For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24, NLT)
As Jesus spoke to the woman at the well in Sychar, He revealed a wonderful truth about God to her. The truth about God that Jesus shared with the woman at the well was that God is spirit. No doubt, hearing this truth about God brought relief to her now-convicted soul as a result of Jesus’ knowledge of her adulterous lifestyle (John 4:15-18).
Why would the truth of God being spirit bring relief and comfort to her convicted spirit? God, being spirit, would have comforted this woman because this characteristic of God meant that He could be and was everywhere at once and always. For her, this meant that God was in Galilee and Judea and was near to her, as Jesus explains later. Thus, He could hear her cry of repentance and receive His forgiveness there at the well if she so desired.
God, being an omnipresent spirit, shattered this woman’s religious understanding, though in a good way, for the broken pieces of a broken religious system would be repurposed into a beautiful mosaic of spiritual truth. Being convicted of her sin and convinced that Jesus was a prophet, she asked Him where she should go to meet the LORD.
“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20 So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” (John 4:19-20, NLT)
Her question reflected a major disagreement between Jews and Samaritans. Both groups believed that under the Old Covenant, God had commanded His people to worship at a specific location (Deuteronomy 12:5; 16:2; 26:2). The Samaritans, who only accepted the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) as Scripture, chose Mount Gerizim as their place of worship. That choice made sense to them because Abraham had built an altar to God near there at Shechem (Genesis 12:6–7), and it was from Mount Gerizim that the Israelites had once proclaimed blessings for obedience to God’s commands (Deuteronomy 11:29). In contrast, the Jews, who accepted the whole Old Testament, knew that God had specifically chosen Jerusalem as the place for His worship (2 Chronicles 6:6; Psalms 48:1–2; 78:68–69; 132:13).
To contemplate things further, the temple on Mount Gerizim, built by the Samaritans as their place of worship, was destroyed by the Jews under John Hyrcanus, a leader of the Hasmonean dynasty around 111–110 BC. As a result of these expansion efforts under Hyrcanus, there was still no rebuilt temple on Mount Gerizim when this conversation between Jesus and the woman took place. From her understanding of part of the Scriptures, she had no place to come before the LORD and offer a sacrifice or other form of repentance since she had no temple.
The woman was also aware of what the Jews, like Jesus, thought, based on their study of the entire Hebrew Bible – Jerusalem was the place the LORD had appointed for His people to worship Him. She equally knew that she, a Gentile and a Samaritan on top of that, would have been kept at arm’s length, to say the least, if she attempted to seek the LORD at the temple in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Temple had strict rules about who could enter based on ethnicity, gender, and religious purity. Gentiles (non-Jews) were allowed only in the outermost area, called the Court of the Gentiles. They could not go any further under penalty of death; warning signs were posted in Greek and Latin to that effect — archaeology has uncovered some of them.
Samaritans were considered worse than Gentiles by many Jews because they were seen as half-breeds and heretics. They had mixed Jewish and pagan ancestry and rejected much of the Hebrew Scriptures (accepting only the Pentateuch). Therefore, Samaritans were treated as unclean and excluded from full participation in Jewish religious life, including entry into the inner courts of the Temple.
The Samaritan woman could likely have stood in the Court of the Gentiles if she made the journey — but practically, she would have faced heavy social hostility, suspicion, and barriers that would have made her presence very unwelcome, if not impossible.
With no temple in Galilee and no welcome in Jerusalem, where could she meet God and unload the guilt and shame she now carried?
Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:21-24, NLT)
Jesus gave an unexpected answer: soon, the debate over where to worship would no longer matter. Shortly, true worship wouldn’t happen specifically on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem. Just a few decades later, during the Jewish revolt against Rome in A.D. 70, the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, and thousands of Samaritans would be killed on Mount Gerizim. But even more importantly, under the new covenant, all outward ceremonies and rituals—whether practiced by Jews or Samaritans—would become unnecessary. However, at the time Jesus was speaking with the woman, the Jews were correct, and the Samaritans were mistaken because the new covenant had not yet begun.
Though she was wrong in her theology (concerning where the LORD had appointed His people to worship Him) and while the location of worship wouldn’t matter in a few years, standing before her was the One whom she could receive and have her guilt and shame vanquished at the same time!
The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!” (John 4:25-26, NLT)
At some point, the woman returns to town once the disciples return and tells everyone about the man who has told her everything she has ever done. Because He knows the details of her life, she wonders if He could be the Messiah. The woman’s testimony and change in demeanor raise great excitement among the people, and they go out to see Jesus for themselves. As a result, many believe in Him as the long-awaited Messiah (John 4:39-42). There is little reason to doubt that this woman was not one of those people who believed in Him after her conversation and experience.
Conclusion
John 4:24 teaches us that God is spirit. As we have seen here, since God is spirit, He is omnipresent. He is always near and available to bring our shame and guilt to Him and take them away! But what else does it mean when we say that God is spirit?
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