What does it mean that salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22)?

In verse 22 the Lord leaves it impossible for the Samaritan to draw the inference that, if Christian worship was about to be alone acceptable to God, independently of place or race, Samaritan had been just as good as Jewish. Not so. The Samaritans worshipped what they did not know, the Jews knew what they worshipped; "for salvation," as He added, "is of the Jews." They had "the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, the law-giving, and the service, and the promises, whose were the fathers, and of whom as pertaining to flesh was the Christ Who is over all God blessed for ever. Amen." (Rom. 9:5.) The Samaritans were mere imitators, Gentiles jealous of Israel and hostile to them, without fear of God, else had they submitted to His ways and Word.

Therefore the Lord Jesus could not but allow the plea for Jerusalem as against "this mountain" of Samaria. The Samaritans worshipped that which they did not know. The Jews were used to worship that which they knew; and this on a firm foundation, because "salvation is of the Jews." Theirs are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the service, and the promises; theirs the "Fathers" in the best sense; and of them as concerning the flesh is the Christ, Who is over all, God blessed for ever, Amen. He as the woman's seed, as David's and David's Lord, Son of God (Ps. 2) and Immanuel, had been evermore the One to Whom Israel looked and on Whom faith rested; and this Himself here vindicated.

"Salvation is of the Jews"; in that line only is the promised Seed in Whom dead and risen shall all the nation be blessed. For if the promise be to the Jews, pre-eminently to their Messiah, never was it for them alone, but that the grace of God might bless faith wherever it wrought, and so in particular where need was greatest and man could least boast.

Worship. — As such she now addressed Him, starting quite a new, and a very different, subject from that hitherto before them. Then she had replied by questions to that which the Lord had said. Now she introduced the subject of the place of worship, a matter of contention between Samaritans and Jews. To this He replied, "Woman, believe Me, the hour comes, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (21-24). The Samaritan worship was then all wrong. Their separation from that carried on at Jerusalem was quite unauthorised. Salvation was of the Jews. Through them it must come, and not through the upholders of the Samaritan schism, as we may well call it. Besides, those worshipped they knew not what. A solemn announcement indeed! A false worship has another being behind it than God. Demons are there, not God (1 Cor. 10:20). Was it not that to which the Lord referred? No question, then, could there be, but that the Samaritan worship was wrong. That question, which Samaritans had debated for centuries, and determined as they wished in their own favour, was settled against them by the prophet, as she thought Him, in a very few words, and there was left no room for a rejoinder. Salvation being of the Jews, Samaritan opposition to the worship at Jerusalem must be wrong. God could not be with them who disowned the only house and altar which He had sanctioned. Real worship of God there could not be in the Temple at Gerizim. Then if God was not there, what was there?

Accordingly a little lower down in the chapter we have more developed instruction on the subject, although we have had the foundation of it in verse 10. The woman, when her conscience was touched, and she learned that she stood in the presence of a prophet, though not yet recognizing in Him the Messiah, put her religious difficulties before Him for solution, quite sure that He brought the truth of God — "I perceive that thou art a prophet." Remark in passing that the essential idea of a prophet, both in the Old and the New Testament sense, is one that brings the conscience directly into the presence of God, so as to have His light shed upon the soul. There were many prophets who predicted scarcely anything, but they were not the less prophets. Finding herself then in the presence of one who was able to announce the truth of God, she wants to have the questions of her soul answered. She turned to Him about that which at all times and everywhere has and must have unrivalled interest. The world itself, blind and dead, will fight for nothing faster than its religion. There were differences then as there are now. "Our fathers," she said, "worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." The Lord solemnly tells her: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father." He gives a rebuke too: "Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews." It is clear that whatever hopes of salvation were held out to the Jews, they were founded on their belief in Christ. But while He vindicates the position (not the condition) of the Jews, He proclaims the dawn of a brighter day: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him." He could speak thus plainly and strongly because He was Himself the Son in the bosom of the Father, and was entitled, in virtue of the glory of His Person, to bring in worship suited to His own intimate knowledge and perfect revelation of the Father.

But, when we come to search and understand the distinctive truths of the New Testament, we see that what the Lord Jesus here intimates of the immense change in worship then at hand was connected with the revelation of Himself, the accomplishment of His work, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Lord could not but say, if one compares the Jews with the Samaritans, "We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews." For worship is always according to the revelation: what then could it be where salvation was not? Jewish worship was set out in figures and shadows; salvation was a hope, not an actual relationship and possession. The Jews were looking — and they were right in looking — for the Messiah, who would not only tell, but accomplish, all things; He whom they were looking for was to be a Saviour. The salvation that the Jews had before their eyes was still a thing in prospect, and not yet brought home to the heart as a present reality. While they waited for Messiah, the worship was suited to their state. It was surrounded with priests and forms, which showed that the way was not made manifest into the holiest. (Heb. 9)

This woman had heard of what might be expected of the Messiah at His coming. Little did she know that He was speaking to her. There was no pomp nor judgment. As King, He of course might have sent forth armies, and burned up Jerusalem. But as the Son, He need say nothing now but these words: "The hour is coming, and now is," &c. He that had made everything by a word blotted at once out, as it was suitable He should do by a word, the place of Jerusalem from the earth as the centre of divine worship. Again, I say, not only the false systems, but even the partial revelation which merely dealt with man on the earth — what was suited, if one may thus speak, more justly to the first man — was doomed, and vanishes away, that the Son might abide — the Son of God. "Ye worship," He says, "ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews." There was presumption and ignorance in Samaria; nor does the Lord disguise the advantage every way of Israel. But it may be remarked, that Jesus never says so except outside: He vindicates the Jews when He was in the midst of their rivals, and Himself rejected. What grace! But the time was come for more; and you will always find something tantamount in the wonderful ways of God. The rejected Lord does not deny what had honour, even though active against Himself. He does not slight the line of promise; He does not forget in the smallest degree the great and profoundly interesting fact on which hung the blessing of all that had ever been blessed in the earth — "Salvation is of the Jews." But He does say, "The hour cometh" — yea, He enforces it and presses it out even to this moment, as it were, that was arrived — "and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him." When God gave His law, He gave what was according to the relationship in which His people stood with Himself, as well as suitable, inasmuch as it was a moral dealing with the flesh in those that, as a people, had nothing else. But this is just the mighty change, now that Messiah is come and rejected, and the Father is calling and forming sons by Him the Son — nay, more than this, is giving them the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of sonship, that the true worshippers might worship Himself in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

The Lord said in John 4:22, “Salvation is from the Jews”and so when Israel will be brought back to God she will see all these children that will be counted to her. She did not give birth to these children, but these children will be counted to her, as it were, because salvation is of the Jews. Again, I repeat, this is not in connection with the heavenly position, the special place we have now in connection with the heavenly Christ, but it is in connection with God’s way for this earth, that He will account all the believers to that earthly vessel (because salvation is from the Jews), which will then be glorified in the millennial reign.

Before Jesus died and rose again, "Salvation was of the Jews" (John 4:22), as the Lord Himself said on more than one occasion. Gentiles could only enjoy the blessing of God in a secondary way, through their links with the nation of Israel. From now on, the narrow confines of one nation, even Israel, could not limit the immense blessing accruing from the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Jew and Gentile alike could trust Him and know Him as Saviour and Lord. The middle wall of partition between them had been broken down. So, one of the marks of God having made Himself fully known in Christ is that He is "preached unto the Gentiles".

Now let us cast our eyes upon this passage of very special interest in the fourth chapter without in any way attempting to go back over the story. The woman introduced the question of worship. It seems to me extremely unlikely that to a woman still in spirit dead and far from Him, such immense disclosures and basic teaching about the true worship would have been made. There must have been, it seems to me, in those seconds perhaps, the reception of that water that Jesus could give springing up into everlasting life. She said: "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain." The king of Assyria had deported the whole population of the northern kingdom of Israel and the Samaritans were the direct descendants of those who took their place. They had thought it wise to placate the god of that country, and so they began to imitate the worship of the Jews. They had the five books of Moses in a version which is still called the Samaritan Pentateuch. This was the Samaritan worship and it was a spurious worship of the God of Israel. Now the Lord Jesus Christ says here, considering Himself for the moment as a Jew, He says, "we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." There was a contrast between what was all the time an entirely spurious worship and something which was instituted by God to be the worship of the real God who made all things and had revealed Himself to His people as the God of Israel. But of course at a stroke the Lord Jesus Christ puts clean out of court these two kinds of worship that belonged to a place. He substituted the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth and said, "the Father seeketh such to worship Him."

Yet He will not by any means excuse the unholy worship of the Samaritans: they worshiped because religiously minded, with no sense of having to do with a living God, and no realization of a serious need of salvation. Jews knew what they worshiped, for God had set His name at Jerusalem, and they generally had some conscience toward God, which involved the acknowledgement that salvation was a dire necessity that would come only through Judah, for the Messiah must come from Judah.