Jesus says to them, My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work.
The disciples urge Jesus to eat, and He answers by speaking of a food they know nothing about. His reply shows what kept Him going, and what true service is.
The chapter holds two conversations, and each has its own pupil. One writer sets them side by side:
The woman had learnt her lesson — that the Christ had come; the disciples were to learn theirs — the spirit in which true service should be performed, as illustrated by the example of the Master Himself. His answer, "I have food to eat that you do not know about," told of something they had not brought, that gave Him support.
Why call it "food"? The word names what carried Him through the day, as bread carries us:
Where did it lie? Not merely in outward acts of service. What a character these words give His whole path! His food, the very sustenance of His life, was in carrying out the Father's will.
The verse is sometimes quoted in a longer form. One writer objects, because the words as they stand point to something deeper than obedience:
How humbling to find His disciples at such a time occupied with the body and its wants. And this the Lord makes them feel by His answer. They did not yet know such food, disciples though they were. People often quote it as "His meat and His drink." That is not what He said. Beyond doing His will and completing His work, there was an inner spring of loving and delighting in His Father. But this was His food.
He speaks as one sent. That is a chosen position, not a limitation forced on Him:
As Son, He had the divine right to exercise His own will. But having come into Manhood, He took the place that belongs to man — subjection to His Father's will. He found His sustenance and pleasure in carrying out the will of His Father. He had just been making that will known in relation to worship. What joy there was for the Son in bringing the Father's grace to sinners! And what joy for the Father in seeing His Son make His will known and fulfil it!
That same fixed purpose ran the whole length of His life. Nothing bent it:
Satan tempted Him with "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them." It failed completely to influence His thoughts or His movements. The Pharisees showed envy and scorn. The Sadducees mocked Him with their materialism. His brothers did not believe Him. Crowds gave Him passing praise and wanted to make Him a king. None of it turned Him aside from His steadfast path of unswerving devotion to the will of God.
He does not only speak of doing a will; He speaks of completing a work. The conversation just ended shows part of what that work contained:
Jesus had come to work in this world, as He said in John 4. Now He says, "I have finished the work which You gave me to do." His words in chapter 4 show that His work included securing a company of worshippers for the Father, who would worship Him in spirit and in truth. For this the cross was necessary. Every barrier that kept His own from full blessing had to go.
He felt joy when one sinner's heart opened. But that joy was not the fuel:
Was He indifferent to results? Far from it. But perfect Servant, as perfect in everything else, His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him, and to finish His work. True, in doing it He must have had joy — a joy we cannot measure. He saw one poor sinner's heart opened up by His teaching, like a flower opening under the warmth of the sun. He knew that the blessing given to her would bear fruit for many a soul in that city. But His food lay elsewhere.
Good intentions and hard work are not the same as service. The difference is who sets the task:
It is not enough to act even with a right motive, if we are acting simply on our own initiative and doing what seems right in our own eyes. A man employed in a workshop may be a good workman, but a poor servant. Service, then, is not just work. It is not even good work, or Christian activity of the most scriptural sort. It is such activity under the direction of the Lord.
One writer turns that to our own motives:
If we are honest with ourselves, must we not admit that our motives are very mixed at best? And yet, how much simpler our lives would be if we realised, in our little measure, that the Father has a will about us and a plan for us. Then our one desire would be to do the Father's will and finish the work He has given us to do.
- Food, not duty. Obedience was not a burden He carried but the sustenance of His life — what He lived on, as we live on bread.
- Sent, therefore subject. As Son He had every right to His own will; as Man He took the place of subjection to the One who sent Him.
- Will before results. He rejoiced when one sinner's heart opened, yet His food lay elsewhere. Faithfulness never rose or fell with visible fruit.
- Work to be finished. The work begun at the well ran on to the cross. Only there did every barrier fall, so the Father could have His worshippers.
- The pattern for us. Service is not activity of our own choosing. It is activity under His direction — and the Father has a will and a plan for each of us to finish.
Do not ye say, that there are yet four months and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest.
Jesus had just spoken with a Samaritan woman at a well. Now He sets two clocks side by side for His disciples: the farmer's calendar, with four months still to run, and a harvest of souls ready that very hour.
Jesus was not making a general point about the world. Something in front of Him prompted the words.
While He sat by the well the Lord had ministered to one poor woman's soul. But now it seems He lifted up His eyes and saw the people streaming out of the city to meet Him. He drew the disciples' attention to the sight. God's blessing on the soil to produce an abundant harvest was still four months away. Yet there was a harvest to reap at once. It came from seed sown long before, which had sprouted and was now ripening fast in the presence of Him who will one day appear to Israel in their land as the "Sun of Righteousness."
The saying about four months belonged to fields the disciples could measure. The Lord points them to another crop, one that never has an off-season.
First, the Lord would engage us with the spiritual harvest, and not the natural. If the disciples were to reap the natural harvest they would have to wait four months. The spiritual need is always present.
The startling part is where the ripe grain stood. Samaria was not on the disciples' map of God's work.
He then showed them, as already white for harvest, fields their faith had never surveyed. They knew of no fields except those once divided among the tribes. In their view God's farming had to stay inside that sacred fence. Samaria, they judged, was now outside it, nothing but an unclean place. But there was a secret with God. It was the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners, who had now gone out with seed. His toil had prepared a harvest for the reapers on the defiled plains of Samaria... The harvest in Judea was plenteous, but in Samaria it was ripe for the reapers.
If ripeness means readiness, what had made these people ready? It was not their goodness.
Whatever the times and seasons of the natural harvest, the fields spiritually were ripe for the reaper. Man, the world, deserved judgment. But the very state of sin that calls for judgment is the state God uses for His call of grace. The gospel comes on the ground of man's total ruin, so it levels all distinctions. Jew, Samaritan, Gentile — what is any of them now but a sinner?
The disciples who heard this were slow to act on it. Someone else gathered the Samaritan harvest later.
They may speak of harvest being four months away. No doubt the great harvest of the coming kingdom can only come in God's time. But for those who have eyes to see, the fields were already white for harvest. Thirsty souls were ready for the water of the word of God, and only needed someone to find them... Yet none of them seemed ready to respond, even after the Spirit of God had come at Pentecost; and Philip... with a fervent gospel heart, goes to Samaria first to reap a bountiful harvest (Acts 8).
Looking takes discernment, because no two fields are alike.
Fresh from Judea, where they had enjoyed no reaping, they found at Sychar a crop ready for the sickle. The Samaritans had been taught to expect the Messiah, so once they knew of Him they were willing to receive Him. To have tried to reap in Judea would have been labour with little return. To have started sowing at Sychar would have shown a lack of discernment about the condition of souls in that city... The work in one place is no measure of what the work in another should be. And a labourer greatly blessed in one place cannot assume the next field will be ready for his sickle too.
Jesus tells them to raise their eyes, not to travel.
Our Lord said, "Lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest." The opportunities are not far off. They are within reach of our eyes. Never was there a day when it was more urgent that opportunities should be grasped.
- Look up. The disciples were watching the calendar. Jesus was watching people walk out of Sychar toward Him.
- Look now. The natural crop needed four more months. The need of souls is always present, so there is nothing to wait for.
- Look wider. The ripe field lay in Samaria, a place the disciples had ruled out of God's farming.
- Look honestly. Ruin is what ripens a field. The state that deserves judgment is the state grace uses, and it puts Jew, Samaritan and Gentile in one class: sinners.
- Look near. The opportunity is within reach of your eyes. Read each field for itself: Sychar was ripe, Judea was not, and Philip reaped Samaria later.
He that reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto life eternal, that both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together.
The disciples come back with food while the Samaritan woman's town streams out toward Jesus. He turns them from lunch to a ripe harvest, and names three things: the reaper's pay, the fruit he gathers, and a joy shared with workers who never saw the crop.
The wage here goes to the reaper, not the sower. One writer finds that striking.
It is remarkable that the Lord speaks here about reaping rather than sowing. Sowing, of course, goes on, and has its place elsewhere, as in Matthew 13. In earlier times it was sowing rather than reaping. Now, in this day of grace, reaping is what marks the time — fruit not only of God's past dealings, but of His coming and mighty work.
So who did the sowing? It happened long before this day.
The prophets had worked (the woman was expecting the Christ), and so had John the Baptist. The disciples were only reaping, but the fields were white for harvest. In the very worst times, even when judgment is close at hand, God has His good part. Faith sees it and takes comfort in it.
The reaper already draws pay. One writer says the pay comes in two stages.
The wages: the first instalment comes in this world, through fellowship in service with the great Worker Himself. The servants will receive the full reward in glory.
The full reward belongs to a coming day, and to more workers than the twelve.
For their work, the disciples would receive their wages. They would value that reward highly. John showed the same in his letter to the elect lady and her children, when he wrote, "Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward" (2 John 8). This reward they will have from Christ in the day of His glory in having part with Him in His kingdom. These "wages" are not for the twelve alone, but for all who serve our Lord Jesus in faithfulness here below.
The fruit gathered is not a thing. It is people.
The fruit reaped for eternal life is people. The labours of the Lord's servants bring them to enjoy the blessings of eternal life. Here the fruit is gathered in. Soon those won for Christ's glory will be on display in that day, even as Paul wrote, "For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy" (1 Thess. 2:19-20).
Set that beside ordinary work, and the contrast is sharp:
The fruit of this service is lasting. For his natural labour, man only secures the things that perish in the using. In this spiritual service the labourer "gathers fruit to eternal life."
Harvest is visible; ploughing is not. People credit whoever holds the sickle, and the Lord corrects that instinct.
How ready men are to judge a worker's usefulness by the apparent results of his work! How ready they are, at harvest time, to treat the reapers as the one and only class of labourers who have worked the soil! Not so the Lord. He knows who have broken up the ground and sown the seed in the sunless days of autumn and winter, or in the windy days of spring. And when the harvest is reaped and gathered into the barn, He will remember them. He will acknowledge the share they have had in the work carried on for Him on earth.
One writer argues that this joy must include the Lord Himself, since He is both sower and reaper.
Then all will know in power that He was the beginner, sustainer, and end of all true service, uniting in Himself the two characters of sower and reaper. This rejoicing together of sowers and reapers must include Himself. "Rejoice together" — what would that mean apart from Him? Your work may be sowing only, and that is not as pleasant as reaping. But if it is His will, His Spirit in us will say, "Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will." Soon it will be eternal joy together in the rest above.
That reshapes how a servant chooses his work — whether to aim at what pays off now or at what pays off then.
If we work for the present we may reap our own harvest, but it will be a poor one. If we sow for the glory that is to come, if we sow by faith, others will reap it — but we shall rejoice together.
- Season — this day of grace is a time for reaping, not sowing; the prophets and John the Baptist put the seed in long before.
- Wages — the reaper draws his first pay now; Christ gives the full reward in the day of His glory, to every faithful servant and not the twelve alone.
- Fruit — he gathers people into eternal life; ordinary work secures only what perishes in the using.
- Memory — men credit the reaper, but the Lord knows who broke up the ground in the sunless months. He will acknowledge their share.
- Together — the joy waits so that sower, reaper and the Lord Himself share it. So sow by faith for the coming glory, even if someone else reaps.
For in this is [verified] the true saying, It is one who sows and another who reaps.
Here the Lord quotes an everyday farming proverb. He uses it to explain a harvest the disciples had done nothing to produce. Who deserves the credit for such a harvest? And what does the Lord think of the worker whose part never shows?
The saying rests on the gap between planting and gathering. Seed goes in long before grain comes out, and in spiritual work the two jobs usually fall to different hands.
But the one who reaps will gain by it, in fact gathering fruit in view of the life that is eternal, in contrast to mere natural gain (v. 36). Then when the reaping is done, both sower and reaper have cause to rejoice together. For the sowing is done generally long before the reaping, and in regard to the word of God planted in souls, it is very commonly done by a different worker than the reaper (v. 37).
The first half of the work can look like pure loss.
"One sows and another reaps." The man who does the first part of the work seems to be wasting his time and throwing valuable seeds away on the ground. They sink in, and the black soil covers them. They fall into the ground and die. Often the sower dies too in neglect and poverty; and he and his work are forgotten.
The one who gathers is not the one who did most.
So we would judge wrongly if we thought the reaper had done all the work, just because we see him carrying in the sheaves. We must not forget the sad efforts of his dead fellow worker, which at the time seemed fruitless and hopeless. One man ends his course in complete failure; another wins success. But if each works as God calls him, the work is one, and one God is over it all.
The Samaritan woman already expected a coming Christ before Jesus spoke to her. Someone had put that expectation there.
We may note that the reapers gathered fruit for eternal life, and also received their wages. The prophets had laboured — the woman was expecting the Christ — and John the Baptist had laboured too. The disciples were only reaping, but the fields were white for harvest. Even in the very worst times, when judgment is close at hand, God has His own good part, and faith sees it and takes comfort from it.
Some of those sowers cannot be named at all — and that is part of the comfort.
Who kept that expectation alive in the hearts of the Samaritans, by teaching them what the Scriptures said? We cannot now tell. The disciples in their day probably knew almost as little about it as we do. But whoever the Lord meant, He wants us to understand this: He overlooks neither their names nor their work.
The Lord's words to the apostles guard them against pride.
I take the words "I sent" as marking their character: as apostles, this is your work; do not be proud, or wise in your own eyes. I have sent you to reap what you did no work for. Others — for our Lord did not take the honour to Himself alone — other men have laboured, and you have entered into their labours. But our Lord's joy was in the harvest, in what would be brought in. Their joy in it was softened by remembering who had sown the seed.
Sowing still goes on, but writers note that the Lord points His servants here to gathering rather than planting.
It is striking that the Lord speaks here about reaping rather than sowing. Sowing, of course, still goes on, and has its place elsewhere, as in Matthew 13. In earlier times the work was sowing more than reaping. Now, in this day of grace, reaping is what marks the work — fruit not only of God's past dealings, but of His coming and mighty work.
The same principle reaches to anyone who has received truth through others' costly work.
We can take no glory to ourselves. "Other men laboured, and you are entered into their labours" (John 4:38) can most truly be said of us, though I fear we have but little availed ourselves of the rich field of blessing laid open to us through their faithful service.
So how should we work, whichever half of the job falls to us?
Are we called to sow? Then let us work on without losing heart, even if we never see the fruit of our labour. Are we allowed to reap? Then let us work hard, remembering the responsibility that rests on us. But let us always keep in mind that in a coming day others may share the joy of that harvest which the Lord in His goodness has allowed us to reap.
- Two hands, one work. Planting and gathering usually fall to different people at different times. Yet God counts it one work, with Himself over it all.
- The hidden sower. The first worker often dies with nothing to show for it. The Lord still knows his name, and forgets no work that no human record kept.
- The visible reaper. Whoever gathers works ground he never broke. So success calls for humility, not pride.
- The present work. The prophets and John the Baptist had sown. The disciples were sent to reap, and reaping still marks this day of grace.
- The shared joy. In a coming day the sower and the reaper share the joy of the harvest. So no one should work only for results he can see.
I have sent you to reap that on which ye have not laboured; others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours.
Jesus has just spoken with a Samaritan woman at a well. Now He tells His disciples where they stand: they are reaping a harvest they did not begin.
The verse opens with a commission, not an invitation. One writer explains what sowing and reaping are, and who decides which one you do.
To sow is to spread faithfully whatever testimony God has entrusted to His servants for that day. To reap is to gather in souls by ministry as the fruit of the seed sown. But who are to reap, and when? This the Lord decides, and here He allots to the disciples their portion of work in the field. "I sent you." Their commission came from Him. He never makes a mistake, and He did not send them into the field before the crop was ready.
The Samaritan woman already had a hope she had not invented. Someone had put it there.
"I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor." In earlier times the Lord's servants had borne their testimony, and the disciples were entering into the fruit of their work. The prophets had testified of the Messiah. That is how this poor Samaritan woman had heard about Him, and it had stirred her heart. "When he comes," she says, "he will tell us all things."
Commentators differ on who those earlier workers were. One writer sees the Lord's own labour at the well as the sowing that made the field ready.
The Lord had borne the toil of the sower. Tired and worn out, He had talked with the woman. But now He would share the joy of the harvest with His disciples.
Reaping is the visible half of the work, and that makes it risky. One writer hears the Lord's words as a warning to the very men He was sending.
"I sent you" I take to be characteristic. As apostles, this is your office. Do not be proud, or wise in your own eyes. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored — and our Lord did not take the honour to Himself alone — and you have entered into their labor. The one who is lowest, and works for fruit he cannot see, is highest. He is more truly doing the will of the One who sent him, in simple faith. Success gives immediate support, even to the weak.
Earlier ages were marked more by sowing. One writer explains why the Lord speaks of reaping here.
It is remarkable that the Lord speaks about reaping now rather than sowing. Sowing, of course, goes on, and has its place elsewhere, as in Matthew 13. In the past there was more sowing than reaping. Now, in this day of grace, reaping marks the time — fruit not only of God's past dealings, but of His own coming and mighty work... These differences remain. Even so, the apostles are marked by reaping rather than by sowing, and so, of course, are other labourers. Everyone knows how clearly this proved true at Pentecost and afterwards.
One writer applies this to every preacher who has ever seen results in the Lord's work.
No preacher of the gospel has ever gone out to serve the Lord, had success in his work, and been able to say it was all the result of his own prayers and his own service. No servant worth his salt would ever say such a thing. He would admit that every success he had in the Lord's service came because others were praying and others had worked in some way. He and they were working together to secure this fruit for God. We are not all called to be sowers, and we are not all called to be reapers. But we can all do some small service, and we can all plant some seed. Every word spoken for the Lord is seed sown. Every kind act shown to a believer or an unbeliever is seed sown.
The verse could sting anyone who sowed for years and saw nothing. It does the opposite.
Many prophets and righteous men had wanted to see what the disciples saw, but never lived to see their day. Will they lose their joy? No. They will see the day of Christ's glory, and the crop that grew from the seed they sowed in patience and under hardship — sowing known perhaps only to themselves and to God.
- Sent — the commission, the field, and the timing all come from Him; He does not send reapers into a crop that is not ready.
- Sown — prophets and earlier servants had kept the hope of the Messiah alive before the disciples ever came.
- Shared — no worker's success is his own; others prayed and laboured for the fruit he gathers.
- Sobered — the reaper's warning is pride; the one who works lowest, for fruit he cannot see, is highest.
- Settled — every sower who died without seeing a harvest will see the crop in the day of Christ's glory.