controversies as to infant sprinkling v. adult believer's immersion; into

these controversies we have no call to enter, they lie on the other side of

Acts 28, have no place in the present dispensation, and are legitimate

controversies only among those that practise them.

However, after having taken this high ground, the Saviour can now

descend to details without adopting the attitude of a partisan.

`Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is

of the Jews' (John 4:22).

In this utterance the Lord brings to light two essential elements in

all true worship.  First, `knowledge' which stands in severe contrast with

blind tradition, superstition and unreasonable practices.  Now knowledge in

such matters as worship must come as a revelation, and while the Samaritans

possessed the five books of Moses, they were denied the light and leading of

the rest of the Old Testament.  Here therefore emerges another essential

principle.  True worship must be based upon revealed truth.  This we can see

is expressed negatively in Matthew 15, `in vain they do worship Me, teaching

for doctrines the commandments of men' (Matt. 15:9).

Secondly, the Lord associated together `worship' and `salvation'

implying that worship could not be understood, and would not be acceptable,

apart from salvation.  This salvation, said Christ, was `of the Jews',

because to them had been committed the oracles of God, to them pertained the

promises and the covenants and the service of God, and most important of all,

from them must come, as regards the flesh, the long promised Saviour.  True

worship therefore is regulated according to Divine Revelation, is at the

heart evangelical, and is intimately associated with the Person and Work of

the Saviour.  Judaism itself drew all its power from these sources.  It was a

divinely given religion of types and shadows, it was given only to one people

Israel, it found its fulfilment in the Person and Work of the Saviour, Whose

Person and Work alone made its rites, ceremonies, sacrifices and observances

of any value.

`But 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' (John 4:23).

On two occasions the Gospel of John records the statement `the hour

cometh and now is' (John 4:23; 5:25), and once in a slightly different form

`the hour cometh, yea, is now come' (John 16:32).  Weymouth (New Testament in

Modern Speech, Third Ed.) rightly translates John 16:32, `the time is coming,

nay, has already come', for eleluthen is the perfect of erchomai.  In John

4:23 and 5:25, the original reads kai nun estin, which unfortunately Weymouth

translates exactly as he does the different words of John 16:32.  Kai nun

estin can only be translated correctly by the words `and now is'.  How are we

to understand this expression, `and now is'?  In John 5:25 it is seen to be

the present spiritual equivalent of the future physical resurrection.  In

John 4, however, the Temple at Jerusalem still stood, and the prophetic words

`your house is left unto you desolate' had not been pronounced.  In chapter 2

the Temple had been referred to as `My Father's house' and even in the period

covered by the early part of the Acts of the Apostles, it was not

inconsistent, evidently, for Peter and John to go up to that Temple at the

hour of prayer.