The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.
Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.
But 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 in spirit and truth.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Lord, we thank You that salvation has arrived. We are like Mary, seated before Your feet. Speak to our hearts once again. We are all here to hear You. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.
When we spoke last about worship, the passage we read was the passage we have just read: our Lord’s discussion with the Samaritan woman. This is one of the most important discussions in human history.
There are many mysteries in mankind, and many times God is a riddle to man. The universe is a riddle because God is a riddle. If there is a God in this universe, He has to be worshipped. But how do we worship Him?
Even though mankind has fallen, and even though the spirit has died and lost its function, the action of worship has never stopped. Throughout the history of mankind, there has been worship.
Man and animal are different. There may be only a small difference in DNA, but that difference is as far as heaven is from hell. The educated know how to worship, and those who are uneducated also know how to worship. Worship is a corporate instinct in humanity.
Worship means that man was created in the image of God. Man is noble because he has an instinct to worship.
When God created man, He put within him an organ—the spirit—at the very depths of man. Why? Because God is Spirit. God put the spirit within us as He put a stomach within us. As soon as we are born, we know how to eat; nobody needs to teach us that.
After man sinned and fell, there remained an instinct within him. Psalm 42 says:
As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after Thee, O God.
We know that this is a deep desire in man. We want to meet our God. Yet sadly, though man tries as hard as he can, he seeks satisfaction from heaven and from God in the wrong way.
Before our Lord came to this earth, all worship in mankind was either false worship or shadow worship.
Our Lord shows us three kinds of worship. The first is represented by the mountain of Samaria. This is false worship. They worshipped God incorrectly.
Many worships are incorrect worship. They are false worship.
In the Old Testament, however, God revealed Himself to Abraham and to the children of Israel. Their worship in Jerusalem was not false worship, because the God whom they worshipped was the one true and only God.
But our Lord said, “An hour is coming.” Before that hour came, certain things could not yet happen. Something was going to happen: true worship would come.
What is true worship? God is Spirit. He is invisible. He is not an idol. You cannot worship Him as an idol, and you cannot worship a stone or a rock.
Many religious worshippers bow down very low. There may be outward actions, but God is Spirit. When God created Adam, He breathed into his nostrils, and man became a living being with a spirit. God is Spirit, and we also have a spirit.
You can only connect with God through your spirit.
How do you receive electricity? If you touch electricity with wood, the electricity will not be transferred. Electricity may be present, but wood cannot conduct it.
Throughout the years, man has wanted to worship God, who is everywhere, but he has tried to touch Him with a piece of wood. The Lord said that an hour was coming when there would be a true connection.
When electricity is connected to a wire, it can be conducted because of the movement of electrons within the wire. In the same way, for thousands of years men worshipped God, but God remained objective to them. God was God, and they were they.
If you are to worship Him, you must worship Him in spirit and truth. Then there is a real connection, and the life of God is conducted into us. Then our lives are transformed. That is true worship.
The worship of the Old Testament was not false, but it was shadow worship.
In the original Greek, the word true in “true worship” is not simply contrasted with falsehood. It is contrasted with shadow. There is a comparison between shadow and reality.
Before I stood before you today, perhaps many of you had seen my picture. That picture is only my shadow. When I arrive, you can throw away the picture.
All the things in the Old Testament are shadows. There was worship, and there was a temple, but this worship was shadow worship.
In the temple worship, one had to pass through the altar, where blood was shed, in order to enter the holy place. The high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year with blood.
The children of Israel went up to Jerusalem each year for the feasts. They gathered in the women’s court and thought, “We are the chosen people. God’s presence is near us. His glory is just beyond.”
But if they really wanted to worship, they had to arrive at the Holy of Holies. Who could reach it? Only once each year, one high priest entered with blood, representing all the children of Israel before God.
This was not false worship. It was an education. God was teaching the children of Israel that, in order to see God, they must come by this way. Yet the way had not been opened.
Between the holy place and the Holy of Holies stood a thick veil. Even if someone arrived at the holy place, he had not reached the Holy of Holies.
From the women’s court to the Holy of Holies might have been only a few hundred meters, but spiritually that distance was infinite. It was not false worship, but it was shadow worship.
No wonder the people thirsted. Every year they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, yet they had not seen God. They waited for the Messiah.
Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” Only the Lord Jesus can show us the true way to worship God.
We are to worship Him in spirit and truth. What does this mean? Before the appointed hour came, man was fallen and his spirit had lost its function. The soul and body remained, and so man naturally tried to worship God through body and soul.
God is high above, and man is like dust. Therefore, man bows down in the dust to worship Him. This is the most that fallen man can do when the spirit has lost its function.
In the Old Testament, Elijah challenged the false prophets of Baal. There were four hundred and fifty prophets against one man. They worshipped from morning until afternoon. They cried aloud, worked themselves into a frenzy, and cut themselves. That was their worship.
Before the Holy Spirit came, this was the best man could do. Worship was principally in the body and the soul.
In the Old Testament, one important Hebrew word for worship means to prostrate oneself. When people worshipped, they prostrated themselves. The gesture of the body was prominent.
The spirit had lost its function; therefore, men worshipped through the soul and body. They needed outward helps: buildings, ceremonies, words, forms, and rituals.
Paul speaks in Colossians of “self-made religion.” In the original language, this is worship in the flesh.
What is the flesh? In the Bible, flesh refers to the fallen soul. Before the fall, man’s mind, emotions, and will comprised his soul. But after sin entered, man’s personality was polluted by sin. This fallen personality is called the flesh.
Man uses his mind, emotions, and will to worship God. But how different New Testament worship is.
When the Bible speaks of worship in spirit, it refers to the regenerated spirit. The Holy Spirit has entered into us. Our spirit is an organ, but the Holy Spirit is the life within that organ. This is the inner man.
The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. We have been born of the Holy Spirit. Once we were blind, but now our eyes have been opened.
Therefore, to worship in spirit is to worship in the Holy Spirit—not in the flesh, and not merely in the body.
Who leads us into worship? Thank God, the Comforter has come. He leads us into all truth.
In the Old Testament, worship often took the form of fixed formulas. In the synagogue, one person prayed and the others answered, “Amen.” There were prescribed prayers and benedictions. The words themselves could be very good, but they became formulas.
There were specific rituals, especially in the temple. The law told men how to worship, and all these things were right. Yet they were shadows.
If reality has not arrived and the eyes have not been opened, a person may still be like a blind man trying to cross a road. He may hear instructions, but he longs for the day when his eyes can see the green light for himself.
Man thirsts not only because worship may be false, but because all shadow worship leaves him unsatisfied. An hour was coming, and now is, when the Father seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth.
If the Holy Spirit is working, worship cannot merely be a program. You cannot simply follow exact words and expect spiritual worship to result. The Holy Spirit is in you, and you must learn to worship as He leads.
Our Lord had to go through Samaria because He had something very important to say. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.
We may use the illustration of radio waves. If someone sings in New York, the sound waves exist, though we cannot see them. They are invisible, but they are real.
To receive the music, you need a radio. You must tune the dial to the right frequency. Every sound wave has a different frequency. If you want to hear the music in New York, you must tune to its frequency.
If you use the wrong receiver, you cannot hear it. Not only must you turn on the radio; you must tune it to the right frequency.
When two frequencies are the same, there is resonance. The sound is amplified, and then you can hear it.
In the same way, when we worship God in spirit and truth, there is a spiritual resonance. God is Spirit, and He has given us a regenerated spirit. We may truly know Him and experience Him.
There is a story of soldiers under Napoleon crossing a bridge in France. They marched in step, and the rhythm of their marching matched the natural frequency of the bridge. The bridge could not bear the resonance and collapsed.
This is a true story. When the frequencies are the same, great power is released.
When we were saved, perhaps we did not understand what happened. We prayed from the depths of our hearts, and something happened that we could not explain. But God is Spirit. When we worship Him in spirit, there is a real spiritual response.
Paul experienced this. He had worshipped in the shadow, and nobody knew Judaism as well as Paul. Yet on the road to Damascus, he met the living Lord.
The words of our Lord in John 4 are among the great words of human history. No one else could have spoken them. They came from heaven by revelation.
The Gospel of John presents three great revelations:
The Gospel begins with worship. Because of worship, we begin to walk in the way of God. Our eyes have been opened. We no longer merely imagine the green light; we see it.
In Taipei, when one crosses the road, the signal tells you how much time remains. When there are many seconds left, you may walk leisurely. When the little figure begins to run, you know that you must run as well.
Why can you do this? Because you have eyes. If you are blind, you cannot see the signal. You may still attempt to cross the road, but you walk in shadow.
Throughout history, there have been many religions and many religious masters. But there is no one like our Lord. Man was thirsty and had no way, but when the Lord came, He resolved the problem.
The Lord was nailed to the cross for us. He released us from condemnation, from the bondage of sin, and ultimately from the presence of sin. His salvation is complete.
Because our Lord ascended and the Spirit came down to dwell in our spirit, the Holy Spirit has regenerated us who were blind, so that we may see.
Do not borrow a radio. The radio is within you. Come to the depths of your being. Open your heart and say, “God, even though I do not know You, and though I have only heard of You, I want to draw near. I confess that I am a sinner. I want to accept You as my Savior.”
If you receive Him, you are among the most blessed people in the world. Now you can walk in the light, because your eyes have been opened.
The Gospel of John contains selected signs. The Lord performed many miracles, but John selected particular signs because each one has a spiritual lesson.
Consider the man born blind. Consider also the paralyzed man by the pool. He had a Sabbath, but he had no rest. He watched others enter the water, yet he could not enter.
One day the Lord gave him rest. He told him to rise, take up his bed, and walk. The One who had no rest received true rest from the Lord.
Every story in John contains an amazing principle. Religion may give a man a Sabbath, but it cannot necessarily give him rest. The Lord alone gives true rest.
The healing of the man born blind troubled the Pharisees because they understood that the Messiah would open the eyes of the blind. This had never happened before.
The Lord’s healing of the man born blind was a sign that He is the Messiah. The Pharisees could not accept it unless they accepted that He was the Messiah.
We were all born blind. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree, their natural eyes were opened to see their nakedness, but the inner eyes died. Therefore man became distant from God.
There remained worship, but it became false worship or shadow worship. Thank God, our Lord came not only to save us from hell or from our sins, but to open our eyes.
God created us with a spirit, like a house fitted with a radio. He created man seeking those who would worship Him. But man sinned, and Satan stole away this spiritual capacity. Through idols, Satan was worshipped.
The true Messiah came to save His people from sin. He did not simply come to save them from the Roman Empire. If they were delivered from Rome but remained slaves of sin, they would still be slaves.
Our Lord came as the Savior of all—not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles. His name is Jesus, for He saves His people from their sins.
He died for us and shed His blood. But He also came to open our eyes, for we were all blind.
There is a story about a young man who visited a valley where all the inhabitants were blind. He fell in love with a blind girl, but she said that if he wished to marry her, he must put out his eyes and become like them.
The young man could not do it, and he left. It may sound like a romantic story, but it is not a good ending.
But here is the true story of two thousand years ago. When our Lord came to earth, only His eyes were open. We were all blind.
John presents our Lord as the eagle. The eagle can look directly at the sun without being blinded. Our Lord was in the bosom of the Father. God is like the sun, and the Lord could look upon Him without being blinded.
We are blinded because we are sinners. Ever since we sinned and fell, we have been blinded.
When the Lord descended from heaven, it was like the young man entering the valley. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The Lord loved us and wanted to save us.
Man wants to bring the Lord down to his own level. Even some theology attempts to reduce Him to a merely human level. But this is impossible. He has human nature, yet He is more than man.
Man wants to lower Him, but the Lord wants to elevate us. He wants to open our eyes.
How did He open our eyes? Consider the cross. During the first three hours, He said:
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Even in great suffering, He had sweet fellowship with the Father. In the most painful time, He forgot Himself and prayed for those who crucified Him.
God is love, but He is also righteous. If God were to treat the sinner as though he had never sinned, that would not be righteousness. God cannot be unrighteous.
Therefore, God allowed His Son to stand in our stead. At the cross, God’s love and righteousness met. This is the highest wisdom in the universe.
Paul said that Christ crucified is the wisdom of God. In the final three hours, according to Isaiah, God Himself dealt with our Lord on the cross.
Many people have seen The Passion of the Christ. It emphasizes the physical suffering of the Lord. Yet Psalm 22 shows us the suffering of the Lord in His spirit.
During the first three hours, man crucified the Lord. In the final three hours, God dealt with Him as the sin-bearer.
Some people speak on behalf of Judas, suggesting that if Judas had not acted, the Lord would not have been crucified and we could not have been saved. This is wrong. We must see both realities.
Our God crucified our Lord in the sense that He placed our sins upon Him. The Lord stood in your stead and in my stead.
When God saw the sin of everyone upon His Son, He turned His face away. God is holy. Then our Lord cried:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
This is the cry of fallen humanity. But the Lord stood in our stead. He and the Father had never ceased communion, yet for us He entered into that experience of abandonment.
The Father and the Son had never been separated. The Lord had always been pleasing to the Father. Even in suffering, He could see the Father’s smiling face. But for you and for me, He could not see the Father.
For us He was blinded, so that our eyes might be opened. He said, “I thirst,” so that we might no longer thirst. Now we see God. No longer do we worship in shadow; now we can worship God.
Because of what the Lord did, He became our Savior and Messiah. Our eyes are opened.
Our Lord rose and ascended to heaven. The Holy Spirit came, and we were regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Therefore our eyes are opened, and we can worship Him.
When the Lord says that an hour is coming, John helps us understand its fulfillment. In Revelation 4 and Revelation 5, we see the situation in heaven.
The universe is a temple. There is an outer court, a holy place, and a Holy of Holies. The earth is like the outer court.
The altar in the temple was a type of the cross. Our Lord was indeed nailed to the cross for us. The high priest passed from the outer court to the holy place and then into the Holy of Holies.
In the New Testament, we understand that our Lord ascended. Revelation tells us that the Lamb stood before the throne. The Lamb signifies the One who was crucified.
He received the Holy Spirit from the Father and poured Him forth. The Lamb has seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth. This is the story of Pentecost.
He also received the scroll. No one else was worthy to open it. He was made both Lord and Christ, and He received the name above every name.
Then the elders and the four living creatures prostrated themselves before the Lamb. What is worship? Worship is the response to His worthiness.
The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures worshipped Him. Then all the angels worshipped. The elders sang a new song, and all creation joined the worship.
The four living creatures represent all creation. Everything in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea will worship Him.
This is true worship in the universal temple.
The Holy Spirit is in our spirit, just as living water is in the well. We are the temple of God.
Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
This is the New Testament. It is no longer merely this mountain or that mountain. God does not dwell in temples made with hands.
The Holy Spirit leads us into worship. The wind still blows. The wind blows where it wills, and we follow.
When we read the Gospel of John, we see that in the first chapter He tabernacled among us. He is the true tabernacle.
In John 2, He said:
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
He is the true temple.
He is also Lord of the Sabbath. Religion may give us a Sabbath, but it cannot give us the rest of the Sabbath. The Lord can give true rest.
At the feast, when the children of Israel waited for the glory of God, the Lord said:
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.
He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.
These Old Testament feasts and institutions all pointed to Christ. At the Passover, while lambs were being slain, our Lord was crucified as the true Lamb of God.
This is the revelation of New Testament worship. May Christ be revealed to us, and may He hide these words in our hearts.
Throughout two thousand years of history, many times we have returned to outward religion. Even today, there may be noisy worship and large churches, but where is the reality?
Our Lord Himself has given us this glorious way. May the Lord bless His word.
Let us pray.
Lord, we commit these words into Your hands. We pray that the Holy Spirit will continue His work.
We especially pray for the young generation. May they not be a lost generation. Gain them before You return. May there be those who rise up and welcome Your return.
May these messages be deeply rooted in our lives. Hear our prayer. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.