It is now time to begin looking at the passages that I chose for this paper which were John 4:10-15 and John 6:25-34. Today we will look at the story of the woman at the well:
John 4:10-15
Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."
By looking at the structures of John 4:10-15 and John 6:25-34 it is easy to see that these two passages parallel one another. In both cases, Jesus engages his hearers and allows them to fight back with their own questions. After they express their initial confusion, Jesus offers an explanation, even if He does not directly answer their questions. The hearers then express anticipation for the gifts in which Jesus mentions. Finally, John 6:35 serves as a conclusion that ties both these passages together in one statement. After looking at the background of these passages and seeing how they fit in the Gospel of John, it is important to look at the verses themselves, to discover the meaning of the passages. The parallel structure will help aid in understanding the meaning as well.
When Jesus first meets the woman in John 4:7, He asks for a drink of water, to which the woman reverts to cultural prejudices, shocked that a Jew would speak to her, a Samaritan. Then, in verse ten, Jesus introduces the woman to the idea of “living water.” One important idea to point out at the outset of these passages is that “spiritually, Jesus comes to us first.”[1] Jesus initiates the conversation, offering this woman a new kind of water, a gift. This idea of living water will later develop into an image that leads to eternal life, and initially it appears as if this gift is Jesus Himself.”[2] This argument seems reasonable in that Jesus is the one offering the gift of eternal life, which can only be found in Him. But with living water having such a literal meaning in the culture, the woman completely misses the spiritual significance of this gift. As a result, she expresses her confusion.
In verses eleven and twelve, the woman offers a defense to Jesus’ claim. Thinking literally about living water, which comes from a stream or a river, the woman realizes that Jesus cannot physically acquire this water in Sychar. So she reminds him about the depth of the well, “about one hundred feet, and points out that He has nothing to draw with.”[3] She then expresses anger, thinking that if Jesus claims that He can acquire living water in Sychar that He must be greater than Jacob, one of the Patriarchs. In fact in the way that she questions Jesus, the Greek “participle mh (may) indicates expectation of a negative answer.”[4] She thinks highly of Jacob and does not expect anyone to claim to be greater. Again, this confusion arises from her inability to think of the situation from a spiritual standpoint. She challenges Jesus by bringing Jacob into the conversation. However, Jesus does not allow the woman to trap Him in the conversation. He regains control and offers an explanation.
Beginning in verse thirteen, Jesus returns to the topic of water by contrasting earthly water with living water. The woman is thinking on the earthly level. Since Jesus is more interested in “internal or spiritual water,” He meets her at her point of understanding and develops His argument from there.[5] In fact, He argues that “everything that the world has to offer man will not satisfy him in the long run.”[6] The water He references in verse thirteen is physical water that comes from a well. Just as the woman travels to the well each day for water, physical things in life do not satisfy; their pleasures eventually run out. Using this description of earthly things, Jesus now extends His argument by showing her how living water differs from earthly water.
The first half of verse fourteen expresses the eternality of this living water. Whereas the earthly water does not satisfy but for a short time, living water “satisfies man’s thirst forever, because it is that for which man really yearns.”[7] When Jesus tells the woman that whoever drinks of this water “will never be thirsty again,” He shows her how the water will have an eternal effect on her. In fact, this water will be a tool that will lead her to eternal life. The second half of this verse deals with the water’s effects. When Jesus says that the water will well up into eternal life, He shows how the living water itself is not the image of eternal life. Instead, the living water leads to eternal life. Other images that Jesus uses in John show this same trend: “in 4:36 in relation to those who harvest a crop ‘for eternal life,’ in 6:27 in relation to the food that endures ‘to eternal life,’ in and in 12:25 in relation to those who hate their lives in this world but keep them ‘for eternal life.’”[8] This entire discussion finds its focus on an image. Just as the bread, crops, and life are not equated with eternal life, neither is the water. Jesus uses this image of water to directly relate with the woman. He takes a common image from her life, meets her where she is in her life, and presents the truth through that image. Jesus is showing her how to obtain eternal life, and this life does not come through the ways of man, which only last for a time.
But once again, the woman still shows her confusion. In verse fifteen, the woman keeps her focus on the physical, still blind to the spiritual side of the discussion. First, she shows that “she is still seeking literal water… thinking about earthly things” when she requests for Jesus to give her the water.[9] She continues to express this confusion by thinking that the water will “relieve her of the… task of coming to draw water.”[10] She has not come far from her initial confusion, but some of Jesus’ teaching is beginning to make more sense to her. For instance, she now recognizes this living water as a gift, even though she is not quite sure how it will affect her life. Because Jesus continues to lead the discussion throughout the remainder of the chapter, the woman continues to get closer to the truth.
There is still more to come as we look at the significance of these passages in the book of John. We will next look at what happened to the crowd of 5,000 people after they had been fed and then look at an application for our lives today.
[1] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary Volume 1 John1:1-4:54 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975) 343.
[2] Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII (New York, New York: Double Day, 1966) 170.
[3] Colin G. Kruse, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003) 129.
[4] Andreas J. Köstenberger, John: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004) 151.
[5] Borchert, The New American Commentary: John 1-11, 205.
[6] Ernst Haenchen, John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John Chapters 1-6 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1980) 220.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Kruse, John: The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 130.
[9] Burge, The NIV Application Commentary: John, 144-45.
[10] Haenchen, John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John Chapters 1-6, 221.
Matt
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