John 4:24

John 4:24. God is spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Such worship as is described in the last verse is the only real worship that can be conceived. This verse does not say what men must do, in the sense of what men ought to do. It is the nature of worship in itself that is described. No other worship than that which is offered in spirit and truth can possibly be actual worship of God (the same idea is here expressed as in the last clause of John 4:23), because ‘God is spirit.' We must not render these words ‘God is a spirit,' for it is not personality that is spoken of, but abstract being, the nature of the Divine essence. Since the spiritual presence of God is everywhere, Gerizim and Jerusalem lose all claim to be the special places for His worship. Not the outward action of the worshipper, not the forms he uses or the gifts he brings, but his spirit alone can be brought to meet the spiritual presence of God. Where this is done, God Himself meets the spirit which He has sought and prepared, and to which He has made known the truth lying at the foundation of all worship, the truth which reveals Himself. In this wonderful passage are concentrated many of the most essential truths of New Testament teaching. The historical development of God's plan, the preparation for Christianity made by Judaism, the idea of progress from the outward to the inward, from the sensuous to the spiritual (comp. 1 Corinthians 15:46), the independence of forms which marks the essence of religion, and yet its freedom to clothe itself in form so long as the spirit is not lost, these are the lessons taught here; and however special the form in which they are presented, they are in perfect accord with the whole course of New Testament doctrine. The main principles of these verses would be understood by the woman to whom our Lord was speaking. But a day in which such principles should be realised must surely be that for which Samaria as well as Judea was waiting, the ‘latter days' of Messiah's advent?