A DISTINCTIVE MARK OF A MEETING WITH CHRIST

Here we have to consider the confession of the Samaritan woman. She has confessed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. How had she really come to say, He is the Christ! Had she perhaps seen one who was dead, raised up, and is she, because of that, so deeply impressed that she cries out, “Is not this the Christ?” Or has she perhaps seen how the angels come to Jesus in the wilderness, and has that brought her to the confession, He is the Christ?

No, none of those things happened, but yet she says that He is the Christ. Something altogether different has occurred; from which she knows that this Jesus is the promised Messiah. He has told her all thingsever she did. It was this, which brought her to the confession. This is the Christ. It is the Samaritan woman that speaks here. A woman which had had five husbands, and he whom she now had was not her husband. From these words we understand what sort of a woman this Samaritan was. As to her moral life, she was like a harlot. She went from one man to another, and thus she had had five husbands, and lived outside of marriage with the husband of another woman.

This is the woman, who after her unexpected and moving conversation with the Lord Jesus runs through the streets of Sychar and calls to the people that she has found Christ. We hear her say, “Come, see the man which told me all things ever I did; is not this the Christ?”

From the fact that a man, whom she has never met, and who had never met her before, and yet proved to be acquainted with her whole course of life, she came to the conclusion that this person must be the Christ.

All this makes such an all overpowering impression upon her that by faith she confesses, that this can be no one else but the Messiah, the promised Savior of the world. This woman has found something in Jesus which she had not found with anyone else. So much had emanated from Jesus and had entered into her heart that she believed; this is the Christ. Let us not step thoughtlessly over this as if this is very common. Here we must say, if our faith is the true faith, then we must have found the same thing in Jesus like this woman found in Him.

If our faith in the Lord Jesus is something more than judgmental knowledge, and consider as true that which the Bible tells us about His Person and work upon earth, if our faith is a saving faith, and not merely an intellectual speculation, then we must also have found something in Christ which is to be found with no one else, except with Christ. We must have found something in Him which convinces our soul equally as deep as the soul of the Samaritan woman that this is the Christ, the Savior of the world. Our faith must be more than to believe that Jesus has really lived and existed. We must believe different in Him than that we believe that Julius Ceasar and Alexander the Great have existed. True faith rests upon something personally that man has met in Christ and experienced with Christ.

The true believing is a work of the Holy Spirit within our heart about the Person and work of Christ. It is something altogether personal, and especially something all-conquering and convincing what that Spirit enables us to find and meet in Christ. This conviction of faith with the Samaritan woman that this Jesus was the promised Christ was evoked by a wonderful knowledge of her life which Jesus proved to possess. This was a tokento her that He was the Christ.

The manner in which Jesus brought this to her attention was for her of such a deep drastic significance that by means of that her eyes were also opened for her great guilt over against God, but also for Him who here spoke to her. The authority and the power wherewith He here discovered her sinful life was the token to her. This is the Christ.

Who knows how often the people of Sychar had already cast in her teeth that she had had five husbands, and the one with whom she now lived was not her husband, but the husband of another woman. But, all that which the people said of her scoffingly left her cold, and at the most angered her. However, it had not other effect than that she continued in her sinful life, and took the attitude, What do I care about the people? Let everyone look at himself. I am living my own life. She remained blind for the magnitude of her sins in spite of all the scoffing of the people.

Neither have those who earnestly spoke to her about her errant life ever been able to bring about what looked like repentance or breaking with sin.

But, when Jesus speaks to her about her sinful life, then everything becomes suddenly different. Christ did get hold of this woman. This woman who could no longer be reached and had become insensible to all the tauntings and contempt, as also for the gravity and admonitions, is susceptible to the words of Christ. In the midst of her daily work, while she went out to draw water out of Jacob’s well, she suddenly makes contact with a man who tells her the same things like so many people had already done, and . . . although He spoke about the same wrongs in her life, yet everything was so different. She has felt it. This stranger knows me. She came under the power of His accusing word. “Thou hast well said, I have no husband. Thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband.” That which previously left her cold and for which she shrugged her shoulders contempteously, that same thing now took hold of her with unknown power. An unknown light arose upon her life. Now she beholds what her life is in the sight of God’s omniscience. She realizes that He with whom she now speaks is the Omniscient God Himself. That unknown man at Jacob’s well calls to her, I know you. I know how wicked and immoral you are. He lets her feel that He knows everything about her wicked and immoral life. Christ convinces her justly of her sins. That heart which no one was able to touch with a sense of sin or repentance, He touches with the power of His prophetic spirit. He puts His finger upon the putrified spot of her life. He penetrates her heart. He touches her inwardly in her soul. He does all this so piercingly, and at the same time so lovingly that she has to bow under it, and say, “It is true.”

The scales fall from her eyes, and the hard crust of her heart is broken. That same heart which had become entirely insensible to sin has now become sensitive to sin. She who no longer shamed herself for anyone now shames herself before this Man at Jacob’s well. No, it cannot be expressed in words that which this woman felt when Christ put His accusing finger upon the sins of her life. It wounded and touched her within.

This woman was granted that which she lacked hitherto; viz, the true self-knowledge and that not in the sense about which a natural person speaks, but in the sense such as the Scripture speaks about that. It is a self-knowledge of sin and misery. It is the self-knowledge through the all convincing power of the Holy Spirit. Through His Word, Christ gives her to see her entire life, such as it is, naked and open before the omnicient and Holy God. Now she can no longer dismiss it with a shrug of the shoulder. Now she can no longer soothe her conscience by continuing in sin. Now she can no longer armour her heart against the arrows of conviction of sin. Now it penetrates her heart with all-prevailing power; “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”

Many people had accused her of the same thing and it had left her cold, but now it is a bowing, a being ashamed and confounded. How did this happen? The answer is, Now Jesushas told her, and when Hetells us, everything is so different.

Although Christ told her the same thing as the people, yet it was so different. The people have justly cried out about His doctrine, “This one teaches us not like the scribes, but as One having authority.” There is a power of the Holy Spirit in His words. It was this powerful prophetic ministry wherewith He called this woman’s attention to her sins.

When people call our attention to our sins, then we usually do not accept it. There is not the same power in human admonition like there is in Christ’s teaching. In the human admonition there is usually the tone - “I am holier than thou.” With Christ everything is so different. When He takes us in hand about our sinful and errant life, then we must bow, being ashamed and blush with shame.

In his teaching is mercy and love, but also at the same time, justice and angry holiness. Of Him only we read that He was angry with the people in the synagogue, and at the same timeHe was grieved because of their unbelief. He alone could act like that. In His heavenly instruction He alone is able to vindicate the law in its most severe demands, but at the same time to give mercy and love their place in His teachings.

Here we must cry out, “Who is a Teacher like Thee?” The Samaritan woman had to lose out against that instruction of the Holy Spirit in her heart. And this is’still valid. When Christ teaches us by His Spirit, with respect to our sins and miseries, then it is a submitting to and a bowing before God. If only human words would tell us the truth about ourselves, then man would roar with rage; but when the Holy Spirit is in it, the sinner bows and confesses. How necessary it is, that the Holy Spirit accompanies the Word of God. In the true conversion God uses weapons against which we always have to lose out.

There are two kinds of light that descend into the heart. On the one hand it is the light of the law that discloses everything to be sin in our life and cries out, “Thou art the man!” The light of the law points to the wrath of God which shall come upon us, if we do not repent. It condemns and accuses and brings a message of the curse and wrath of God into the soul. Yet man would not surrender if at the same time the light of the gospel did not descend into the heart. It is the gospel-light which shows us how much we sin against the love, long-suffering and goodness of God. Through all this a light shines upon our life and shows us how often God called and preserved us.

Yea, that gospel light causes us to see and to feel that God still calls and invites us. It causes us to see God standing before us with folded hands to pray such a rebellious and guilty sinner, ‘Be ye reconciled to God.’ This gives us evangelical sorrow about sin and will not like Cain cause us to run away from God, but cause us to cast ourselves at the feet of God, crying: “0 God be merciful to me, a sinner.” However strong the walls of Jericho were, when the priests blew the trumpets, they had to fall. We must say the same thing of the power of the law and the gospel. When God marches out with these two powerful weapons against a hostile human heart then the walls of enmity, worldly love and unbelief must fall. Then the sinner begins to surrender. With Saul of Tarsus that person bows down in the dust before God and asks, “Lord what wilt Thou have me to do?” How much joy does that cause in Heaven. God and angels rejoice in that work.

However guilty, unhappy and wretched that person knows himself to be, heaven rejoices, heaven rejoices about that repentance and confession of guilt, and all that because Christ has told us everythingwe had done. It is His work and only His work as Prophet which could bring all this about.

But with this Samaritan woman it did not remain with the knowledge of self; but at the same time she received knowledge of Christ. Did she not cry out about that, “Is not this the Christ?” Because He had told her everything she had done, the Samaritan woman believed that He was the Christ. Just from this knowledge she arrives at the Knowledge of Christ. How else could she ever be able to arrive at the knowledge of Christ, the Savior of the world? Would they who are whole and never felt the foul soul-disease of sin, need the Physician? But here there is room and work for the Physician from Gilead. Here stands a woman who has been told by God, “allthings ever she did.”

In her distress and perplexity Christ has also manifested Himself to her. First, He told her who shewas, viz, a woman who had had five husbands, and the one she had now was not her husband. But, He also wanted to say Who Hewas. Upon her saying, “I know that the Messiah cometh,” the Lord Jesus answered her, “I that speak unto thee am He.” There He stood before her Whom had told all things ever she did, as the Messiah and Savior of the world. What a wonderful way did Jesus pass through with her. The same One who first called her attention to all her sins and wickedness now tells her, I am the Messiah.

He who first crushed her with His omniscience now comforts her through His being the Mediator and Savior. It was the same lips from whence she learned her misery that she might now also hear in Whom redemption is to be found. The hand which first wounded her, now healed her. The lips which first told her all things which ever she did now speak to her about all that which He had done and would do to save such hell-worthy sinners. How wonderful and profitable is Jesus’ instruction.

After that He has told us all things ever we did and has called our attention to all our sins, He wants to tell us what Hehas done to save sinners. In His teaching is included to show us ever clearer what we have done to make ourselves wretched, and what Hehas done to save us. That which we have done to ruin ourselves is much, yea so much that it deserves eternal death. But it is more, yea infinitely more, what He has done to save such. That person may learn to know that in Christ’s blood is more power to save than that there is power in our sins to damn us. 0, when it may be seen what He has done, man must sink away in wonder and adoration. There grace may win over guilt and judgment. Here may Christ’s work of saving far exceed our work of sinning.

Would then not we (like the Samaritan woman) cry out after such a meeting, “Come, see a man which told me all things ever I did: is not this the Christ?” Because of Jesus’ instruction she forgot her waterpot. Her name “Harlot” no longer bothered her. She was filled so much with the meeting at Jacob’s well that she cried out throughout the entire city, “Is not this the Christ?”

Do we also know the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world? Has He also taught us through His prophetic office all things ever we did to destroy ourselves forever, and all which He has done to save such? Do we also know something of that unmistakable conviction, “He has told me all things ever I did?”

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