John 4:22

John 4:22. Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know. The two questions at issue between Jews and Samaritans were those of holy place and holy Scripture. The former, though of far inferior importance (as the Jews' themselves were by their ‘dispersion' being gradually trained to know), was the more easily seized upon by national prejudice and zeal. Of this question Jesus has spoken. He passes on immediately to the other, which the woman had not raised, but which was of vital moment. The Samaritans did really worship God, there is no slur cast on the intention and aim of their worship; their error consisted in clinging to an imperfect revelation of Him, receiving Moses but rejecting the prophets. Hating and avoiding Jews, they cut themselves off from the training given by God to that people through whom His final purposes were to be made known to the world. It was the essential characteristic of the whole of Jewish history and prophecy that it gradually led up to the Messiah; that the successive prophets made known with increasing clearness the nature of His kingdom; and that every one who could understand their word saw that the Divine purpose to save the world was to be accomplished through One arising out of Israel. He who knew not God as thus revealing and giving salvation did not really know Him. Every Jew who truly received and understood the oracles of God committed to his trust (Romans 3:2) might be said to ‘know' the object of his worship; and it is because our Lord is speaking of such knowledge, knowledge respecting God given by the Scriptures which the Jews possessed, that He says ‘that which we know,' not ‘Him whom we know.' The Samaritans then worshipped that which they knew not, in this more enlightened than the Athenians who built an altar to an unknown God, but inferior even to those of Israel who had ‘a zeal of God but not according to knowledge,' and standing far below those meant by our Lord when He says ‘ we worship,' we, namely, who have really appropriated Israel's inheritance of truth and hope.

Because the Salvation is of the Jews. ‘The Salvation' is that foretold in Scripture, and long waited for. The words are those of Jesus; but, remembered and quoted as they are by the Evangelist, they show how unfounded is the charge sometimes laid against this Gospel, that it is marked by enmity to the Jewish people. It is only when ‘the Jews' have apostatized and rejected Jesus that the term becomes one of condemnation, designating the enemies of all goodness and truth.