1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1-15
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
13 And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.
15 And I will put hatred Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I don’t know; am I my brother’s keeper?”
Genesis 4:9-11
And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.
And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear,…’
Deuteronomy 18:15
During Jesus’s earthly ministry, every action and word had purpose directed by His heavenly Father.
His disciples had been with Him, baptizing His followers in Judea,
and the Pharisees had been saying that Jesus was baptizing more people than John the Baptist, so Jesus and the disciples left there to walk for approximately 3 days, to Galilee. There were routes which could be used to bypass Samaria, but we’re told that He needed to go to Samaria on the way, it wasn’t a need based on commerce, earthly family relationships, or time, it was to accomplish the will of God the Father, and although Jesus knew this, neither His disciples or anyone else did, until we heard of the result of His decision.
Jesus was tired from the journey, so, He stopped and sat at the well of Jacob’s, near the city of Sychar. His disciples had gone to buy food, and it wasn’t a random occurrence that Jesus and the Samaritan woman met at that time. She had come to draw water from the well, when the Messiah was on His way to Galilee.
We’re told in the Bible, that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, Nor are our ways His ways; Given the complexity of His creation, this should be understood without us being told;
but, our thoughts and ways are often understandably, very earthbound.
Although Jesus had the body of a man, and experienced temptation, human emotion, hunger and physical tiredness, He didn’t have the Spirit of a man, or flawed human reasoning, or sin;
So, the Samaritan woman found it an unexpected occurrence that Jesus being a Jew, would talk with her, because Jews had nothing to do with their Samaritan relatives, who in summary, had some differing perspective on the things of God; and added to this, was the fact that according to historians, the Jews had been influenced by Greek and Roman practice to minimise all male – female interactions in public; but Jesus was teaching her and us, a different way compared to traditional earthly reasoning.
Jesus opened conversation with her by asking her for a drink.
It’s likely we’ve all learned or taught through starting a conversation with someone we’ve never met before; we’re told in the Bible that “He who watches the wind will fail to sow, and he who observes the clouds will fail to reap…” But when we see each interaction as another opportunity to share or learn about the things of God, there’s purpose and result in every interaction, more than comes from just common conversation.
Although it was against the religious and social tradition for Jews and Samaritans to interact, the Samaritan woman didn’t let this stop her from inquiring and learning from this Jewish man. So, she replied
How do You, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, being a Samaritan woman?
Jesus said 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.
She apparently thought that Jesus looked no more special than any other Jewish man, and He had no visible means of getting water from the well, so she remained focused on her earthly needs, and asked:
Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?
then she compared Him to one of her famous patriarchs’, she asked Him:
Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well,
and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?
She still hadn’t comprehended who she was speaking to, or the spiritual aspect of what she was hearing;
When Jesus mentioned “the gift of God“, He was speaking literally of God the Holy Spirit, who would be sent to dwell in believers; so Jesus contrasted the earthly with the spiritual, He said:
Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst—ever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.
So she asked:
Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.
It all sounds idealistic to have living water springing up inside you, it’s almost as if it’s unachievable; but with God, all things are possible; but It takes faith to comprehend this, and not all men have faith, it’s a gift from God, and she was starting to comprehend it, so God had been working in her.
But even with faith, before she could receive living water, there’s still something essential to be sorted out. Jesus brought it straight to her attention; up until then, she had been continuing to sin as a normal part of her life, and you can’t bring a life of sin into the presence of God, He requires repentance before He grants forgiveness to eternal salvation, and a repentant person acknowledges their sin to God, just as Adam and Eve did in the garden; you may remember that they both blamed their sin on someone else, but although they did that, they still acknowledged their own sin. Not like their son Cain, who spoke and acted as if he’d done nothing wrong. God knew what Cain’s answer should have been, so did Cain, but he had no intention of owning up to, or repenting from his sin.
But the Samaritan woman wasn’t like Cain, so, Jesus knowing what her answer should, and would be, said:
Go, call your husband and come back here.
She replied: “I have no husband.“, Jesus said this is true, you’ve had five, and the one you have now isn’t your husband.
On hearing this, she understood that Jesus had knowledge from God, she said:
Sir, I see that You’re a prophet.
She was no longer thinking about the need of getting water from the hole in the ground,
now she was thinking more about the things of God, but still partly earthly focused; she said:
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Her perception of worship was influenced by the traditions of men. That’s still often the case today.
But God relates to people on an intimately personal level, with every one who is to receive salvation, and with His children in every nation, at every moment, 24/7, without limit through man or geography.
To be heard by God, you don’t need to go up to mount Gerizim in Samaria, or the wailing wall in Jerusalem, or to a priest or pastor in any church, Every one who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved, then through Holy Spirit dwelling in each believer, “the true worshipers… worship the Father in spirit and truth;“. This hadn’t been the way before Christ came, but His presence, death and resurrection, brought believers into deeper fellowship with God, and brings people from darkness, into His light!
For thousands of years, people had been taught about Christ’s coming; the first time this was spoken of, was in the garden to Adam and Eve, when God said:
And I will put hatred Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heal
This prophesy of Christ “bruising” Satan’s head, and Satan bruising His heel, is speaking of Jesus condemning Satan to hell, and reconciling man to God, through His death, burial, and resurrection.
During the time since the garden, many have left God out of their thoughts, just like Adam and Eve did, and instead of prioritising God; many people have prioritized themselves and the cares of life, and likely began to think, “it’s all just wishful stories.”, or
“He’s not coming, so let’s get on with life without Him, and get the most out of life”.
When Jesus ascended to heaven after His resurrection, an angel appeared to the disciples and said:
Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will return in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.
Peace of mind and purpose, comes from the knowledge of the mysteries of God in Christ.
Jesus had redirected the Samaritan woman’s thoughts to the things of God, rather than the things of man; and so, she spoke of how she and many others were waiting for the coming of the Messiah, who would declare all things to them, just as the prophets had written for thousands of years, just as we heard from the opening passage in Deuteronomy.
She didn’t know at that moment, but her hope was about to be realised;
She had been lost, and Jesus had personally come to the well to reveal God the Father to her.
The things she had been told about the Christ, were now becoming personal.
Through talking with Jesus, she wanted to become a true worshiper of the Father in spirit and truth.
I wonder what her face expressed when she heard Jesus’s next few words:
I who speak to you am He.
She had just heard of the good news of the gospel from the mouth of the Son of God; Jesus the creator of the heavens and the earth: She had come to receive salvation through belief in Him and repentance, and now, the result of being forgiven and having the living water, was, to leave her water jar at the well.
In type, this was her leaving her former ways to follow Christ, but this good news couldn’t be kept in her heart, she went straight to the men of her City, to tell them the amazing good news of who she’d just met, and what had just happened to her!
She told them:
Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; isn’t this the Christ?
She shared the good news of the presence of Christ Jesus, and encouraged the people to go and see Him themselves, she wasn’t wearing a priestly robe or standing at the pulpit in a church building, she was wearing her regular clothes and speaking in streets and homes in the city where she lived.
From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who bore witness, “He told me all the things that I have done.”
So, when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.
And many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman,
“It’s no longer because of what you said that we believe,
for we’ve heard for ourselves and know that this One is truly the Saviour of the world.”
Gentile’s comprise 98% of the world’s population. Jews 2%, and there are approximately 900 Samaritans; but you would have noticed from the opening reading in Genesis 3, that there were no Jews, Gentiles or Samaritans in the Garden of Eden. Regardless of ethnic origin; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and can only be justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
(Romans 3)
So, we’re told in the book of Romans 5:15-17
For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many… For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
Eternal salvation isn’t received through man’s tradition, man’s will, or earthly relationships, it’s through faith granted by God’s will, as Jesus said in John 1:12-13
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
The work of God through Jesus, is life transforming, as we’re told in John 5:24
Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life.
John 5:24
Through faith, God changed the Samaritan woman’s life, and through this change, she had purpose, hope, peace, forgiveness of sin and eternal life.
This is what all believers in Jesus know, and what Jesus want’s all people to know:
As He said:
I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.
Study like a Berean! 