is important is not where or when God’s people worship Him, but how - (“An hour is coming and now is”). The followers of Jesus Christ must worship God as Father in spirit and truth. Likewise, the division between Jews and Samaritans reached its termination point, just as Jesus also dismantled the wall separating Jews and Gentiles:

• “But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and dismantled the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace” – (Ephesians 2:13-15).

The declaration that the time “now is” means the old order began to pass away in the life and ministry of Jesus. As elsewhere in John’s gospel, the term “hour” refers to his death, “the hour” of Christ’s “glorification.” The Messiah of Israel is ushering in a new era and reality where external rituals are replaced by spiritual worship - (John 7:37-39).

With Christ’s Death and Resurrection, traditional regulations governing space and time have become irrelevant. The presence of God is not limited to buildings, geographic locations, or specific “seasons” of the year, or days of the month or week. Jesus is the True Tabernacle where God is worshipped, and His presence resides.

• “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” – (John 1:14).

“The Son of Man” is the person and place where the glory of God is manifested for all men to see. He is the means of access between Heaven and Earth, and the Greater Temple raised up by God “after three days” - (John 1:14, 1:47-51, 2:17-22).

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SEE ALSO:

• God's Dwelling Place - (Jesus is the Greater Tabernacle in whom the presence and glory of God permanently reside and are manifested to his followers – John 1:14)

• The House of God - (Jesus is the true and only way of access to the Father, the Greater Bethel, and the House of God – John 1:47-50)

• His Glory Revealed - (Ever since the Word became flesh, the glory of God is manifested in Jesus of Nazareth and beheld by everyone who believes in him – John 1:14)

• Em Espírito e Verdade - (Jesus revelou que a presença e a adoração a Deus não estão mais limitadas a localizações geográficas ou estruturas feitas pelo homem-João 4:20-24)