AMC, 27.07.2025
Text: John 4:20-24
Theme: Worship in Spirit and Truth
Greetings: The Lord is good and his love endures forever.
Introduction: According to every confession, creed, and catechism coming out of the Protestant Reformation, the purpose of man, or the chief end of man, is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. When we do this, we worship God.
Today, I would like to leave with you from this passage about the worshipped of God. The person of worship, the palace of worship, and the perspectives of worship.
Thomas Godwin: In the Old Testament, the main word for “worship” is hishtahavah, which meant to “bow down” with the sense of reverence and respect and honor. It found 169 occurrences in the Old Testament. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, 164 of those instances of this Hebrew word are translated by the Greek word proskuneo.
In the Greek New Testament, this is the main word for worship, but something really interesting appears. Proskuneo is found 29 times in the Gospels. People would often bow down worshipfully before Jesus. The Book of Revelation has 24 times, where the angels and elders often bow down before God. But in the letters of Paul it occurs only once, in 1 Corinthians 14:25. It doesn’t occur at all in the letters of Peter, James, and John. Two instances in Hebrews are Old Testament quotations, and three instances in Acts do not refer to Christian worship.
John 4: 21: Person of worship
God of the universe, The Father, The Spirit.
Bible ref. Comments: John 4:24 makes a clear point that God, Himself, is spirit. God is not simply a more complex physical being, or a limited creature. In other words, God is not restricted to seeing, hearing, or being in a single location, like the false gods of most religions.
Jesus uses the Samaritan woman’s reference to the Samaritan fathers and draw her attention to the one all-important Father. The Samaritan fathers seem very prominent in her mind. Jesus shifts the focus Not to the real Jewish fathers but the Father who aims to be worshipped, but not in any particular place.
Jesus says that the one to be worshipped is “the Father,” he raises the question of who are his children. The answer is found. John 1:12: “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
So Jesus made her to realise that when it comes to worship, place is not an issue, but the person whether he is having born again experience, and believe on his Son.
John Piper: Jesus was the new temple — the new meeting place with God. The temple was about to pass away as the focal point of worship. And what would be in its place? A new mountain? A new city? A new building? No. A new person. The Son.
John 3:35: “The Father loves the Son”
John 5:19: “Whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise”.
John 5:22: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son”
John 5:23: “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him”.
John 5:26: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”
John 14:23: “The Father [is] glorified in the Son”.
John 4: 21: Place of worship
Mountain, Jerusalem, Neither mountain nor in Jerusalem, Everywhere and everyday and every time
Samaritan women offered an argument about places of worship, Jesus didn’t take the bait. Jesus was more interested in winning her soul than in winning an argument with Her. The Samaritans also only accepted the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture, and rejected the rest.
The historical context of this passage shows that worship was often tied to a specific location, and that ideology had become deeply ingrained in the mindsets of the people. Old Testament worship was often centred and focused around a given location, e.g., on the mountain or in Jerusalem. Historically, both Jews and Samaritans recognised that God had commanded their forefathers to seek a place and choose from among all tribes to put his name there for his dwelling and to worship Him. “But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation1 there.” (Deuteronomy 12:5). However, both groups drew different conclusions.
Many commentators say that the woman was referring to Mt Gerizim (Deuteronomy 11:29, 27:12, Joshua 8:33, Judges 9:7). which was the scene of the blessing of the people as they came into the promised land. They had a tradition that Abraham’s offering of Isaac took place on this mountain and they held that it was here that Abraham met Melchizedek. The Jacob well was at the foot of Mt Gerizim.
The Samaritans believed that Moses commissioned an altar on Mount Gerazim, the mountain of blessing – this was their justification of their system of worship on that mountain.
Jesus pointed her to a time when worship would no longer be focused on places (neither Jerusalem nor Mount Gerazim). The greater work of Jesus would bring a greater, more spiritual worship.
Joshua Mills: In this Gospel, John moves from the idea of Jesus as the true tabernacle (John 1:14) and the true temple (John 2:19) to suggest that he fulfils the ideal of the holy mountain where God can be encountered (John 4:20-24). Therefore, worshipping God “in spirit and truth” is a spiritual engagement with God by means of Christ. In other words, “our meeting place with God – the “place” we now worship – is the exalted Lord Jesus Christ, who is truth incarnate.” Therefore, New Covenant worship is not tied to location, rather it is God-centred, Christ-focused, and gospel-inspired worship.
John Piper: This is what he is getting at in saying, “Not in this mountain, Ma’am, nor in Jerusalem.” Not where, but who is what matters. The Father and the Son. The living water, the prophet, the Savior, the Messiah.
Thus, the Lord Jesus makes it clear that true worship now requires a proper knowledge and truth about God, who is the object of worship. Therefore, in John 4:20-22, Jesus explains more positively the nature of the worship that forever renders obsolete the conflicting claims of Jerusalem and Gerizim (4:23-24), namely that true worship is in “spirit and truth.” In v. 21, Jesus draws focus away from location of worship to manner of worship.
John 4: 23-24: Perspectives of worship
True, Truth, Spirit, Know Him and worship Him. What perspectives we have in our worship.
It is important to note that ‘spirit’ and ‘truth’ are not two separable characteristics of the worship that must be offered.
There are only two “musts” in the gospel of John like this. One is in John 3:6, where Jesus states that one MUST be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. The second is one MUST worship God in spirit and truth.
David Guzik: To worship in spirit means you are concerned with spiritual realities, not so much with places or outward sacrifices, cleansing, and trappings.
Thomas Godwin say that “in spirit” means that true worship is carried along by the Holy Spirit and is happening mainly as an inward, spiritual event, and not mainly an outward bodily event. True worship not only affects the mind, but also the affections. It affects the heart. It is with the heart that a person thinks, decides, and wills. The spirit reflects the inner feelings and aspirations of the person, not just in terms of emotions, but in terms of motivation, attitude, and disposition.
Worshipping ‘in spirit’ can be understood as worship that is spiritual activity, where the whole person is engaged, which contrasts the purely intellectual or physical side of worship. To worship God in truth means that we must glorify God (in public, family, private, and all of life) in accordance with God’s own nature and truth. Spirit is unseen and spread everywhere. Inner attitude.
True worship must be essentially God-centred, made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in personal knowledge of and conformity to God’s Word-made-flesh, the Lord Jesus.
David Guzik: To worship in truth means you worship according to the whole counsel of God’s word, especially in light of the New Testament revelation. It also means that you come to God in truth, not in pretence or a mere display of spirituality.
First, it must be understood that the Lord Jesus Christ initiated a new way by which man can approach God. – through him, we can fully meet with God. Since God is spirit, proper worship must be performed in accordance with his being.
The point here “is that since God is spirit, proper worship of him is also a matter of spirit rather than physical location (Jerusalem versus Mount Gerizim).” Additionally, proper worship must be performed in accordance with how God has revealed himself in his word. In the Gospels, we see that God fully revealed himself through his Son, the Word made flesh. Therefore, the true worship that God is seeking is that which is done ‘in spirit and truth,’ by means of Christ (4:24).
MacArthur - “True worship does not consist of mere outward conformity to religious standards and duties (Isaiah 29:3, 48:1, Jeremiah 12:1-2, Matthew 15:7-9) but emanates from the inner spirit. It must also be consistent with the truth God has revealed about Himself in His Word.”
Conclusion:
Barclay quotes William Temple, the renowned archbishop of Canterbury, as defining worship as quickening the conscience by the holiness of God, feeding the mind with the truth of God, purging the imagination by the beauty of God, opening the heart to the love of God, and devoting the will to the purpose of God
