John 4:20-26
According to Worldometer [1], the world’s religious population consists of 31% Christians, 23% Muslims, 16% unaffiliated, 15% Hindus, 7% Buddhists, 6% Folk religions, 1% other religions, and 0.2% Judaism. Apart from the unaffiliated, who comprise atheists and other non-believers in God, the question that arises is, who do all these religions worship? The general sentiment of the world is that we all worship the same God. But is this true?
In John 4, Jesus has an interesting conversation with a woman described as a Samaritan woman, which I believe addresses the question of worship. Several issues were raised in the conversation, but of utmost interest in this article is the object of worship: Who do we worship?
In John 4:20-26, the focal point unmistakably revolves around worship, emphasised by the deliberate repetition of the term. Notably, verse 23 contains three instances of it, while verses 20, 22, and 24 each feature two occurrences, with one more mention in verse 21. Thus, clarifying the concept is essential. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Worship is defined as:
- To honor or show reverence for a divine being or supernatural power,
- To regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion
- To perform or take part in worship or an act of worship.
From the definition, we observe that worship has an object—it is directed towards something or someone. The question is, to whom? Again, the general idea is that all ways lead to God. But Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan shatters this assumption. Worship, Jesus is clear, must be offered to the Father, the only true God. He is the object of our worship (John 4:21-24). The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) communicates this explicitly:
There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments; hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to Him alone: not to angels, saints or any other creature; and since the fall, not without a mediator; nor in the meditation of any other but of Christ alone (WCF 21.1-2)
The myriad religions across the globe serve as a testament to humanity’s innate religious instinct. It seems we cannot exist in a religious void; there is a natural inclination within us to seek out and revere something greater than ourselves.
God’s Self-Revelation
Everyone thinks of God, even though we might not be prepared to admit it. If you haven’t asked these questions already at one point in your life, soon they will be gnawing at you: “is this all there is to life?” “Can there be more to life?” “What is life all about? Why am I on Earth? “What next after this life?
Everyone asks these questions and experiences a void. Only God himself can fill this void. “Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in God”, said Augustine of Hippo. But rather than turning to God, we turn to the wrong places. The joy, however, is that God has not hidden himself from his creation: He has revealed himself to all humankind. He can be known. He can be worshipped. He can be loved.
Christian theology speaks of two ways by which God has revealed himself to humankind, namely, via General Revelation and Special Revelation. General revelation, as the name suggests, is general. It is common knowledge everyone has access to. God has revealed himself in the natural world to everyone; therefore, the apostle Paul writes,
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20)
Idols Of the Heart
But despite God’s self-revelation, man’s rejection of him continues, leaving us with a wanting soul. We are meant to find our satisfaction only in God. That was the fundamental need of the Samaritan woman in John 4. She was seeking satisfaction in life but in the wrong places: in men and temples. In broken relationships and manmade buildings (John 4:18, 20). She had made idols in her heart. That may ring a bell for us. The list of idols we create in our lives is endless. We are idolaters at heart. We may not bow to graven images explicitly, but are idolaters in our hearts, replacing worshipping God with the pursuit of things. In his Institutes of Christian Religion, John Calvin rightly noted, “the human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.” What this means is that we are constantly producing idols to worship instead of worshipping the true God.
As noted earlier, we innately seek out someone or something to worship. Rather than worshipping the true God, we run to idols. There is an intriguing event in Acts 17, where Paul gets to Athens and, by observation, finds so many idols lined up. As if the plethora of idols were not enough, they had another one with the inscription “To The Unknown God.” The Greeks, as Paul argues in verse 22, were religious. They had a deity for everything: fertility, love, harvest, etc.; it was a Pantheon of gods. Because of their religious nature, they didn’t want to upset any other god they didn’t know. Hence the inscription: “To the unknown god”. And Paul, with evangelistic zeal, seized this opportunity to shift their attention from an unknown god to the one true God:
“What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:23c-27)
God Seeks the Lost
Perhaps, like the Athenians, you may be involved in one form of false religion or another. You may have believed in things which are not true. But the good news is that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10) and now calls all those who have been saved to worship: “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” (John 4:23). We can only worship a God we know. God has made Himself known. While I mentioned God’s revelation in nature (General Revelation) earlier, it doesn’t fully reveal God to sinners personally. Thus, Christian theology emphasizes God’s Special Revelation in Scripture and, ultimately, in Jesus Christ:
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:4-7)
Inherent in our fallen nature is a reluctance to truly seek God. Scripture articulates this plainly: “There is no one who seeks for God” (Romans 3:10-17). Yet, in stark contrast to our waywardness, God initiates the search for sinners. The core of the Gospel message is that God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to save sinners (John 3:16). The narrative of the Bible is one of a Holy God on a rescue mission – A rescue mission to rescue sinners. God gave his Son—Jesus—to pay for the sins of his people. This brings about reconciliation between God and Man. While nobody bothers seeking God to worship him, God seeks out worshippers. God is seeking to reconcile humanity unto himself.
Worship is fundamentally about reconciliation and communion with God, a reality exclusively found in the person of Jesus Christ. He has made the Father known. There’s no need to ascend mountains; instead, come to Him in faith and discover true rest in Him. Worship Him in spirit and in truth!
Note
- https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
