The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father'seek to
be His worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and truth.
John 4:23, 24.
THESE words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first
recorded teaching on the subject of prayer. They give us some wonderful first
glimpses into the world of prayer. The Father seeks worshippers: our
worship satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to Him. He seeks true
worshippers, but finds many not such as He would have them. True worship is
that which is in spirit and truth. The Son has come to open the way for
this worship in spirit and in truth, and teach it us. And so one of our first
lessons in the school of prayer must be to understand what it is to pray in
spirit and in truth, and to know how we can attain to it.
To the woman of Samaria our Lord spoke of a threefold worship.
There is first, the ignorant worship of the Samaritans: Ye worship that which
ye know not. The second, the intelligent worship of the Jew, having the true
knowledge of God: We worship that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.
And then the new, the spiritual worship which He Himself has come to introduce:
The hour is coming, and is now, when the true worshippers shall worship the
Father in spirit and truth. From the connection it is evident that the words in
spirit and truth do not mean, as if often thought, earnestly, from the heart,
in sincerity. The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of
God; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly
sought God in prayer. The Jews had the true full revelation of God in His word,
as thus far given; there were among them godly men, who called upon God with
their whole heart. And yet not in spirit and truth, in the full meaning of the
words. Jesus says, The hour is coming, and now is; it is only in and
through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth.
Among Christians one still finds the three classes of
worshippers. Some who in their ignorance hardly know what they ask: they pray
earnestly, and yet receive but little. Others there are, who have more correct
knowledge, who try to pray with all their mind and heart, and often pray most
earnestly, and yet do not attain to the full blessedness of worship in spirit
and truth. It is into this third class we must ask our Lord Jesus to take us;
we must be taught of Him how to worship in spirit and truth. This alone is
spiritual worship; this makes us worshippers such as the Father'seeks. In
prayer everything will depend on our understanding well and practising the
worship in spirit and truth.
God is a Spirit , and they that worship Him, must
worship Him in spirit and truth. The first thought suggested here by the
Master is that there must be harmony between God and His worshippers; such as
God is, must His worship be. This is according to a principle which prevails
throughout the universe: we look for correspondence between an object and the
organ to which it reveals or yields itself. The eye has an inner fitness for
the light, the ear for sound. The man who would truly worship God, would find
and know and possess and enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have the
capacity for receiving Him. Because God is Spirit , we must worship
in spirit . As God is, so His worshipper.
And what does this mean? The woman had asked our Lord whether
Samaria or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answers that henceforth
worship is no longer to be limited to a certain place: Woman, believe Me,
the hour cometh , when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall
ye worship the Father. As God is Spirit, not bound by space or time, but in His
infinite perfection always and everywhere the same, so His worship would
henceforth no longer be confined by place or form, but spiritual as God Himself
is spiritual. A lesson of deep importance. How much our Christianity suffers
from this, that it is confined to certain times and places. A man, who seeks to
pray earnestly in the church or in the closet, spends the greater part of the
week or the day in a spirit entirely at variance with that in which he prayed.
His worship was the work of a fixed place or hour, not of his whole being. God
is a Spirit: He is the Everlasting and Unchangeable One; what He is, He is
always and in truth. Our worship must even so be in spirit and truth: His
worship must be the spirit of our life; our life must be worship in spirit as
God is Spirit.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and truth. The second thought that comes to us is that the worship in
the spirit must come from God Himself. God is Spirit: He alone has Spirit to
give. It was for this He sent His Son, to fit us for such spiritual worship, by
giving us the Holy Spirit. It is of His own work that Jesus speaks when He says
twice, The hour cometh, and then adds, and is now. He came to baptize with the
Holy Spirit; the Spirit could not stream forth till He was glorified (John 1:33, 7:37, 38, 16:7). It was when He had made an end
of sin, and entering into the Holiest of all with His blood, had there on our
behalf received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33), that He could send Him down to us as the
Spirit of the Father. It was when Christ had redeemed us, and we in Him had
received the position of children, that the Father'sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into our hearts to cry, Abba, Father. The worship in spirit is the worship
of the Father in the Spirit of Christ , the Spirit of Sonship.
This is the reason why Jesus here uses the name of Father. We
never find one of the Old Testament saints personally appropriate the name of
child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible
to those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given. The worship in
spirit is only possible to those to whom the Son has revealed the Father,
and who have received the spirit of Sonship. It is only Christ who opens the
way and teaches the worship in spirit.
And in truth. That does not only mean, in
sincerity. Nor does it only signify, in accordance with the truth of God's
Word. The expression is one of deep and Divine meaning. Jesus is the
only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth . The law
was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Jesus says,
I am the truth and the life. In the Old Testament all was shadow and
promise; Jesus brought and gives the reality, the substance, of things
hoped for. In Him the blessings and powers of the eternal life are our actual
possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth; the Holy Spirit is
the Spirit of truth; through Him the grace that is in Jesus is ours in deed and
truth, a positive communication out of the Divine life. And so worship in
spirit is worship in truth ; actual living fellowship with God, a real
correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child
praying in the spirit.
What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once
understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full meaning. We are hardly
prepared at our first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such
teaching. We shall understand it better later on. Let us only begin and take
the lesson as He gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He
seeks. But Jesus came to give the Spirit: He has given Him to us. Let the
disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ s words have
taught us. Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the
worship that is pleasing to Him; the childlike teachableness that waits on Him
to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the
Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth we shall find that the
Lord has more to say to us about it that the knowledge of the Fatherhood of
God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherliness in our hearts, the faith in
the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children, is
indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth. This is the new and living way
Christ opened up for us. To have Christ the Son, and the Spirit of the
Son , dwelling within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true,
spiritual worshippers.
