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.
But many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him because of the word of the woman who bore witness, He told me all things that I had ever done.
Jesus had left Judea, where the religious leaders had turned hostile, and He stopped at a well outside a Samaritan town. There He told a woman her whole life story, and her one sentence about it turned a crowd of her neighbours toward Him — so what makes a testimony work, and how far can faith go when it rests on someone else's word?
Jesus was in Samaria because Judea had turned hostile. One writer sees in that move what rejected grace does next.
Here the circumstances are completely different. For the moment the Lord is outside the circle of Judaism, among the despised Samaritans. Why? Because of the hostility in the Jewish heart... There He met the woman and brought blessing to her soul, and that brought blessing to many others too. If some reject His grace, their unbelief does not dry the channel up; it redirects it, and others receive it.
The Samaritans were a despised people. That a whole town of them believed turned every expectation around.
So despised Samaria stretches out her hands to God, and Galilee, the land of darkness and of the shadow of death, receives Him when Jerusalem rejects Him. The light springs up in the place of darkness. It may be rejected elsewhere, but it is never hidden — except in judgment.
Her whole message was that He had read her life. Notice what she chose to tell people: not that she was innocent, but that she had been found out.
Here again she testifies that His word searched her conscience: "He told me all that I ever did." When a person does not shrink from that kind of examination, it is a good guarantee that the work is Divine. Otherwise grace is easily misused as a cover for sin, or as a light way of dealing with a sinner, instead of judging everything in God's light.
A woman found out like that would usually hide. Something had taken the sting out of it.
A new object has been revealed to her soul — Christ — and it takes up her whole mind. It takes her up so completely that, without thinking, she becomes a preacher: she proclaims the Lord out of a full heart and with perfect simplicity. He had told her everything she had ever done. At that moment she is not thinking about what it was. Jesus had told it to her, and the thought of Jesus takes away the bitterness of the sin. The sense of His goodness removes the deceit in the heart that tries to hide its sin. In short, her heart is completely filled with Christ Himself.
No miracle happened in that town. Look at who carried the message, and at what God chose not to use.
In His grace God uses, not an angel, but a sinner born again, to carry the truth to others, as we see here in Samaria... It was a true work of God, done in the ordinary way of grace: the word dealing with the conscience. There was no miracle, and no persuasive words of human wisdom either, but a demonstration of the Spirit, so that their faith would stand in God's power.
She never claimed an office. She said what she knew and attached it to a Person.
She told what she knew; she testified of that which she had found, but in connection with a Person. "He told me," she declared, so pointing others to that One who, in grace, had met with her at the well. But how effectively she did her work! The fields were white to harvest... To stand up and preach was not her work... Yet she worked rightly and well, and that without intruding into another's sphere.
These townspeople believed because of someone else's report — faith at second hand.
The power of Jesus' testimony in the conscience is the great doorway into the knowledge of Jesus... Many believed because of this testimony, even at second hand. This is what opened the way for Him, and on that ground they begged Him to stay with them... Her word was the doorway; but once He was let in, everything fits the full glory of the One the heart is now taught to receive.
She wanted exactly that, and would not have settled for less.
She could not be satisfied with only telling them what she had heard, or who she had seen and talked with. She wanted others to meet Him for themselves... A true spiritual instinct led her to bring them to Christ, as the one thing that would settle their souls in the truth about Him.
- Diverted — Rejection in Judea did not stop grace. It turned the stream toward a despised town, and light rose where there had been darkness.
- Exposed — Her one line was that He knew everything about her. When a person does not flinch from that, it is good evidence the work is God's, and that grace is not covering up sin.
- Filled — She can tell her own story because her heart is full of Christ. The thought of Jesus takes the bitterness out of the sin.
- Sent — God used a sinner, not an angel. There was no miracle and no clever speech, so their faith would rest on God's power.
- Surpassed — Her word was the doorway, not the resting place. She wanted them to meet Him for themselves, and everything they found in Him agreed with His full glory.