Temple and Worship

Jesus revealed that worship and the presence of God no longer are limited to geographical locations or man-made structures – John 4:20-24.

Jesus revealed the proper form and location for worshipping His Father to a woman from Samaria. With the advent of the Messiah, concepts and traditions about holy space and holy time became irrelevant. The presence of the Messiah rendered any debate over the location of the Jewish Temple pointless. From now on, God must be worshipped in truth and spirit.

Even at this early stage in his ministry, Jesus experienced opposition from the Temple authorities, which is likely why he left Judea for Galilee. The most direct route to Galilee was through Samaria, a region Jews who were scrupulous about ritual purity avoided by taking a more circuitous route - (John 4:1-3).

[Photo by Steve Bittinger on Unsplash]

• (John 4:20-22) – “Our fathers in this mountain worshiped, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where we must worship. Jesus says to her: Believe me, woman! There is coming an hour when neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. You worship that which you know not. We worship that which we know because salvation is of the Jews.”

The Messiah of Israel encountered the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and asked her for water. This surprised her since devout Jews avoided contact with Samaritans, and it was socially awkward for a Jewish male to communicate with an unrelated and unaccompanied female.

Nevertheless, Jesus answered her - “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is speaking to you, you would ask, and he would give you living water.” The fact that he offered this non-Jewish woman “living water” demonstrated his lack of concern for Jewish taboos and sensibilities.

The woman assumed Christ meant ordinary water and asked how he could draw from the well without a vessel. She asked, “Are you greater than Jacob who gave us the well?” Jesus responded:

• “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. Whosoever drinks of the water I will give will never thirst; in him, it will become a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.”

The woman instinctively asked for this “living water,” but Jesus told her to “summon your husband.” She claimed to have no husband, but he retorted - “You have had five husbands and he whom you now have is not your husband; you have spoken truly.”

The woman perceived that he was a prophet and asked concerning the old dispute between the Jews and Samaritans - “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you (Jews) say that in Jerusalem is the place necessary to worship!”

The Samaritans also worshipped the God of Israel. Unlike the Jews, however, they recognized only the five books of Moses as authoritative Scripture, and they disagreed with the Jews about the proper location for the Temple of Yahweh.

THE PLACE OF WORSHIP

Moses directed Israel to worship at the place Yahweh would designate, but he did not specify where that was. Because the Jews accepted the rest of the Old Testament, they assumed the correct site for the Temple was Jerusalem based on numerous passages from the later books of the Hebrew Bible.

The Samaritans argued in favor of Mount Gerizim in Samaria, and they pointed for scriptural authorization to the Book of Genesis where God promised to give Shechem, the city of Samaria, to Abraham and his “seed” – (Genesis 12:6-7, 1 Kings 12:25).

Jesus responded with a most unexpected declaration:

• “There is coming an hour when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father<…> when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for even such as these is the Father seeking as his worshipers. God is spirit; they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth” - (John 4:23-24).

Christ did not attempt to resolve the old dispute. Instead, he described the new order of worship in which questions about holy sites and times were (and remain) pointless – a waste of time. His words pointed to the obsolescence of the old Temple and religious concerns over holy space and time.

Rather than worship rituals in man-made structures, Jesus offered an endless supply of “living waters.” What mattered was not where God’s people worshipped Him, but how they did so - (“An hour is coming and now is”). We must worship him as Father through Spirit and Truth. Likewise, the division between the Jews and Samaritans had reached its termination point.

The declaration that the time “now is” means the old order was passing away in the life and ministry of Jesus. As elsewhere in John’s gospel, the term “hour” refers to his death, the “hour” of his “glorification.” Christ was ushering in a new era where external rituals would be replaced by spiritual worship.

• “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified” - (John 7:37-39).

• “The hour is coming that the Son of Man should be glorified” – (John 12:23).

With Christ’s Death and Resurrection, traditional regulations of worship based on space and time are irrelevant. The presence of God cannot be confined to buildings or limited to geographic locations or specific “seasons” of the year. Jesus is the true Temple where God is worshipped and His presence dwells forevermore.

The “Son of Man” is the “Word made flesh,” the True Tabernacle where the glory of God is manifested. Jesus of Nazareth is the only means of access and communications between Heaven and Earth, and he is the true Temple raised up by God “after three days.” He now directs those men and women who seek His Father to worship Him “in Spirit and Truth” - (John 1:14, 1:47-51, 2:17-22).

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SEE ALSO:

• Word Made Flesh - (Jesus is the Logos made flesh, the true Tabernacle where the Glory of God is revealed and the One who reveals Grace and Truth – John 1:14)

• Sanctuary of God - (The New Testament applies Temple language from the Hebrew Bible to the Church, the Body of Christ, the greater and true Sanctuary of God)

• House of God - (Jesus is the true and only way of access to the Father, the Greater Bethel, and the House of God – John 1:47-50)

• Temple et Culte - (Jésus a révélé que l'adoration et la présence de Dieu ne sont plus limitées à des lieux géographiques ou à des structures artificielles-Jean 4:20-24)