The Giving of God Leading to Worship

Robert F. Wall

Some remarks on John’s Gospel chapters 1–5

Giving the revelation of Himself

In His dealings with men God revealed Himself successively under the different names of God that we find in the Old Testament. Each name showed more about Him and characterised His relationship with those who knew Him accordingly. It is clear, however, that these Old Testament names only revealed Him partially (Ex. 33:21–23). The full revelation of God awaited the coming into the world of the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Word and the eternal Son of God.

The Old Testament emphasised that there is one God and that beside Him there is no God (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6). The New Testament presses the same truth: ‘For God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5). Christians do not believe in three Gods, as is sometimes alleged, but that the one true God is triune in His being. The full truth concerning the Trinity is revealed in the New Testament though there are verses in the Old Testament that hint at it (e.g. Gen. 1:1, 26; 11:7).

In John’s Gospel the Lord spoke of His rejection and death even before He entered on His public ministry (2:18–21). The premise of it opened the door for Him to present many of the fundamental principles connected with this present Christian era. In particular He showed that Christianity centres in the revelation in Him of the Father and that this revelation of God is to be known, enjoyed and responded to in the power of the Holy Spirit (John 14:9; 4:14; 7:38–39).

The opening verses of John’s Gospel present the Lord Jesus as the eternal Word. The statements there have been briefly summarised as showing:

• ‘In the beginning was the Word’: the eternal existence of the Word;
• ‘and the Word was with God’: the distinct personality of the Word;
• ‘and the Word was God’: the divine nature (deity) of the Word;
• ‘He was in the beginning with God’: that the distinct personality and divine nature (deity) of the Word are as eternal as His existence.

In order to communicate our thoughts accurately we need to use words. While the Lord Jesus spoke the words of God (Greek ῥῆμα: John 3:34) He is revealed to us as the Word (Greek λόγος). As such He makes known not just some of God’s thoughts but the whole mind of God. Did He not do so, God’s mind and thoughts would forever remain beyond the reach of our knowledge (Isa. 55:9).

The section that follows adds to Christ’s glory as the eternal Word the glory of an eternal relationship with a father (John 1:14). Of all the glories that are mentioned in this chapter it is this glory that John says ‘we have contemplated’. In verse 18 he writes: ‘No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’. The Son makes God known as the Father, according to the place of love and intimacy with Him that has always been His (see also John 3:35; 5:20; 17:24).

This revelation of the mind and thoughts of God, and of the Father, was presented in His Word when He was here and is preserved for us in the writings of the New Testament (λόγος; see John 8:31, 37, 43, 51, 52, etc.). In order that we might receive and respond to it, however, there is need both of a work in us that brings about moral cleansing, and a work outside of us that deals with our sins and sinful state.

Giving His own moral nature

The impenetrable darkness in which we lay is referred to in John 1:4–5: ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.’ Despite the intensity of the light that shone in Christ, fallen human nature is incapable of perceiving it. In this state no one would ever receive the Lord Jesus but in verse 12 we read of those who did receive Him. They believed on His name and did so because they were ‘born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God’ (v. 13).

In chapter 3 the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus of the necessity of new birth (verses 1–13). Without this we do not have the ability either to discern or enter the kingdom of God in its present mystery form. It is a sovereign work of God accomplished in the soul by the Holy Spirit, the Word of God being the means employed (John 3:8; Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23). The fact that the Word is here referred to under the figure of water emphasises both the ‘clean’ character of the nature imparted to us and the practical purification that follows (1 Pet. 1:22–23). All those who possess it are ‘wholly clean’ in the sight of God (and need only that their feet should be washed when defilement has soiled them. John 13:10). This work has to be accomplished in each individual and marks the beginning of God’s work in the soul (1 Pet. 1:2).

Giving His only-begotten Son

As well as a work in us by which we are made partakers of the divine (moral) nature of God we also needed a work outside of ourselves by which our sins and sinful state are dealt with. This latter work is referred to in John 3:13–21. It was accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross in the three hours of darkness. In order to accomplish it He came down from heaven and became the Son of man. He took humanity (in His case, holy and apart from sin) in order to be capable of dying. His being lifted up was imperative and is referred to firstly as the great antitype of the serpent being lifted up in the wilderness by Moses (Num. 21:4–9).

In the course of their journey through the wilderness the children of Israel continually murmured against God and against Moses, His representative. On the occasion described in Numbers 21, when the people murmured again and expressed their loathing of the manna, ‘Jehovah sent fiery serpents among the people, which bit the people; and much people of Israel died.’ The people acknowledged their sin and asked Moses to pray for them that the serpents might be taken away. Jehovah answered, not by taking the serpents away at once, but by instructing Moses to make a serpent of brass and lift it up on a pole that those who looked on it might live. This is most instructive. The murmuring of the people proceeded from their sinful human nature. We all have this sinful nature, and unless we are born again it is the only nature that we have. In effect, we have all been bitten by ‘the ancient serpent, he who is called Devil and Satan’ (Rev. 12:9). He is the origin of all the mischief, and sin is traced back to him. It was dealt with in Christ’s death for men that those who believe should not perish but have eternal life.

The love of God to the world is shown by His having given His only-begotten Son (John 3:16). He ‘so loved’ that He gave even Him. As such the Lord Jesus is the only Son of His kind — He is unique (monogenēs — μονογενής). In Hebrews 11:17 we read that Abraham ‘offered up Isaac … his only begotten son’. He was not the only son generated by Abraham, since Abraham had other sons by Hagar and Keturah (Gen. 16:15; 25:1–6). The idea of ‘generation’ is not what is expressed by ‘only-begotten’, but the fact that He is the only Son of His kind, the one in whom all God’s purposes and promises centre.

Giving eternal life

The lifting up of the Son of man and the giving by God of His only-begotten Son had in view that whosoever believes on Him ‘may not perish, but have life eternal’. The word translated ‘perish’ does not signify a loss of being, since every human being has an eternal existence, but points to an eternal loss of wellbeing. It is to be lost to God forever, the only one who can fill and satisfy the heart and give our lives true purpose. This purpose is realised when our lives are centred on Him. This is the character of eternal life in Christian believers. It has God revealed in Christ as its centre and object. It is ‘everlasting’ life but its primary quality is that God is known as He has now been fully revealed in Christ (John 17:3; 1 John 5:20). Without exception this life is the possession of every Christian believer (John 10:27–28; 1 John 5:13).

The Father’s gift to His Son

The disciples of the Lord Jesus baptised to Him as the Messiah. John the evangelist alone notices this activity and the fact that by it the disciples made and baptised more disciples than John. The Lord knew the envy that the baptism of so many to Him would awaken in the hearts of the Pharisees, and that envy would eventually lead them to deliver Him up to be crucified (Matt. 27:18). The previous chapters have already referred to this (John 1:29, 36; 2:19–21; 3:15–16). Having met with unbelief and hostility in the earthly centre of Judaism and knowing what the final end would be, the Lord now ‘left Judaea and went away again unto Galilee’ (John 4:3).

His route to Galilee lay through Samaria and He must needs pass that way.  This was not only because of the relative locations of these two regions but to accomplish a work in a woman and others who were of the city of Sychar.

Being wearied with the way He had come He sat just as He was at the fountain and it was about the sixth hour.[1] As well as the physical weariness He felt, doubtless His spirit was oppressed by the rejection He had met with at Jerusalem. While there was water in the well to satisfy His physical thirst, what could refresh His spirit and comfort His heart in these circumstances?

John adds that the fountain was near to the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Now the one of whom Joseph was but a type had come. Christ’s glories are greater than any connected with Joseph and greater too is the love of (God) His Father for Him and the gifts He has given Him! Later the Lord says, ‘All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I will not at all cast out’ (6:37). It is clear that in His conversation with the woman He had such in mind: those that the Father had given Him from out of the world.

The woman came to the fountain to draw water and the Lord asked her to give Him a drink. She was surprised that He, manifestly a Jew, would speak with her as the Jews evidently held themselves aloof from the Samaritans. The Lord answered according to the fulness of the grace in which He had come. It was no longer a matter of God’s ways on earth, of the distinction between Jew and Gentile, however important in its place. It was not a question anymore of what was in man’s heart for God but only of what was in God’s heart for man. To poor sinners like this Samaritan woman God would reveal Himself and make known His desire to have such, made fit for it, brought into His presence.

Giving the Holy Spirit

‘Jesus answered and said to her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water’ (v. 10). What confidence this drawing near of God in grace to man imparts to those who know the blessing of it. It gives confidence to ask of Him.

The ‘gift of God’ in John 4 is the Holy Spirit and Christ, who is God, is the giver. This gift is referred to in verse 10 as ‘living water’ and we find the same expression in John 7:38 where the Lord Jesus said: ‘He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ There in the next verse John writes: ‘But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.’

Indwelling the Christian believer this living water becomes ‘in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life’ (v. 14). In this divinely energetic way the Holy Spirit lifts up into the knowledge and enjoyment of the Father and the Son. Only a divine person can do this. This satisfies the heart and soul as nothing else can. ‘Whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever.’

Before such a gift can be given the conscience needs to be reached and our need as sinners discovered. God is light as well as love, and His love can only be known and enjoyed in His light. Told to call her husband and return with him to the well she confesses that the Lord is a prophet and asks where it is right to worship God, in Gerizim or in Jerusalem.

Our response: the worship of the Father

In answering her question the Lord spoke of the worship of the Father. The Samaritans worshipped an unknown God while the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem was largely outward and ritualistic. In this Christian era God is to be worshipped, not under those names by which He was previously and partially revealed, but as the Father, now fully revealed by the Son. The character of the worship to be brought to Him is also of a different order: it is worship ‘in spirit and truth’ (v. 24). It is inward, in our human spirits, and consistent with the Christian revelation of God. It is not bound to an earthly religious centre but the fruit of being consciously in the presence of the Father as those called out of darkness into His marvellous light. God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is a spirit being and to be acceptable to Him our worship must answer to His own nature. What is merely outward and ritualistic has lost its place. Brought so near to God may we indeed worship the Father ‘for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers’ (v. 23).

The worship of the Son

Chapter 5 shows the equality of the Son with the Father. When the Lord Jesus said that God was His own Father the Jews knew that He was claiming equality with Him. The statement of the Holy Spirit by John in verse 18 makes clear that their conclusion was correct: ‘But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto and I work. For this therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only violated the sabbath, but also said that God was his own Father, making himself equal with God’ (John 5:17–18).

This equality is made clear by the Lord in many of His statements in this passage. For example, the capacity to do whatever the Father does in the same way that He does it (v. 19), to be able to be shown everything that the Father does (v. 20) and sovereignly to quicken whom He will (v. 21) are all attributes of one who is God and is therefore equal with the Father.

As a consequence, all are to ‘honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He who honours not the Son, honours not the Father who has sent him’ (v. 23). It is the great privilege of Christian believers to honour the Son and to worship Him no less than they honour and worship the Father. All those who do not willingly honour Him will certainly do so when they stand before Him to be judged.

[1] The Roman way of reckoning time is used throughout John’s Gospel. Given that the Lord was wearied with the way He had come, the ‘sixth hour’ was most likely 6.00pm. See Mr Kelly’s exposition of John’s Gospel, pages 392–393 (being a footnote to his comments on chapter 19:14) and also Walter Scott’s Bible Handbook to the New Testament, pages 333–334.

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From: Truth and Testimony, 2021