What did Jesus mean when He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me" (John 4:34)?

His ministry opens in John 4. He had found a poor sinner to whom He could reveal Himself in an activity of grace that formed, as to His life in connection with men, His only joy here. There was manifest refreshment for His spirit in it. He sees the fields already white for harvest in the light of that one soul brought to know herself and Him. But the sources of it lay deeper than the disciples could enter into: "I have meat [or "food"] to eat that ye know not." Wherein did it consist? Not merely in outward acts of service. "My food is that I should do the will of Him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work." What a character this gives His whole path! His food, the very sustenance of His life, was in carrying out the Father's will.

His ministry opens in chapter 4. He had found a poor sinner to whom He could reveal Himself in an activity of grace that formed, as to His life in connection with men, His only joy here. There was manifest refreshment for His spirit in it. He sees the fields already white for harvest in the light of that one soul brought to know herself and Him. But the sources of it lay deeper than the disciples could enter into: "I have meat [or "food"] to eat that ye know not." Wherein did it consist? Not merely in outward acts of service. "My food is that I should do the will of Him that has sent me, and that I should finish His work." What a character this gives His whole path! His food, the sustenance of His life, was in carrying out the Father's will.

While she is gone, however, in answer to His disciples' urging Him to eat, the Lord speaks of having food to eat that was unknown to them. Surely His heart was full at the thought of the poor, sinful woman having found the answer to the crying need of her soul. They do not understand this, and He tells them that His doing of the Father's will was His real food, that which truly satisfied His appetite. The power of a spiritual joy often far transcends the cravings of natural appetite; and there is nothing like the joy of doing the Father's will. The Lord adds also, “and to finish His work.” This lowly service of His would continue until its culmination in the atoning death of the cross. Only He could speak in this way.

But He nevertheless uses the occasion to stir and encourage His disciples to the diligence of labor in His harvest. They may speak of harvest being four months away, and 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 white already to harvest (v. 35); thirsty souls were ready for the water of the word of God, and needed only to be found. So the Lord encourages His disciples in such work. Yet none of them seemed ready to respond, even after the Spirit of God had come at Pentecost; and Philip, a Hellenist (not an apostle), with a fervent gospel heart, goes to Samaria first to reap a bountiful harvest (Acts 8).

The beautiful paragraph, verses 31-38, comes as a parenthesis in the story. The Lord's words to the disciples, in verse 32, have been rendered, "I have found food to eat which ye do not know." He was labouring for "fruit to life eternal," as He indicates in verse 36, and to see this end being reached in the bestowal of blessing on the Samaritan sinner was delectable food for Him. It was "the will of Him that sent Me," said He, to do this. The light He brought was to shine for every man, as we learned at the beginning of this Gospel, so here we see it shining upon a sinner outside the bounds of Judaism. The will of God, the work of God, and life eternal for man go together here; and how blessed for us it is that they do. Further, the Lord indicated to His disciples that in their turn they were to have a share in this most blessed work, whether by sowing or reaping. In this case the Lord Himself was doing the sowing. When the reaping time came, recorded in Acts 8, the harvest was very great.

Spirit for Service. — Let us next turn to see exemplified in this history, the spirit in which true service should be performed. The woman had left the well, the disciples having already rejoined the Lord with the food which they had purchased in the city. The draught of water from Jacob's well we read not that He ever got. Now to food, which the disciples had brought, He seemed indifferent. Yet refreshment and meat He had found, and that as He talked with the woman. "Master, eat," was the request of the disciples, who, now to be taught by Him, had addressed Him by the Jewish appellation of "Rabbi." The woman had learnt her lesson — viz. that the Christ had come; the disciples were to learn theirs — viz. the spirit in which true service should be performed, as illustrated by the example of the Master Himself. For His answer, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of," told of something, which they had not brought, that ministered sustainment to Him. Unable to comprehend His meaning, their thoughts, like those of the woman, being confined to temporal things, He graciously explained, as He added, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work" (31-34). Thus He, the sent One of the Father, shows us what true service is — the simple but faithful performance of the work marked out for the servant. Labourers are too often influenced by the manifestation or otherwise of results. The Lord's meat as a servant was, to do the appointed work, whatever the results might be.

Was He insensible to results? Far otherwise, as Isa. 49:4 and Matt. 11:20-24 declare. But perfect Servant, as perfect in everything else, His meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work. True, in doing it He must have had joy, a joy we cannot measure, as He saw one poor sinner's heart opened up by His teaching, like a flower expanding under the warming influence of the sun, and knew that the blessing communicated to her would be fruitful in blessing to many a soul in that city. But His meat was found elsewhere. What simplicity and what faithfulness do these words bring before us, the Master's teaching for His disciples, and that Master Jehovah's Servant, and Jehovah's Fellow! (Zech. 13:7).

Whilst sitting by the well the Lord had ministered to one poor woman's soul. But now it would seem, that, lifting up His eyes, He saw, and drew the attention of the disciples to, the sight of the people trooping out of the city to meet with Him. "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields: for they are white already to harvest" (John 4:35). God's blessing on the soil to produce an abundant harvest could not be enjoyed for four months yet; nevertheless, there was a harvest to be reaped at once, the result of seed sown long before, which had germinated, and now was rapidly ripening under the presence of Him, who will by-and-by appear to Israel in their land as the "Sun of Righteousness."

"Meanwhile the disciples were asking Him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But He said to them, I have food to eat which ye do not know. Then the disciples said to one another, Hath any one brought Him to eat? Jesus saith to them, It is My food that I should do† the will of Him that sent Me, and finish His work." 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 knew not as yet such food, disciples though they were.94 It is not as men often quote it, "His meat and His drink," for there was an inner spring of loving and delighting in His Father beyond doing His will and completing His work. But this was His food. He came to do His will. In this He was never wearied, nor should we be even now, whatever might be the fatigue of the body. For "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength." Without Him even the "youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail. But they that wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." Jesus knew this Himself in perfection, and here is a sample of it. The great majority of witnesses [including Syrsin] add δὲ, "and" or "but"; the most ancient omit. †The best reading [that of Weiss and Blass] and most forcible sense is ποιῶ (ℵAEGHMSUVΓΔΛ, etc.), not ποιήσω , read by Lachmann, Treg. W. and H., though a manifest assimilation to τελειώσω .

After speaking to the woman of Sychar, the Lord in answer to the request of His disciples that He should eat said, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34). Although it was the Son's divine prerogative to exercise His will, as having come into Manhood He took the place belonging to man, of subjection to His Father's will. He found His sustenance and pleasure in carrying out the will of His Father, and He had been just making known His Father's will 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 beholding His Son making His will known and fulfilling it.

Neither is it 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. If he is opinionated and independent, he will be continually running counter to his master's wishes and will give no end of trouble. Again, the Lord Jesus comes before us as our Example, saying: "My meat [food] is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34). Service, then, is not merely work, not even good work, Christian activity of the most scriptural sort, but rather such activity under the direction of the Lord.

The Lord, in reply to their exercises, discloses to us the blessedness of the path He trod. He says, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work". Here was One Who, amidst all the sorrows of earth and the trials of the way, was sustained by the one object of doing the will of the Father. In the presence of the perfection of His way we may well challenge our hearts as to the motives that sustain us as we pursue our daily path. If honest with ourselves, shall we not have to admit that, at best, our motives are very mixed; and yet, how much more simple our lives would be if, in our little measure, realising that the Father has a will about us and a plan for us, our one desire was to do the Father's will and finish the work He has given us to do (2 Timothy 2:4; Acts 20:24; 2 Timothy 4:7).

At the opening of His ministry in John with the woman of Samaria, we see the blessed principle of it. The disciples had left Him, in want of rest and drink and food. He had had none, and they return and find Him wonderfully refreshed and satisfied, if the sources of it were too deep for them to enter into: "I have meat to eat that ye know not of … my meat* is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." John 4.