True Heart of Worship
Church of God (Seventh Day) Independent
Church of God (Seventh Day) Independent
The story of the woman at the well is well known. There are many valuable things that we can learn from it.
In this study, we will look at the most common question that comes out of it: what did Jesus mean by worship in spirit and truth? This is also the least answered question because so few people know the answer. It is also the worst answered question because so few people know the correct answer.
The reason for the dearth of answers is that the modern church is not like the temple of that time nor like the 1st Century churches that were started by the apostles. We don't understand what the Bible means when it says worship.
The woman at the well was a Samaritan. She lived in the geographic area that we refer to as Northern Israel or the land of the Ten Tribes. She was not a Jew though. When Northern Israel was conquered by the Assyrians, they moved all the Jews they could find off to other lands, and moved other conquered people into Northern Israel. These new people intermixed with Jews, picking up parts of Judaism. She would have been from those people.
Jesus strikes up a conversation with her. After a while, he tells her she has had 5 husbands and that the man she is with now is not her husband. That is something she has tried to keep hidden, so a complete stranger should not be able to tell her that.
The woman said to him, "My lord, I perceive that you are a Prophet. (John 4:19)
She is an interesting woman, though. She could have handled Jesus' statement in various ways. She could have stomped off in a huff. She could have called him a liar. She could have counter-attacked with some claim of her own. Instead, she humbled herself, effectively admitting his words were true.
She does more than that. She, a non-Jew, from a people who have never seen a prophet, recognizes that he could only know what he knows by the power of God. He must be a prophet.
Even more, she immediately sees this encounter as an opportunity to get an answer to a question that has bothered her for a long time.
Our forefathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship." (John 4:20)
The reason God allowed the Northern Tribes to be conquered was that they had turned away from God. They had built their own temples where those tribes could worship. God had said there would only be one temple, the one in Jerusalem. The Northern Tribes claimed that they were worshipping the same God as was worshipped in Jerusalem, but they worshipped idols, so God rejected them.
She is asking for a resolution to this question: is it OK to worship God at these other temples or only at Jerusalem?
The correct answer is "only at Jerusalem," but Jesus doesn't say that. If he did, she might have rejected him and stomped off in a huff. That answer would only be valid for another year or so anyway. So he tells her how worship is about to change. It wasn't about the where. It is about the who and how.
Yeshua said to her, "Woman, believe me that the hour is coming in which neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. (John 4:21)
He said to her, "the Father." That would have meant nothing to her, or even to a Jew. They only knew of God as "God," not as a father or son.
Jesus said a time is coming soon when you will not worship the Father in either place.
You are worshiping what you do not know. We know what we are worshiping, for the life is of the Jews. (John 4:22)
Jesus said the Samaritans don't even know what they are worshipping. The Jewish God they think they are worshipping is unknown to them. If they knew him, they would obey him. Instead they are worshipping something that is not God.
Jesus said the Jews know what they are worshipping. Then he said something confusing, "the life is of the Jews." He meant that both a good physical life and an eternal spiritual life would come from the Jews. That was their reason for worshipping God. Jesus is quoting prophecy.
He was actually hinting at himself when he talked about "the life". He is the way, the truth, and the life. In a later verse that we won't study here, he dropped the mask and said, outright, "I AM."
So he had sort of answered her question. It wasn't so much that the Samaritans were worshipping in one place while the Jews worshipped in another. The Samaritans didn't know what they worshipped.
Now Jesus will tell her how worship will change.
But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in the Truth, for the Father also is seeking such worshippers as these. (John 4:23)
Jesus didn't only say, "worshippers," he said, "true worshippers." That goes along with the word "truth" that he uses. Temple worship was never the worship that the Father wanted. God does not reside in buildings. The worship that was done there was the best that could be done, at the time.
True worship is worship in the spirit … which means what? The word in the Bible that is translated as worship is really the word prostration - to lie face down. That was how they showed respect for God and how they humbled themselves before him. But it is a physical act, one that a person can fake. Lying face down doesn't require respect or humility. Without those, that worship would be a lie, not the truth.
True worship doesn't happen in a building. Despite your church's worship center, worship service, and altar, worship doesn't happen there. Worship happens in the spirit of each one of us. With our spirit lying prostrate and humbled, we worship in truth.
The temple in Jerusalem was a metaphor. Each of our spirits is the priest, who serves in our own temple, making sacrifices and truly worshipping God.
Peter says this.
And you also, as living stones, be built up and become spiritual temples and holy Priests to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable before God by Yeshua the Messiah. […] 7 This honor is given therefore to you […] 9 But you are a chosen race who serve as Priests for the kingdom, a holy people, a redeemed assembly; you should proclaim the praises of him who called you from darkness into his excellent light. (1 Peter 2:23)
Back to Jesus, he has now said that it makes sense that God would expect worship to be in spirit and in truth.
For the Spirit is God, and it is fitting that those who worship him worship in the Spirit and in the Truth." (John 4:24)
Jesus has said that the Holy Spirit is God. This statement kind of comes out of nowhere because Jesus hasn't been speaking about the Holy Spirit. In fact he rarely speaks about the Holy Spirit. Until the end, he never speaks about the Holy Spirit being a gift to all who believe. Here though, he implies it.
The Holy Spirit, who will be in each believer, is God and will be worshipped by our spirit. It is only fitting that this spirit-to-spirit worship should be desired by the Father.
This leaves an unanswered question: what is meant by "in the Spirit"? It becomes difficult to know exactly how Jesus meant for that to be understood. Maybe that's because we can't really understand it at this time … or we don't need to.
I have some small understanding of the original language that will help a little. The translators are translating to the word "in." That isn't the only possible meaning. If we accept that "in" is the correct meaning, then "in" also has multiple meanings. The "in" meaning is to be within something. Therefore, the phrase would be clarified by expanding it this way.
… in the Spirit and in the Truth
… within the Spirit and within the Truth
This does exclude some bad interpretations, such as the Charismatic interpretation that "in the Spirit" is talking about a feeling or a mood.
The phrase "within the truth" is not difficult to grasp. The Bible often refers to the truth as a place a person needs to be. For example, in order to reconcile yourself with God, you need to be within the truth, which means accepting that you were not within the truth.
The phrase "within the Spirit" is more difficult. It probably speaks to a unity of our spirit with the Holy Spirit, where we are "inside" the Holy Spirit. This would be consistent with the idea that the Holy Spirit is our connection to God and that he prays for us.
It's worth noting that Christians are not always in the Spirit. We see that implied here by the idea that worship is to be done in the spirit, not every facet of our lives. We also see it explicitly in a verse from Revelation.
And I was in the Spirit on the first day of the week, and I heard behind me … (Revelation 1:10)
There wouldn't be a point in saying this if John were always in the Spirit.
I said that worship doesn't happen in a church. I won't get into the reasons here, but from very early on, the Christian church became confused about this. Jesus said in the verses above that Christians will not worship at a temple. Some people decided Jesus meant that Christians would worship in church buildings instead.
That doesn't make sense when we see that the 1st Century churches were gatherings in people's homes.
Also, nowhere does the Bible say that the purpose of those gatherings was to worship. The Bible says the purpose was to edify the church (as people). The purpose was to build up and strengthen the people. This was done primarily through teaching, but also through songs, etc., which are simple teachings put to music or rhythm to make them easy to remember and to sing as a group.
For completeness, I need to mention that the very first church meetings after Jesus' ascension were at the temple. Even there, we don't see worship going on. These meetings also appear to be an anomaly. Very quickly, persecution drove them out of the temple and into the smaller towns. There is never an effort or desire to return to the temple.