has sent speaks the words of God.” Jesus is the agent who was sent into the world by God. It is essentially the same as “he who comes from above.” He could speak the words of God because God gives the Spirit to him without measure (3:34; cf. 1:32–33). Thus God the Father works together with the Son and the Holy Spirit to reveal himself to the world as true.14 God, out of his love (17:23b-24), has given all things into Jesus’ hand (3:35). “All things,” entrusted to the Son, may imply God’s own life (5:26), authority to judge (5:22, 27), authority over all humans to give eternal life (17:2), Jesus’ followers (6:37; 17:6), the words to speak (12:49; 17:8), God’s name (17:6, 11–12) and glory (17:22; cf. 1:14).15
Although the Son testifies to what he has seen and heard with the Father, no human receives Jesus’ testimony (3:32). This means that no one among Jesus’ opponents received his testimony to the one true God. But whoever believes sets the seal on the fact that God is true (3:33). The Greek word sphragizein, translated “to set the seal,” when it is followed by “that” (hoti), means “to attest, certify, acknowledge,”16 referring to an approval of a legal document by putting a seal on it (cf. Esth 8:8, 10). The one who accepts Jesus’ testimony experiences God’s love and life-giving power and consequently attests that God is indeed trustworthy.
The summary ends with a reference to heavenly life, which is available to those who believe in the Son, and to God’s wrath, which remains on anyone who does not obey the Son (3:36). “Believing in the Son” and “obeying the Son” are parallel terms (see comments on 3:15–16). Similarly, “eternal life” or “life” is set against the eschatological wrath of God, which rests now upon those who do not accept and obey the Son. Both eternal life and the end-time wrath of God are spoken in the present tense (“has eternal life” and “rests upon”), implying that they are already in operation among human beings. At the same time, the future-tense “shall not see life” indicates that the one who does not obey now will not experience the future life with God (cf. 5:24; 8:51, 52). Such dualism urges human beings to choose life now by believing in the Son.
1. Str-B: 2.419–20.
2. E.g., de Jonge 1977: 36; Culpepper 1983: 134–36; Neyrey 2007: 76–78; Hakola 2009: 438–55.
3. For the argument that both water and spirit stand for the Holy Spirit see Ridderbos 1997: 127–28; Kruse 2008: 109.
4. Some manuscripts add “[the Son of Man] who is in heaven,” and other manuscripts add “[the Son of Man] who is from heaven.” These additions were made perhaps to explain the pre-existence of the Son of Man.
5. Phillips 1957: 83–96.
6. Cf. Keener 2005: 1.566–67.
7. The meaning of the Greek gē in 3:22 is “region, country” (BDAG, 196).
8. The name “Aenon” may come from the Hebrew word ‘ayin, “spring,” implying that there were more springs of water; Kruse 2008: 121.
9. The complaint that “all are going to him” (3:26b) is an exaggeration, meaning that many people are going to Jesus (cf. 4:1; 11:48; 12:19).
10. Lindars 1992: 17.
11. Kruse 2008: 123.
12. Dodd 1958: 311; cf. Ridderbos 1997: 148.
13. Cf. Brown 1978: 1.159–60.
14. Gruenler 1986: 32–34.
15. Brown 1978: 1.162.
16. BDAG, 980.
John 4
The Inclusive Nature of Jesus’ Community
Proper setting for the dialogue (4:1–6)
The Lord came to know that the Pharisees had heard that he was making and baptizing more disciples than John (4:1).1 However, the narrator clarifies that Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples did (4:2). As there was a possibility for the Pharisees to kill him (cf. 7:1), Jesus left Judea to go again to Galilee (4:3).
It was necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria, the normal route for anyone to go to Galilee from Judea (4:4). Samaria is a region that lies in between Judea in the south and Galilee in the north.2 Strict Jews hated Samaritans (cf. 4:9) and avoided going through Samaria to enter Galilee. The Greek word edei (“it was necessary”) refers to the divine necessity for Jesus to pass through Samaria so that he could meet a Samaritan woman and bring salvation through her to many Samaritans. Thus, Jesus crossed the racial, religious, and geographical barriers to enter into Samaria and the gender barrier to have a dialogue with a woman. He went to Sychar, a city in Samaria, and sat beside a well, built up in the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph (John 4:5–6; cf. Gen 33:19; 48:22; Josh 24:32).
After Pompey, the Roman general who captured Palestine (63 BCE), Sychar replaced Shechem as the most important Samaritan city.3 Jacob had erected an altar, called El-Elohe-Israel (“God, the God of Israel”), in the land of Shechem (Gen 33:18–20) and he would have dug also a well (literally “a spring of water”). Out of tiredness and thirst, Jesus sat down to rest in about the “sixth hour” (12 noon) near the well, which was called “Jacob’s Well” (4:6), probably by leaning on the wall built around the well. The indication of time is not only to highlight the historical reliability of Jesus’ ministry in Samaria, but also the fact that it was a high day when living beings needed water to quench their thirst (cf. Gen 29:7). Jesus’ weariness and thirst (4:7) prove his full humanity and his supernatural knowledge (4:1) proves his full divinity (cf. 1:47–48; 2:23–25).
Jesus’ self-revelation to the Samaritan woman (4:7–26)
A woman of Samaria came to draw water from the well. She came alone in the midday, when usually not many women come to the well. This shows that the woman had been isolated from other women because of her perversion from moral standard (cf. 4:16–18). Jesus takes the initiative to start his dialogue with her by asking for water (literally “Give me to drink”; 4:7). Truly Jesus needed water to quench his thirst, but at the same time it is ironic that the one who can supply living water to quench her thirst forever is the one who asks her for water to drink (4:14; cf. 19:28). At this point, John comments that Jesus’ disciples had gone away into the city to buy food (4:8), providing to the dialogue a relevant setting.
As the woman found Jesus to be a Jew, she said with astonishment, “How do you, being a Jew, ask from me, a Samaritan
