'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 iv. 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 i. 33, vii. 37, 38, xvi. 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 ii. 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.
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
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Blessed Lord! I adore the love with
which Thou didst teach a woman, who had refused Thee a cup of water, what the
worship of God must be. I rejoice in the assurance that Thou wilt no less
now instruct Thy disciple, who comes to Thee with a heart that longs to pray in
spirit and in truth. O my Holy Master! do teach me this blessed
secret.
Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of
man, but only comes from Thee; that it is not only a thing of times and seasons,
but the outflowing of a life in Thee. Teach me to draw near to God in
prayer under the deep impression of my ignorance and my having nothing in myself
to offer Him, and at the same time of the provision Thou, my Saviour, makest for
the Spirit's breathing in my childlike stammerings. I do bless Thee that
in Thee I am a child, and have a child's liberty of access; that in Thee I have
the spirit of Sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all,
Blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives
confidence in prayer; and let the infinite Fatherliness of God's Heart be my joy
and strength for a life of prayer and of worship.
Amen.