The Samaritan Woman: Did She Receive Living Water?

John 4
1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 But He needed to go through Samaria.
5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

Here she comes …

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

That was interesting. I wonder what her attitude was here. Was she amazed and humbled that he asked her for water – or was she sassy?

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

There is a condition to this.
Here is a “truncated” version of Jesus statement, without conditions:
“[Ask] Him and [He will give] you living water”
However, Jesus didn’t simply say that. He gave her some conditions. What were the conditions? Well, judging from that verse – the conditions were these:
1. IF you knew the gift of God
2. IF you knew who it is who is speaking to you

11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

Now that does sound a little sassy.

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

That verse gives me goose bumps.

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

She still thinks He is talking about the wet stuff. She was concerned with the physical.

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

In my estimation, Jesus is telling this woman that He knows who she is and what she is about. Nothing is hidden from Him. That must have been a very disconcerting thing to hear.

19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

Jesus has shifted the meeting to a spiritual (religious) discussion. She doesn’t shy away from the dialogue.

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus has jsut told her that the Samaritans are .. how to say this ... clueless (?) about worship, but that the Father is looking for people to worship Him in a way that transcends the limitations of location. Next, the woman makes what sounds to me like a very humble statement. She is basically saying that she doesn’t know just what all the answers are, but she is waiting for the Messiah.

25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” (Wow!)

28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

She was so excited that she forgot her water jug!
In the Greek, her statement is something like this:

[not?] This is the Christ!

It is a question that makes a negative answer seem unlikely. It was the best way a woman of her standing in the community could make a declaratory statement about such an important matter. She told them the Messiah was there! Come and see!! This Samaritan woman truly led some people to Christ that day.

39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”

Many of the Samaritans believed in Him. It started because the Samaritan woman testified that this man knew all about her ‘skeletons in the closet.’ It certainly was easier to convince these Samaritans that He was the Messiah ... than the religious leaders who were “waiting for the Messiah.” He did great miracles before the eyes of the Pharisees and they refused to believe Jesus was the Christ, yet coming to faith began for these people at His miraculous knowledge of one woman’s (of questionable reputation) secret affairs.

40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His own word.

Those two days must be part of what was described here in the last verse of the gospel of John:

25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:5)

42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

To my readers: These Samaritans became convinced that Jesus was the Christ and it all began at His conversation with the "woman at the well." Jesus spoke to her of the gift of God: the living water that He, the Messiah could give her – "springing up into" into eternal life. What do you think the living water is? Do you think the woman received the living water at that time? Did any of them?