What does it mean that the fields are white for harvest (John 4:35)?

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."

Whilst sitting by the well the Lord had ministered to that one poor woman's soul. But now it would seem, lifting up His eyes He saw, and drew the attention of His disciples to the sight, the people trooping out of the city to meet Him. "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest." 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."

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 ever present. The spiritual fields "are white already to harvest".

"Do not ye say that there are yet four months and the harvest cometh? Lo, I say to you, Lift up your eyes, and behold the fields, for they are white unto harvest already. He† that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both‡ he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. For in this is the saying true,§ It is one that soweth and another that reapeth. I sent you to reap that on which ye have not toiled: others have toiled, and ye have entered into their toil." Whatever might be the times and seasons of the natural harvest, the fields spiritually were ripe for the reaper. Man, the world, undoubtedly deserved judgment; but the very same state of sin which calls for judgment God uses for His call of grace. The Gospel comes expressly on the ground of man's total ruin, and therefore levels all distinctions. Jew, Samaritan, Gentile — what are any now but sinners? The Jew had been under probation, but he was now rejecting the Messiah, the Son of God. All was lost; but the rejected Christ is the Saviour, and now there is salvation for any, and grace carries it among such as these Samaritans. Tischendorf, etc., sever ἤδη from verse 35 and make it begin verse 36, following some ancient authorities; but the most ancient (ℵpmBMΠpm, etc.) leave it open, and most [as Weiss] give as is here done, which seems to be alone in keeping with the context [Blass omits, as Syrsin Chrys. Hil.]. †The common text prefixes καὶ on ample authority [including Syrsin], but the most ancient uncials, and some good cursives, etc., are adverse [so Blass]. ‡Some good and ancient authorities omit καὶ [as Weiss, but Blass retains it]. §The article before ἀληθινὸς is not read by ℵBCpmKLTbΔΠpm, many good cursives, and some of the Greek fathers [so W. and H., Weiss]. In one passage of Chrysostom which has the article, he has ἀληθὴς after it, and so have a few cursives.

The disciples, on their return, wonder, like the woman, that Jesus had not kept His Jewish distance. But still they are conscious of the presence of a glory that was above them; for "no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest Thou with her?" They did not as yet know the secret which the Son of God carried; and He then shows them, as white already for harvest, fields which their faith had never surveyed. They knew of no fields but such as, of old, had been parted among the Tribes. In their esteem God's husbandry must be confined to that sacred enclosure; and Samaria, they judged, was now outside that, and but an unclean place. But there was, as we have already seen, a secret with God. It was the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners, who had now gone forth with seed, and His toil had prepared a harvest for the reapers, in the defiled plains of Samaria.* He shows His disciples a company just coming out of Sychar, who were soon to say, "This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." And thus were they ready for the sickle. The harvest in Judea was plenteous (Matt. 9:37); but in Samaria it was ripe for the reapers. The Lord had borne the toil of the sower; had talked, weary and faint, with the woman; but He would now share with His disciples the joy of the harvest; and, in pledge of this, He abides for two days with this little gathering out of Sychar, believed on and owned as the Saviour of the world.

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).

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).

All who labour for God upon earth shall see the result of their work. "The sower and the reaper shall rejoice together." The Lord will not dissociate them. So, though spoken of in a different matter and in a different connection, may we not say, "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder"? The Lord's words about the labourers are worth remembering, cheering to the sower, sobering to the reaper.

But what, it may be asked, is it to sow? It is to disseminate faithfully the testimony of the day, whatever that may be, which has been committed to God's servants. 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 allotted to the disciples their portion of work in the field. "I sent you," etc. Their commission was from Him; and He who never makes a mistake, did not send them into the field before the crop was ready for their service.

Just come from Judea, where they had enjoyed no reaping, they found at Sychar the crop ready for the sickle; for, taught to expect the Messiah, the Samaritans were willing, when they knew of Him, to receive Him. To have attempted to reap in Judea would have been labour to little profit. To have commenced sowing at Sychar would have indicated a want of discernment as to the condition of souls in that city. To have concluded from their success at Sychar, that all Samaria was ready to receive the Lord, would have been manifestly erroneous, as the treatment He met with in one of the villages of Samaria at a later period of His life clearly demonstrates. All this, surely, can speak to us, where sowing and reaping may go on almost side by side. The work in one place is no criterion of what that in another should be; nor does it follow, that the labourer, highly blessed in one locality, has only to move to another, to find that field also quite ready for his reaping-hook.

Meanwhile His disciples have come back from the city, where they had gone to buy provisions, and find Him refreshed and independent of the food. In answer to their astonishment, He tells them that His food is to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work. And then He speaks to them of fields that He sees already ripening to a spiritual harvest, and of the common joy of sower and of reaper. In fact, they were to enter into the labors of previous generations, of the prophets who had prepared the way for them, Himself above all the unwearied Worker for the salvation of men. Israel might reject Him, and His labor seem vain in this respect, but here, outside of Israel, He sees the incoming of the Gentiles, while the tardy fields of Judea yet showed no sign.

Of this the Samaritans here are now the first-fruits, and there follow two days of fruitful testimony, in which at their solicitation He abides with them; many believing through the woman's witness to Him, and yet more through His own word; while their faith owns Him as the Saviour, not of Israel only, but of the world. All this shows plainly what is foreshadowed here.

55 Nothing can be more distinct than the going forth of the Saviour's mind into that which, by the operation of the Spirit, it broke, upon the rejection of His Person and ministry in its real character by the Jews; while yet He, simply following the will of God in His present ministry, being perfect in all things. We may remark further that His place, and the place of His disciples, is here revealed in this opening system in perfect detail and principle and order. Our Lord, though so now, and above all in specialty of character, He who sowed, yet does not here (for He was rather putting them in their character in the opening dispensation of the Spirit) set Himself forward as such (that would have been rather giving value to His grief or trial that He knew only, that is, the Lord) but in His place in the dispensation: "I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour."

From verses 34 to 37 there is the full revelation of His and their place as now passing out of Judaism into the harvest of the Spirit, not His to gather, but having the Spirit just to do His Father's will in the limited (so apparently) sphere were He was. Next He saw forth into it (all His comfort). Next the reaping, and what it was even unto life eternal (for we have here the ministry of the Spirit as well as the power before). As Christ was the giver of that, so the sender in this. Next, therefore, this ministry of the harvest being introduced, we have His place, as observe: "I sent you to reap," and theirs in the consciousness that they were but reaping the labours of others' sowing, for "one soweth, and another reapeth."

I have selected this first passage in John 4 to show it from an encouraging standpoint. The Lord said to His disciples, 'I have got a work to do and my joy is to continue in that work until it is finished for the glory of God according to His mind and will. That is the consuming desire that I have in my life, that is my food, my meat in life, to do the will of Him who has sent Me'. Then He said, 'This is My joy, but I want you to be occupied in work in this world. Lift up your eyes now, look on the fields, they are white already to harvest, there is plenty to do. Get into the fields, get some reaping done, and when the fruit is gathered in, then shall be brought to pass that true saying that he who sows and he who reaps rejoice together in fellowship in the production of that fruit', doubtless for God. The Lord was encouraging His disciples to be concerned about working for God, and I think it is obvious from what He says there was plenty to do. There was plenty to do in His day, and we can say again, there is plenty to do in our day, either in an individual way, or in a collective sense, there is plenty to do.