October 16, 2011
“The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 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 is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.' Jesus said to her, 'I who speak to you am he.'” (John 4:19-26)
❝The word "worship" here translated, the Greek word proskuneo (Gr. προσκυνέω) is a compound word which means "toward," pros- means "toward," and -kuneo means "to kiss." It means "to kiss toward." It comes from the Oriental tradition, the eastern tradition of greeting, that when people would greet one another, they would kiss.......In Oriental culture, and in some cultures today, they greet one another with a kiss. And the way they actually greeted, when we look at historical documents, if two people were of equal rank, they would actually kiss on the lips. If they were of slightly different rank, they would kiss on the cheeks.....And if there was a great difference in rank, one person would bow down. And in an extreme difference in rank, the one bowing down would put his forehead on the ground. In the presence of this great king, for instance, you would bow down....And the idea was to bow down, and "to kiss toward." I can't come close enough to kiss you.........the idea's not just submission, it's not just reverence, it's affection. I'm "kissing toward." The idea that you can pull from this is submission, deference and affection.
Worship is to acknowledge the greatness of another and worship in the Bible is only to be given to God. Worship is to acknowledge the greatness of God, our affection for him, and to submit ourselves to him at the same time. That's what the biblical word means.
Now, what does "true" worship mean? The important adjective, true worship. We see it here in the passage in verse 23 when he says "the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship God in spirit and truth." This is a key word actually in John's gospel, an important word. The word "true" is translated alēthinos (ἀληθινός). "An hour is coming now when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth," true worshipers means "genuine," it means "authentic." In fact, a lot of times this word would be used to speak of "genuine" versus "counterfeit." "That is true currency, that is counterfeit currency." It could also mean true as in the sense of "complete" versus "incomplete." True in the sense of "full" versus "partial." You see the difference? It's not true verse counterfeit, that's one thing, that is false, this is true. But the way John uses this word throughout his gospel is not like that. He uses the word true to mean, "complete," "full," "perfect," versus "incomplete," "partial."
Let me give you an example. The first occurrence of this word "true" is in John 1:9, where John the Apostle, in talking about John the Baptist said there was a man who was sent from God, and his name was John the Baptist, and he came as a witness, to bear witness to the light. In chapter 1, verse 9, he says, "And there was the true light, which cometh into the world and enlightens every man." And he's talking about Jesus, Jesus is the true light. Now, does that mean that all the other prophets who came before were false? The Old Testament lights? Was John the Baptist a false light? Of course not, he wasn't a false light, a counterfeit light, he was just a partial light. He was truly a light, but not the true light.
You see this actually, in speaking of Jesus, in John chapter 5, verse 33, he says the following: "You rejoiced, you went out to hear John and his testimony, and you rejoiced for a while in his light." Jesus says, yeah, John was a light. All of the Old Testament prophets were lights, but Jesus is the true light.
That's true light versus partial light, previous lights.
So what he's picturing is a dramatic, earth-shattering change in the quality of worship that is available. He's not saying that in the Old Covenant they didn't truly worship. They did truly worship. But what a great distance. He's announcing to this woman, that's why he says, "Believe me, woman, an hour is coming...." and I'm telling you something that is earth-shattering and hard to believe. I mean, why would he ever have to say "Believe me...." or "Truly, truly I say to you...."? But he condescends to our weaknesses, and he knows this woman will have a hard time believing what he's about to say, and he gently condescends to her weaknesses, and says, "Believe me...."
And so, in the Old Covenant, they could encounter God. But in the New Covenant, you can really encounter God. That's what Jesus is saying. Look at the difference. In the Old Covenant, if you and I were Jews, living 1400 B.C., and you sinned, I sinned. We knew we sinned. What do we do to get right with God? Well, you take a sin offering, you take something from the flock, a goat or a lamb. And you take it and you walk, no matter how far it is to the one place you can go, the Tabernacle. And you go to the door of the Tabernacle, and you request admittance at the door of the Tabernacle. And if you're a man, you go in, and if you're a woman, you can't, you have to wait outside. But if you can go in, you'll walk into the Tabernacle court. It's basically a cordoned off area with a veil around it but open to the sky. And you'll walk to the brazen altar, and you'll bring the lamb, and the priest will have you confess your sins over the lamb, the priest will have you place your hand on the head of the lamb, confess your sin (over) it, then he will kill it, catch all the blood, and offer a portion of it on the altar there, and then you will stay there. You're at the brazen altar which is an altar in the middle of the courtyard, so to speak, of the Tabernacle. The priest will take the blood, and he will leave you there and go into the Tabernacle proper, that is the real tent part, the covering part, or later, what will become the Temple. He'll go to the inside part of the Tabernacle, into the Holy Place. He'll take that blood in and he will take it to the altar of incense there, which is just beside the veil which separates the Most Holy Place from the Holy Place. He won't dare go behind the veil into the Most Holy Place, but the priest is representing you. You couldn't go. He will go and he will put the blood of that sacrifice on the horns of the altar and will sprinkle it there before the veil. And that is your encounter with God. Through proxy. Through mediation. You're standing outside, across the way, at the altar, waiting for him to come back, and give you the word: "I prayed. I represented you before the Lord."
But even he couldn't go behind the veil. It was like he had to wait in the next room, your representative did. What Jesus is telling (the Samaritan woman) is that something radical is going to happen, so that you yourself can worship God at any moment.To put it in that Old Testament picture, to get a picture of it, it's as if you and I now, we bypass the priest, we don't even have to bring a lamb with us, we walk right by the brazen altar, we walk - I mean, this is unthinkable! If you, a non-Levite, a priest who had not been cleansed and set apart that day to worship, if you tried to walk in the Temple, they'd cut you down with a sword. You're going to defile the Temple! In fact, you couldn't even come into the Tabernacle court if you were unclean for some reason. You had a death in the family and you helped bury the body, you're unclean. You can't come near. You start to come near, we're going to kill you. But now, because of Jesus Christ, you can bypass, you walk right into the Tabernacle court, right past the brazen altar, you walk directly in the Holy Place, and you don't stop in the Holy Place, you walk right through the veil (into the Most Holy Place), because the veil is not there, it's torn down. And you walk right up to the very Throne of God, and you talk to him.
I mean, isn't it astounding? That the Father seeks worshipers "who will worship him in spirit and truth." How astounding, how absolutely stunning that word "Father" must have been in this context.❞
- Pastor Ty Blackburn, excerpted from The Necessity of True Worship, Part 2
Additional Resources
A Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness, Part 1
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