The Hour is Coming and Now Is

The Eschatology of John Part 13: John 4

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is one of my favorites in John because of its power to transform how we view God, worship, and people whom we tend to consider outsiders.

In our study of the eschatology of John, this fourth chapter of John is significant for three reasons: (1) it develops the idea that the temple in Jerusalem would fall and a new temple would be established, (2) it helps us interpret John’s understanding of the eschatological hour, and (3) it tells us when the end of the age harvest would occur.

There is actually one more eschatological theme that is developed in John 4, the idea of “living water” that gushes up from the believer, but we covered this extensively in a recent article and will return to it in our study of John 7.

A Reminder Before We Begin

Keep in mind that the “one hope” of both Paul and John is “Christ in you” which is “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Paul speaks of both being “in Christ” and Christ being in us. This idea is called “mutual indwelling” and it is prominent in John’s gospel.

But what John tells us is that if Christ is in us and we are in Christ, then the Father is in us and we are in the Father. This means that Jesus once and for all reveals who God truly is to us.

Since one of John’s primary goals in writing his account of the gospel is to make God known or explain God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, then we can read every major event, miracle, and sermon in John as a further revelation of the character, nature, and personality of God. As Jesus said on multiple occasions, if one sees the Son, then they have seen the Father because the Son can only do and say what he has seen the Father do and say.

Which means…

In our study of John 4, we should be reminding ourselves of the all-important question “What is this telling us about the nature of God?”

Neither Here Nor There

As Jesus journeyed along, he came across a well and sat down to rest. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink. John points out that the Samaritan woman is shocked by this because “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans” (John 4:9). Already, Jesus is going against cultural norms in this passage, and this subversion of cultural norms is explained by a comment he’ll make later in the narrative.

There is nothing immoral with speaking to, touching, or sharing a drinking vessel with a Samaritan woman, but there are ritualistic reasons why Jesus would want to avoid such contact. Since the Samaritan woman doesn’t take a regular offering to the temple, it is impossible for her to rid herself of the ritualistic impurities she would inevitably have.

Thus, Jesus would have to go through certain ceremonial steps to rid himself of these contracted impurities or else his impurity would be turned into a moral issue and a more serious sacrifice for sins would need to be offered because of the way moral impurity infects the sanctuary (Leviticus 15:31).

But in the gospel accounts, Jesus isn’t affected by impurities; instead, he purifies whatever he touches: the lepers, the beggars, the prostitutes, the corpses, and even the lonely Samaritan woman.

This reversal in the way impurity and purity interact is directly due to Jesus’s comments in John 2:19-23 where he transforms the meaning of the temple from being a place in Jerusalem into a relationship with the Father through the body of Christ, what John eventually develops into what we know as mutual indwelling.

John 4 is an important step between John 2 and the chapters on mutual indwelling which come later. The Samaritan woman further challenges the meaning of temple by asking a question that must have been bugging her and her people for years.

The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” John 4:19–20

Like in John 3, this question isn’t asked as a question, but it is certainly implied.

Jesus answered,

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:21–24

Before we talk about the two hours Jesus introduces here, we need to break down the other part of Jesus’s answer.

Why would people not worship on either Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem?

Quite simply, just as the temple on Mount Gerizim was destroyed two centuries earlier, the temple in Jerusalem would fall within a generation.

But she should not have to wait until this destruction to approach the Father in worship; instead, through the living waters offered to her by Jesus, she could worship the Father now in Spirit and Truth.

Growing up, I heard that “spirit and truth” meant the attitude one had in worship and the way in which worship was carried out. That is, one had to have the right mindset and the right methods.

Now, I see it differently. To me, Jesus is describing the new temple in which we dwell.

We approach the Father through the Spirit and Jesus, who is Truth (John 14:6). That is, the temple in which we dwell is no less than our relationship with the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Just as we dwell in the Three, the Three dwell within us.

This is the true worship Jesus offered the Samaritan woman and extends to us today.

The Coming and Present Hour

John uses the Greek word hōra (hour) over thirty-eight times across his four books. Sometimes, this word simply refers to a time of day (John 1:39). But in other instances, John uses this word to describe the “hour” of Jesus’s death/ glorification (John 2:4; John 7:30; John 12:23).

In a few places, though, the term “hour” seems to refer to the end of the age. John 5:28-29 says,

Do not be astonished at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out: those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. John 5:28–29

While we’ll cover this passage more extensively in our article on John 5, it is enough to point out that John uses the expression “the hour is coming” in an eschatological context twice in two back-to-back chapters. Let’s read the one from John 4 one more time:

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:21–24

This could be paraphrased like this: “The hour is coming and is now here when the worship in the new temple will be possible, but the hour is coming when this reality will be fully revealed when the present temple finally falls.”

Thus, the hour can be spoken of as if it is both coming and present, while certain aspects of “the hour” were totally future (i.e. the fall of the temple).

In this new temple, worship will not take place either “here nor there” because once we understand that God is with us, then our access to the holy place isn’t dependent on a physical sanctuary, which renders codes pertaining to the purity of physical flesh as worthless. All that counts now is a clean conscience through Christ.

In Revelation 21, John saw a new temple, but it wasn’t like the temple in Samaria or Judea; instead, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:2). And what flows from this temple?

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb… Revelation 22:1

Once the “old Jerusalem” “where also the Lord was crucified” fell, the new Jerusalem, and the new temple, was fully revealed. We now know that the dwelling place of God is with mankind. As we live and move and exist in God, we worship with every saint who has lived and will live.

Before we turn to the harvest theme, I want to offer John’s own commentary on “the coming hour.” In 1 John 2:18, John wrote,

Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. 1 John 2:18

However one interprets “the hour is coming” in any of our passages in John, one must consider that the original author of John thought that the last hour had arrived in his day. Surely that counts for something, but the question is “the last hour of what?”

We’ll hopefully answer this question as we dig deeper into John 5, 6, and, eventually, 11.

The Fields are Ready to Harvest

Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. John 4:35

In the specific context, Jesus is referring to the work the Samaritan woman has done in proclaiming the gospel to her town. While the disciples were talking to Jesus, the entire city was on their way out to Jesus because of the work of the first evangelist to the Samaritans (John 4:30). Thus, Jesus could tell the disciples, “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.”

But I think there is something larger going on here, and that is the theme of an eschatological harvest.

This isn’t the only time John draws from harvest imagery to talk about the end of the age. For example, in John 12, Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

This imagery shows up in Revelation as well. John wrote, “Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand! Another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to the one who sat on the cloud, ‘Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe’” (Revelation 14:14–15).

But where did John get this imagery?¹

Hosea is one prophet who uses a lot of harvest imagery to describe the restoration of Israel and the end of the age, but this source is unlikely because, unlike other gospel writers, John never cites Hosea. Ezekiel 17 is also a possible source connecting harvest imagery with the restoration of Israel, and while John does depend quite a lot on Ezekiel, I think there is still a better option.

Instead, the most likely source for John’s eschatological harvest is the festal calendar of Israel, which the New Testament authors saw as prophetic of Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and second coming.

On top of the numerous references in John to feast days such as Passover and Tabernacles, the apostle Paul wrote,

Therefore, do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food or drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the body belongs to Christ. Colossians 2:16–17

These feast days were based around Israel’s two times of harvest—the Spring and Fall. The Scriptures call Jesus the “first fruits” because of this connection between the harvest times, their associated feast days, and the life of Jesus (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:20). James even calls the church by the name since many of the believers started following Christ on the Day of Pentecost (James 1:18).

In Revelation, John sees the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths as fulfilled when God tabernacles among his people (Revelation 21:3).

Thus, it seems as if Jesus is saying, “Listen, my disciples, the time for the end of the age harvest is here. You need to quit worrying about food that is perishable and start reaping the fields before you.”

This explains why John the Baptist said of Jesus, “His winnowing fork is in his hand…” (Matthew 3:12). The winnowing fork was the last tool used during harvest time to separate the wheat from the chaff. John the Baptist didn’t see Jesus with his sickle; he was him as initiating the last stage of judgment for Israel.

Conclusion

What did we learn in this article?

First, we learned that Jesus redefined the temple from something that can be found in a specific geographical location to something that can be accessed anywhere through the Spirit and the Christ. As Paul told the Corinthians, they could worship the Father “in every place” (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Second, we saw that John uses the expression “the hour is coming and is now here…” to refer to an eternal reality that can already be experienced through the Spirit while he uses the expression “the hour is coming” to refer to the time when the temple would fall and these eternal realities would be permanently revealed.

Third, we saw that Jesus viewed the end of the age harvest as something that had arrived. The fields were white for harvest, and his disciples had a shot at reaping eternal life.

Next week, we will dive into John 5, which may be the second hardest chapter in the book next to John 6 when it comes to understanding John’s eschatology.

1. It’s important to note that John isn’t the only gospel author who uses harvest imagery to describe the end of the age. Matthew, for example, records several parables of Jesus in which the end of the age is pictured as a great harvest (e.g. Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43).