“Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:21–24. NASB.
What do we learn from these verses? Firstly, the Father has interests. Secondly, a change is about to take place regarding worship. True worshippers of God will no longer need to go to a place to worship him. I believe God is talking to this woman about transitioning from the old to the new covenant. The old covenant prescribed worship, all who would worship God needed to go to the temple in Jerusalem. The feasts were well-defined and communal. All one would need to do is follow what was prescribed. What does he mean when he says that a time was coming when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth? Could one worship minus truth?
Yes, I believe that one could be deceived that they are worshipping God when in fact in His opinion they are not. Under the old covenant, when God dealt with Israel as a nation, it was possible to go along with the crowd and participate in the prescribed ceremonies without reverence for God. I believe that even with a change in covenants, this is still possible now. It is not what God wants, and has made it clear that He is looking for a particular kind of person. Let’s look at an example of a time when some folks worshipped yet without truth.
10 Hear the word of the LORD,
You rulers of Sodom;
Listen to the instruction of our God,
You people of Gomorrah!
11 “What are your many sacrifices to Me?”
Says the LORD.
“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
And the fat of fattened cattle;
And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.
12 “When you come to appear before Me,
Who requires of you this trampling of My courtyards?
13 “Do not go on bringing your worthless offerings,
Incense is an abomination to Me.
New moon and Sabbath, the proclamation of an assembly—
I cannot endure wrongdoing and the festive assembly.
14 “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts,
They have become a burden to Me;
I am tired of bearing them.
15 “So when you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide My eyes from you;
Yes, even though you offer many prayers,
I will not be listening.
Your hands are covered with blood. Is 1:10–15. NASB.10 Hear the word of the LORD,
God tells these people that He is not impressed. It did not matter how committed they were, it did not matter how sincere they were, He would not listen to their prayers. He does not want anyone relating to Him in this way. His interest is different. He is seeking people who will worship him in Spirit and truth. Who are these people?
The people that God is looking for are those who will embrace His new covenant which He ratified with his blood when He died on the cross for the sin of the world. Under this new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:33-34, He would forgive sin and no longer remember it, Sin would no longer be an issue. It would be the end of sin. This is not to mean that men would no longer sin, but that He would not require payment for it. This would also make it possible for Him to dwell in those who believe because He would give them life that cannot again be destroyed. When the Holy Spirit is in a child of God He will never again leave or forsake that person because sin is no longer an issue. Under the old covenant, continuous sacrifices for sin were required, and the blood of goats and sheep could not cleanse the worshippers once and for all. But the blood of Jesus does.
33 “For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.” Jeremiah 31:33–34. NASB.
Therefore, at this present time no longer does one need to go to a temple to worship God. What I am saying is that true worship requires the spirit of God in one, I am not saying that believers should not meet with each other at a physical place but rather of more importance is individual believers are each a temple of God and this is the kind of worshipper God is looking for. Also, no longer does one need to engage in a sacrificial system for sin. One does not need to cry, beat oneself up, apologize, or even confess sins to a priest of some kind, God, or anyone. To live as if these things were the truth would be to deny the truth. Specifically, the payment required for sin is death Romans 6:23 and the death of Christ satisfied the wrath of God for sin. It is to not embrace the new covenant, because of course, one would be rejecting the fact that God does not hold sin against anyone, no death could pay for sin but His, the death of the sinless son of God satisfied the wrath of God for sin. To reject the new covenant is to reject the truth. But God is looking for those who will worship in spirit and truth. It is not a suggestion but a requirement. Read the words again, and those who worship Him MUST worship in spirit and truth.
For a long time I was deceived about this, I believed that I needed to clean up and reform my life by avoiding evil and doing good. Well, what followed was my experience in so-called churches, the overwhelming majority of these places provided a perfect environment for this. They turned out to be places where I could engage in “good” activity, avoid “bad” and get a thumbs up from the others. So I switched my group of friends with new ones from “church”, and engaged in this for some time never hearing or learning anything that would challenge my beliefs. What I mostly heard were principles for succeeding in life or formulas for getting God to do what you want him to, that sounds awful to hear now. It all generally sounded like self-help. After some time I got frustrated when I realized that I was still the same, I still struggled with the same issues. It got worse when I read of personal experience with God that changed one, I read about the power of the Holy Spirit from folks like A.W Tozer and Charles Spurgeon, and I even read of Job testifying that he had heard of God by hearing but now knew Him as He is. All this pointed to the fact that I did not know God, I knew about Him in theory but not indeed as a person. With hindsight, now I know that what I had been looking for and needed was to know God. To know Him is eternal life John 17:3.
At some point, I got the break I needed. Someone testified of the truth that Christians sin and that God was fine with that – not in the sense that He encouraged sin but in the sense that He accepts us despite our sins. That this was what grace meant. I had never heard this before! I had believed that I was required to stop sinning for Him to accept me. Now I know this is a lie and that believing this keeps one from approaching God. Yet He alone can change us and that, from the inside out. After this, as I read on my own I came across Hebrews 4:16, which confirmed this. I saw there God calling out, not mentioning sin and I responded with what I already knew and believed. I knew and believed that God couldn’t lie. So I trusted that He would figure out how to save me. Now, with hindsight, I recognize that at this point I had abandoned myself to his mercy. I understood that I had nothing to give Him in exchange for salvation. Later, He did save me, but I do not know exactly when. It does not matter, I had and still have many promises to look to for confidence. I also know from my lived experience that there was a time when I mostly did not understand His word unlike now. Now, everywhere I look I see His testimony. I do not see His word as a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a rule book where I can learn good things to do and evil things to avoid. There was a time that was my experience. Now I see and testify that it is all about Him, the God who came here to live as a man so that He can make a way to redeem His fallen creation. “24 Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24. NASB. This is a good God who did not want to be alone, nobody else had eternal life. He loves people, His creation. He wants people to be with Him who freely choose Him. If you are one of those people, that’s great. If not, then no loss for Him, He will be content with those who He gets. Those who will choose Him over Satan and his lie – all you need is to know good and evil and you will become like God. Exactly how? You will do the good and avoid the evil. Then God has no choice but to owe you something? This is what all the religions in the world teach in some form. He did not create us to live by knowing good and evil but to live by the inspiration of His spirit. By His Spirit dwelling with ours.
Embrace the truth, and surrender to the new covenant. Judgment has already been rendered, and this is the judgment, the law condemns all. The only way to escape this condemnation is to embrace the new covenant where there is forgiveness of sin and restoration of the life that was lost in Eden. In the end, the judgment will be simple, you are either dead or alive. The living will enter the kingdom of God and the dead will judged according to their deeds and each one of them will be found to be a lawbreaker and thrown out. As long as one is breathing, the door to heaven is as wide open as the door to hell. When your present life ends, that door closes and either you received life or did not. We are all born in the image and likeness of Adam, without the spirit of God, Genesis 5:3. Those who submit to the new covenant will be made alive. These are the worshippers that God seeks. He seeks those who will believe the truth and receive the gift of the holy spirit. These are they who worship Him in spirit and truth.