WELLS AND SPRINGS (1)
WELLS AND SPRINGS (1)
JT The proposal is to look at the scriptures which treat of springs, or wells, or other water typical of the Spirit, especially in view of freshness in the assembly. Our hope and expectation is that through these meetings God will help us to a clearer apprehension of Christ and the assembly. The apostle says in Ephesians 5, “but I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”. He had been speaking of natural family relationships, but the subject of Christ and the assembly was the main thought, and so it is throughout Scripture. Christ and the assembly stand out as the theme — especially now, in view of the translation of the saints and the marriage of the Lamb. God would help us to have a clearer view of this great matter, and help that those who do not recognise the greatness of it may be drawn into it as having part in it. It is thought that linking on the idea of springs with the subject will lead to a clearer apprehension of the freshness that is essential to assembly functions.
There can be no question of the freshness that is in Christ. He remains what He has always been since He became Man. The voice of the Bridegroom is there, and the feelings of the Bridegroom, and they remain even in heavenly glory. In the type, He comes out of His chamber, we are told, the sun representing Him, and rejoices as a strong man to run the race (Psalm 19). There is no question as to freshness and vigour with Him, but there is a very great question as to these things with those of us who form the assembly. Even if we apprehend the truth in any measure, we are apt [p. 2] to think of it in a merely academic way, instead of being conscious of having part in it; participating in the joy of it.
John 3 affords us a view of Christ as the Bridegroom, John the baptist saying that he is the friend of the Bridegroom, who rejoices to hear His voice. This section will help us to begin with what is peculiarly applicable to our times, in accord with John’s ministry; John the baptist being a model in the sense of appreciation of Christ, and disallowance of himself, in order that Christ may be everything and in all. He brings Christ in as the Bridegroom very noticeably, and then proceeds to enlarge upon the greatness of Christ’s Person, leading up to the statement that the Father loves the Son and gives all things to be in His hand. Then we have this well-known passage in chapter 4, affording us a clue as to how the bride comes into view, from the standpoint of John’s gospel. The woman undoubtedly may be taken to represent how the bride comes into view. A most disreputable person actually, yet she is brought into complete, and you might say, intelligent appreciation of Christ. He is now the one Man that displaces all the others, of whom there were six — five, and the one she then had, which was not her husband — and there can be no question about her disallowance of him at once. It is evident that we get deliverance from all that is corrupt by coming into contact with Christ, and He becomes all to us. The woman immediately takes an interest in His affairs and speaks to others about Him, and secures others for Him. That is, I think, a good platform for us to begin with in this inquiry.
ANW John says that the Bridegroom must increase. Is it in the bride that he visualises it?
JT We cannot say that John understood the assembly; but she is Christ’s fulness. You can hardly get a greater concrete expression of the idea of increase as regards Christ than in the assembly which is said to be His fulness. God “gave him ... head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1: 22, 23); it is very wonderful that we have part in that. The matter of the bride and Bridegroom is introduced, not in a mere doctrinal way, but by one marked by spiritual feelings; one to whom Christ is becoming all. “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it be given him out of heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that I am sent before him. He that has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices in heart because of the voice of the bridegroom; this my joy then is fulfilled” (verses 27 - 29). It seems to me that it is suitable that the introduction to the matter of the Bridegroom and the bride should be through one who is full of it, as the Baptist is.
CAM Why is it said in verse 23, “there was a great deal of water there”?
JT John used it for baptism, which would point to death. In the next chapter it is said that the Lord’s disciples were baptising, but He Himself was not doing it. He was not making Himself a Centre by any formal sacrament, but would become a Centre, because of what He was personally, and the woman in John 4 represents how He becomes everything to christians. As to the water at Aenon, quantity is stressed. Quantity is not the point in chapter 4.
CAM I thought the quantity might suggest that all had disappeared in death, making way for this living suggestion about the Bridegroom and the bride.
JT Well, yes — if they all had disappeared. One is very doubtful of that, because of what was going on. “There was therefore a reasoning of the disciples of John with a Jew about purification”, John 3: 25. In view of that does this allusion to the quantity of water and John’s baptism continuing, reflect favourably on [p. 4] John? It is not a question of the quantity of water, not that he is making anything of it, but the Spirit of God mentions it; John was baptising there on this account. The question is whether the baptism of John really had not lost its force, because John the evangelist brings Christ in in ministry before the time mentioned in the synoptic gospels. They say that the Lord waited until John was cast into prison before He began. In John’s gospel the Lord began before this, and morally He superseded John. John himself attested that in saying, “He that comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me” (chapter 1: 15). According to chapter 1 John had stopped; he “stood”, and his disciples began to leave him. His service had already accomplished its purpose; but he is going on with it. John, however, appears in his true and glorious character in that he repudiates any thought of rivalry with Christ; he disappears here with flying colours: saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (chapter 3: 30). That is the end of John, because the Person is on the ground now who is to take up everything for God. God had not allowed the removal of John. John carried on until that happened; but the Lord had entered on His service. A divine Person need not wait upon any formal matters in the government of God. I think it is to give the right place to Christ in our own times. He cannot be bound by formal or legal ties.
CAM It seems to emphasise what John says: “A man can receive nothing unless it be given him out of heaven”.
JT That is right. I suppose he is alluding to what came out of heaven. The Lord was baptised at the Jordan; heaven owned Him then; and so in chapter 10 of this gospel, the Lord as rejected by the Jews comes to where John was baptising (chapter 1: 28); meaning, I think, that He passed over what took place at Aenon.
WB-w “He that has the bride is the bridegroom” — do you think that was prophetic? John was a prophet.
JT Yes. It is a statement that carries its own weight with it. The Old Testament spoke of the Bridegroom, but who is the bride to be? The Bridegroom is in evidence here, but there is nothing said about the bride, except that the Bridegroom has her; she belongs to Him. But where is she? How does she come into evidence? I think John 4 answers that. In Matthew we have the Bridegroom mentioned, and we have the marriage mentioned, but where is the bride? That is a challenge to each of our hearts. How does she come in? Does she come in through baptism or through the Lord’s supper, or through an apprehension of Christ in His greatness; a well of water in her springing up into everlasting life? That is the point we want to get to.
WB-w Is it not true that she comes in by baptism in one aspect of the truth?
JT Well, that may be true on the public side, but how many are baptised that are not responding at all? The real point is the well of water springing up into everlasting life; a living state of things. What kind of a bride can there be without a living state of things?
JTJr Does John the baptist suggest the thought in himself first as leaping with joy (Luke 1: 41), and then his joy fulfilled (John 3: 29)?
JT That is the idea exactly. John the evangelist shows him to greater advantage than any other of the gospels, although Luke speaks of him as leaping for joy before he was born, at the voice of the mother of Christ. In John 3 he is an intelligent man, appreciative of the greatness of Christ. He is superseded, and yet he says his joy is fulfilled, because he hears the voice of the Bridegroom. Every one of us has to inquire, Am I ready for that? Are my affections stimulated by the thought [p. 6] of it?
FSC Is John a forerunner of what should mark the assembly?
JT Well, he is an example for us. He makes nothing of his own distinction; he makes everything of Christ; and now what is nearest to the Lord’s heart is the bride, and the Lord’s voice is the voice of the Bridegroom to John the baptist. He says, “my joy then is fulfilled”.
WGT How far did Johns thoughts go when he said, “He that has the bride is the bridegroom”?
JT It is a statement that conveys its own meaning to anyone who has an ear to hear. It is obvious that the possessor of the bride is the bridegroom. There is no question as to the Bridegroom here. John hears His voice, but where is the bride? And that is the question today. There is no doubt about the Lord’s voice in the ministry, but where is the bride? Where are those who are stimulated in affection at the thought of it?
WGT When John’s disciples followed Jesus, was there some suggestion that He was seeking the bride?
JT Well, there was something there the two disciples wished to be taught, and they wished to know where the Lord dwelt; then as Peter was brought to Him the Lord said, having the assembly in mind, that he should be called Cephas; assembly material was coming into view. John’s gospel is to make much of Christ. The way to bring in the saints as the bride, is to make much of Christ. If you make much of Christ you are sure to make much of the saints. If I do not make much of them, I cannot claim to love Christ, the Bridegroom, because the saints are His bride.
WB-w Do you think the apostle John got an impression here about the bride? In the end of the book of Revelation, he refers to the bride.
JT Yes. You can see how in the last days, these great points are stressed in his ministry, and the Lord is stressing them now. John quotes John the Baptist here. In Revelation, John himself brings in the bride [p. 7] in the most concrete way, and sees her finally coming down adorned as such for her Husband; to whom she says, “Come”. So that the question as to where the bride may be, is now before us; before everyone who professes to believe in the Lord Jesus. Have I part in it? Am I moved by the very thought of the Bridegroom? Am I stimulated?
AAT In the New Translation the word fountain, in chapter 4, is used several times instead of well.
JT The fountain is a spring. The note at the bottom of the page, referring to verse 6, says, “Another word is used for the well, verse 11, in which the spring was; and this word, translated fountain is used for what springs up as life in the renewed man”. That shows that the word fountain alludes to a spring; and that is why the chapter is before us, it is the leading thought in the New Testament, which we shall see greatly unfolded in the types of the Old. It is a spring. The Lord says that the living water which He gives, becomes in the believer a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. That is where the bride begins to come into view. The thought of eternal life must underlie it, because clearly, we must be in a living state of things for marital relation. Those forming the assembly are living people.
JHE Do we see that in Achsah? She asked for the upper and nether springs.
JT That is right. The basis is here, in the Lord’s teaching ministered to this woman. John the baptist’s word that his joy is fulfilled, even at the hearing of the voice of the Bridegroom, indicates that the bride is coming into view in this chapter. There is a word for everyone of us as to whether we have heard His voice, and whether we are responding. John is a model for us.
Ques “One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found”, Ecclesiastes 7: 28. Would that bear on what you have before [p. 8] you?
JT Yes. Each of us is challenged as to whether he possesses the qualities of the bride. In Proverbs 31 we have the woman portrayed before our eyes as one who cares for the interests of her husband in his absence. That I think comes out in this woman in chapter 4; she began immediately to look after the interests of Christ; she testified to the men; He is especially thinking of them. He is “head of every man”. The woman had a very sinful history and this includes each of us, which we have to confess; but when we get to the Eve side of the assembly there is no sinful history. She came out of Adam and Adam had no sin then. We shall come to it, I think. This matter of sinful history we all have to face, while we are down here; but as glorified above there is no past sinful history at all; it is all gone, never to be revived or thought of. You cannot imagine that the assembly, the bride of Christ, will have reminiscences of sin in this world. It is impossible to think of it.
Rem John the baptist recognised Christ as “He ... who baptises with the Holy Spirit”.
JT That is what the Lord Jesus would do. John says, “I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”, John 1: 34. He had not yet come to the thought of the Bridegroom. The Son of God is his first great testimony; now he speaks of the Bridegroom. In baptising with the Holy Spirit the Lord Jesus secures every one of us for the assembly.
ANW How did John the baptist come to change from speaking of the Lamb of God to that of the Bridegroom?
JT I think the Lord made Himself felt in John’s soul. Earlier, he had said he did not know Him; he had not then heard His voice, but now he has seen Him and also heard His voice, showing, as remarked, that the Lord Jesus began to minister before John the baptist was cast into [p. 9] prison.
FHL Do you think John the baptist had something beyond the Jewish bride in mind when he said, “A man can receive nothing unless it be given him out of heaven”?
JT He may have, but I judge his mind would be governed by Old Testament references. John the evangelist indicates that John’s mind was merging into the truths of christianity. You can hardly say where his words in chapter 3 end. They run into christianity, you might say, but I do not think the assembly was definitely in his mind.
WB-w Referring to the sinful history, does the word, “He who has his origin in the earth” imply this?
JT It does; the assembly’s origin is heavenly. Redemption and the ministry that makes it effective in men’s souls, lead us to take heavenly ground. Sinful history is an individual matter, attaching to each of us; but as remarked, redemption meets this, to the infinite satisfaction of God, so that we can take heavenly ground in the assembly.
ARS Would the truth of new creation imply removal of sinful history?
JT It does; “old things are passed away”, and among them the sinful state and history. The question of sin, however, has to be taken up through the conscience as a moral process; this enters into our formation, and is expressed in the new man. New creation fits us for heavenly glory and the counsels of God.
ABP Is this woman an example of one who is born of the Spirit?
JT Well, she is; new birth is taught to Nicodemus in chapter 3. The Lord did not speak of it to the woman. It is where people take pharisaical ground, that the truth of new birth is stressed, but when a man or woman is degraded and owns it fully, then chapter 4 is the instruction, and what such an one needs is inward deliverance, which is by the Spirit. The believer judges the thing authoritatively through the mind, resolving to serve God’s law, and the Spirit supports him — the teaching is Romans 7 and 8. New birth, in itself, is an initial thought, but the springing well added to it, through redemption, renders the believer powerful and victorious. A man like Nicodemus would be greatly harassed with legal thoughts; he would need deliverance from the law; but the woman of Samaria would suffer from reminiscences and tendencies of her earlier life, and hence would need the Spirit as a spring within for deliverance.
Rem The basis of this is being linked up with something that has come out of heaven.
JT That is the thought that John the baptist has, that He that comes out of heaven is above all. He has a great way of giving precedence to persons. He shows the Lord Jesus was before him. Jesus was about six months younger than John the baptist, but John says, He is before me. He cried and said this. John is ready to give way to others, and now it is not simply the Person of Christ, but because He is out of heaven. He must be above all. How wonderful it is that the church is out of heaven!
ARS So that whatever goes into heaven has come out of it.
WR Would you link the idea of the Bridegroom, as having His origin in heaven, with His coming from the Father? I think James says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights”, James 1: 17.
JT The Son is the gift of the Father, but then coming out of heaven would apply rather to the Person of Christ. The Person is heavenly Himself. “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”, John 6: 62. He says, “I came down from heaven”. That is the idea. He is a Man out of heaven. He was not a Man before He came down, yet He speaks, while on earth, of “the Son of man who is in heaven”. So that the idea of man in heaven is there. Heaven is full of [p. 11] the thought. Christ, as Man, is Head over all things to the assembly, which is His body. There are two thoughts in Genesis 1; the first is in verse 26, where God says, “Let us make man in our image”. That is the kind of earthy being. Then in verse 27 we have the Adam, involving distinction, and it is male and female. God breathing into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life made him a very distinguished order of being. That is the divine thought and that is what fills heaven. It is not that Christ is a Man on earth, but He is to fill heaven.
AR When the Lord says to the woman, “a fountain of water springing up into eternal life”, that puts her on a different platform altogether.
JT The first platform is eternal life. That is the way up: the springing up. It is not only that I lay hold of life objectively; I have a spring that springs up into it, making me superior to death. I am not only alive, but in the sphere of life.
CHH You were speaking about freshness in Ephesians 4, where we get “renewed in the spirit of your mind”. I understand that word renewed is the idea of freshness. Would that be the condition the assembly would take on through the springing up? The next chapter says, “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly” — as though the assembly would take on that freshness.
JT Yes. The renewal of the mind is involved in all that we are saying, so that the new man in Colossians is in freshness. The idea is freshness, or youthfulness. The word man, in that connection, does not imply sex; it is quality or character. There is only one new man. The heavenly city is called the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21. She comes down from God out of heaven adorned as a bride for her husband.
AR Would you say that at the Supper, every first day of the week, the saints come together in spiritual freshness as a bride ready for her husband?
[p. 12] JT That is what we are trying to get at. It is the matter of how this enters into the service of God. We now have come to the thought of life; not only the objective thought of it, but the inward means of reaching it. We reach eternal life; a sphere or order of things. That is the basis on which marital relations must be; it is not a dead state of things; it is a living state of things, and that is, I believe, why this great thought of the fountain is brought in in this chapter. It underlies the truth of the assembly and the service of God.
CAM When we think of manhood in christianity, it includes the feminine idea as seen in Genesis 1: 27. Now that that Person has come to earth, His voice brings about the formation of the bride.
JT That is right. He was here alone clearly, as Adam had been alone. We do not know how much older Adam was than Eve; both were created on the same day, but Adam had the experience of being alone. God took account of this fact and that it was not good, and moreover it did not fill out His thought. “Male and female created he them”, and they had dominion. Genesis 2 enlarges on this great subject. Chapter 5 goes back to it and says, that on the day that God created them He called their name, Adam. Clearly He did not create them together, although the word create covers the woman, yet properly speaking, according to Genesis 2, she was built. She was made according to design. The idea of architecture, or design is there, and God Himself had that thought; the completion of the being that God’s counsels required involved the female as well as the male. All this was only provisional — Christ and the assembly formed the ultimate thought.
ARS Adam says, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. Genesis 2: 23. Eve does not say a word.
JT She is passive. She said too [p. 13] much afterwards.
CAM It is a very wonderful thought, that the heavenly side should be in view, but brought about on earth. It was a heavenly idea before this occurrence.
JT Certainly Adam had not yet sinned, and the operation of creating or making Eve was before sin came into the world. God undoubtedly in His own thoughts had heaven in mind; that this great order of being that He had in mind should fill heaven. Of course, it would be in the second Man, who is “out of heaven”, but I am speaking of the order of being. What we are speaking of did not come out immediately, because God was going on with the earth for the moment. The heavens are spoken of as made — what is called the sidereal heaven. Chapter 1 does not say it was very good by itself, as if the Ephesian truth could not yet be unfolded. Our subject now requires Ephesian truth; we cannot understand it otherwise. In any subject we take up, the full final thought of it should be first in view, and then the details. I believe this section of John’s gospel gives us basically the full thought, the Bridegroom’s voice and one man rejoicing in it — satisfied by it — and then the idea of the bride coming in, as seen in this woman in chapter 4. The Lord, when the woman leaves, turns to His workmen. We, for instance, have been talking about Christ and the assembly; well, that is for every saint, whose ear can hear. The next thing is the workmen, through whom the Lord Jesus works specially; it is important that they should be spoken to by themselves, and that is the next thing that comes in. The Lord puts them in a low place; He says, “others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours” (verse 38), but then He says, ‘Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest’ (verse 35). That is another important thought; sometimes it is well for those who are specially labouring to talk about these things. What we are considering now is not that; but what the Lord said to the woman. We are thinking of the formation of the [p. 14] assembly, and how to be maintained in freshness; and of the spring — the springing up into everlasting life.
CHH Would the fountain in the believer include the thought of cleansing as in Ephesians 5?
JT That is rather the water that came from the side of Christ; water of purification. This in John 4 is the Holy Spirit as the water of life inside, as satisfaction and deliverance in the sense of power. There are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood. There is the water and the blood; they each witness, but the Spirit is the living witness, and the Spirit is in view in the living water here. The woman needed the blood and the water, but this is not stressed here. The point is that she gets deliverance for her affections in the power of the Holy Spirit; that is what is meant. So that she emerges from the influence of the men she had to do with, into the thought of one Man, as the apostle says: “for I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ”, 2 Corinthians 11: 2.
CHH Would the words He spoke to her be the water of cleansing?
JT He says to His disciples, “Ye are already clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you”, John 15: 3. That is not the Spirit.
WB-w In the end of chapter 3 it says, “He that is not subject to the Son ...” Do you think He had in mind the false bride, to come in in the organised religions of today — not subject to the Son?
JT No doubt, and so He speaks to Thyatira as the Son of God, who has His eyes as a flame of fire. You might put what you suggest into Romans — the woman is free from her husband if her husband be dead. That would be the Jewish system; we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ. This woman had five husbands and the one she had was not her husband, which would be six — think of the power of that. If she lived in Samaria, when Philip and the apostles went [p. 15] down there and assemblies were formed, she would come into the truth of Romans; she would know this. She has already come into it in principle, because she sees her body as a vessel. It had been a vessel of corruption, but now it is to be a vessel for Christ in the assembly, and how has she become free from the old things? — by the body of Christ. The Christ must die, and I can only be free before God legally through the death of that One, and that, of course, is what Romans teaches.
WB-w In Ephesians, the wife is to be subject to the husband. Is that the way the truth works out?
JT Quite so. The closing verse of John 3 shows that those who are not subject to the Son are under wrath; and how am I to get free of that wrath? She was claiming to be of the seed of Jacob. How would she get free of all that — of Samaria and judaism? Only by the body of Christ; and that opens up a wonderful field of instruction, and, of course, Romans is the doctrine of it. Paul and Barnabas went through Samaria to settle the question of Jewish legality (Acts 15: 1 - 3). They passed through Samaria. Well, suppose she was there, and knowing Paul’s doctrine, she would say, I have got free by the body of Christ.
WB-w She would be married to another and bring forth fruit to God.
JT That is the idea — to be married to another. Who is the Other? She is telling the men here that the Other is Christ; He is the Christ, she says — “is not he the Christ?” She does not say, He had told her He is the Christ, but He had told her all things she had ever done. How can she get clear of all that? It is by the body of Christ in death. “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”, Hebrews 10: 10.
JTJr Would you say there is any correspondence in what Rahab said to the two spies? She spoke of Sihon and Og being destroyed.
JT [p. 16] That would be the idea exactly. She would understand the bigness that is prone to mark us at times. Sihon and Og are really the big “I”. The woman of Samaria cherished whatever bigness attached to her according to her own reckoning. She put her fathers and her worship, and “this mountain”, over against all that was in Jerusalem. But this assumed greatness had no value whatever. We have to come to this, that Sihon and Og are overthrown in us, before we can come into the assembly.
FHL Would leaving the water pot be a proof that she had learned from the Lord’s teaching?
JT Quite so. Leaving the water pot was no accident. It shows she had come into the idea of being a vessel. The assembly is a vessel. It comes down from God out of heaven.
WGT The Lord says, in verse 10, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee ...” Would that not be the right way to approach the whole matter from her side?
JT Quite so. The Lord is bringing before her what John the baptist brought out in another way. John the baptist referred to it formally, that this voice he heard was out of heaven and above all. The Lord Himself says, “who it is” — not who I am — “that says to thee, Give me to drink”. The element of going down must get into my soul. The glorious Creator and Sustainer of the universe is calling upon her for a drink of water. He is asking for a drink of water, and He has created all the water. It indicates the change that has come about in His becoming man, according to Philippians 2. That enters into the truth of the assembly, that we understand what it is to come down; to think nothing of ourselves; “For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”, Philippians 2: 5 - 7. That thought is conveyed here. The Lord says, “If thou knewest ... who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. That was intended to get into the fibre of her being; she was to learn how the Lord descended, so that she might come down and be nothing.
CAM When John says he heard the Bridegroom’s voice, we might ask, What did he hear? Would you say that he heard some such tones as this.
JT Yes. The Lord elsewhere likens Himself to a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. He had a definite thing in His mind. Well, He found one pearl of great price, and He sold all whatever He had and bought it (Matthew 13: 46). Well, if He were talking to you about that, you would hear the Bridegroom’s voice. Oh, you say, the bride was not there. She was not; but she was in His mind. Divine Persons can regard abstract things as if they existed concretely. “Whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated”, Romans 8: 29. The concrete persons as walking here in time, are contemplated. God foreknew everyone of us. So the apostle says, “whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”. That is His mind for every person whom He has foreknown. As taken account of thus He loves us. As Paul says, “... who has loved me”, Galatians 2: 20. It does not say, He loves me, but, He loved me and gave Himself for me. The Lord loved Paul before He died.
ARS The Lord took a body in order to die.
JT He came in order to die. He “came by water and blood ... not by water only, but by water and blood”, meaning that He came in connection with these things. There would be no meaning in His coming otherwise.
AR The Lord, in saying these things to this woman, had the assembly in His mind?
JT Unquestionably. That is the setting of it. You can understand He would clothe her with assembly [p. 18] thoughts. He knew what she was going to be. He knew her from the beginning.
GH I was wondering if there would be a lesson for us in the way He approaches the woman. There is divine skill and wisdom. He says, “Give me to drink”.
JT He takes the ground of asking her for something, and He based His word on that afterwards. “If thou knewest ... who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink”. He intended to bring out these great thoughts. His wonderful design; although God, He had come down to a position of asking her for a drink of water. It ought to touch our hearts. He was weary with His journey, and sat just as He was at the fountain. He made no effort to be anything more than He appeared to be outwardly.
Ques Did she, in a sense, break through the Philistine ranks like the three mighty men of David?
JT I think she would; as she came to know Him, she would get a drink of water for Him, whatever the cost to herself.
AR Why does she say, “I see that thou art a prophet”?
JT That is because the Lord exposed her to herself; that is the order of the truth. The Lord said, “Go, call thy husband, and come here. The woman answered and said, I have not a husband. Jesus says to her, Thou hast well said, I have not a husband; for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom now thou hast is not thy husband: this thou hast spoken truly. The woman says to him, Sir, I see that thou are a prophet” (verses 16 - 19). She is beginning to see something. Hitherto she had not seen anything; she spoke as a natural person, about water, or whatever the Lord said; she spoke as a person with no spiritual perception, but now something has happened. The Lord has touched her conscience and she sees. What does she see? That is a good enquiry. You get it many times in the prophets. What do I [p. 19] see? What am I getting? She says, “I see that thou art a prophet”.
WGT Would you say the prophetic word deals with the moral issue first, and after that bridal affections are awakened?
JT That is right; God has left Himself a door into man’s soul through the conscience.
AC Before the woman gets to the truth of what the Lord is bringing out here, she is quite respectful in all her answers; she says “Sir” three times.
JT Quite so; the last is, “Sir, I see that thou art a prophet”. That shows her eyes are becoming opened and like the man in chapter 9, she says He is a prophet, and I believe that is a normal thing. We begin to discern Christ by the way He brings God into our souls and convicts us of sin; and the idea of worship comes in after this. You might say, it is quite incongruous that such a person should be talking to the Lord about worship, but it is not. The woman has light from God; she sees things now, and what does she see? She sees Christ as a prophet, and if you take up that word prophet and apply it, you see how powerful it is. Scripture says God brought Israel out of Egypt by a prophet. A prophet is a powerful minister of God.
TW It is remarkable that she immediately speaks about worship.
JT And the Lord did not make the slightest suggestion that she should not have introduced that subject; in fact, He enlarged upon it, and speaks of the service of God and of God Himself in a peculiarly spiritual and exalted way. Why is it? It is because she began to judge herself; a new life had begun in her soul; she saw Jesus as a prophet. What we are saying now is what the Lord is helping us in, in stressing prophetic ministry; that the service of God runs along with that feature. By it we understand how we must serve, and we must have God brought before us. Paul says, “For we are the circumcision,
[p. 20] who worship by the Spirit of God”, Philippians 3: 3. I believe the prophetic ministry that God has pressed upon us in recent years is largely to bring out what God is, and how He is to be worshipped, and that is the point here.
CHH Why, in the face of that, does she say later, “Come see a man”? Why does she not refer to Him as a prophet?
JT Well, that helps in what we are saying. She is not only seeing a prophet, but she is seeing a Man; that means not only a power of attraction, but an object of affection. “And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day”, Isaiah 4: 1. Why is that? It is because Christ becomes supreme; other men disappear. These other men are displaced; she went to the men, but one Man has come into her soul, displacing all others. He has displaced the others. He has rights over the other men too, and she is looking after the Lord’s interests in speaking to them. She does not come to the children and start a Sunday school; she goes directly to the men, because Christ is Head of all men.
WB-w Is there some order in the suggestion of the living water? It says, “whosoever drinks ... shall never thirst for ever”, and then “the water ... shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”, after that worshippers are spoken of.
JT I think it is through eternal life that God gets His portion. In drinking the living water, primarily, I get my portion; I am satisfied; but it is on the basis of eternal life that God gets His portion. I think the new race, out of which the assembly is formed, is there and that brings up the whole question of eternal life. It is the basis of what we are talking about. There can be no nuptials aside from a living state of things. It is not mere doctrine; it implies what is living.
[p. 21] APT Does 1 Corinthians 14 indicate the presence of eternal life? A word comes “to another sitting there”.
JT I think so; the organism contemplated in 1 Corinthians 14 is composed of living persons; it is an organism; and that underlies the fact that you may get something in the ministry meeting from the Lord directly, and a person speaking discerns that you have it. I do not say I have ever actually seen it, but what underlies ministry meetings, so-called, is that I am sensitive enough in the living organism to discern that someone has been affected by the Spirit of God, according to what is stated, and I give place to him, and I sit down.
WB-w Does the never-thirsting aspect refer to us down here where thirst is; whereas the fountain springing up into everlasting life belongs to another realm — higher up?
JT It is deliverance, but it is more than deliverance. It is an out of the world, heavenly condition of relationship and being. It is out of the world. I am not only satisfied there, but God gets His portion there.
WR Here the woman seems to be altogether independent of the world. She is completely delivered, at the end, from the world system.
JT Yes; and she is looking after the Lord’s interests. That is the next thing, which we might compare with the gospel meetings every Sunday night. I have no doubt the Lord uses them, but then who is looking after them? In the meeting room, and at the door, there should be some supervision of them. Of course, the preaching must be by one who has ability for the service; but there is much besides this to be done. Well, you say, I have no gift; but this woman did not have gift; yet she looked after the Lord’s interests. She would not forsake the gospel meeting. She would speak to the men; here they went to Jesus because she spoke [p. 22] to them.
AR The gospel service really points to Christ, does it not? — “Come, see a man”.
JT Quite so. He is the attractive Centre for all. In John it is said three times that the Lord was to be lifted up, and the last reference to it is in view of drawing all unto Him. He is the Centre of the whole universe, the Centre of attraction. That is the point. The woman is attracted, and others become attracted to Christ because of what she says.
WB-w Would that support the idea of going outside, and getting others to come to the gospel meeting?
JT That is, I am sure, what God would say to us, because the gospel services are often left uncared for, not properly looked after. It is a question of the interests of Christ, and all men, in a sense, are included in them. Christ is the Head of every man, and men are to be considered from this point of view.