In the passage in John which we are considering, however, we learn that our Lord

Himself entered a city of the Samaritans and that many were saved, a firstfruits of those

"other sheep" (John 10: 16) for whose blessing this Gospel was written.  "Go not"

(Matt. 10:) and "Must needs go" (John 4: 4) mark the two dispensational aspects of these

two Gospels. Matthew's purpose would not have been served by revealing this ministry

of the Lord, for he set forth the Saviour as the seed of David and of Abraham, Israel's

King. John had another purpose in view. This same Christ, Who was Israel's King and

Messiah, came to give life where death abounded, but He had limited His earthly ministry

to Israel, because of the peculiar place they occupied in the purpose of the ages, yet that

one life, death and resurrection is the basis of all callings, all salvation, all hope. Thus

Paul revealed facts concerning that one sacrifice which, though surely accomplished,

were as surely unknown at the time, even as John also revealed, by his inspired selection

of the earthly ministry of Christ, a wider purpose of God than could be gathered from

Matthew's narrative.

We must remember that dispensational changes take place when the time for their

announcement arrives, not when the work upon which they rest was accomplished.

Whether recorded by Matthew or by John, by Peter or by Paul, it is the same Christ and

the same cross; the same resurrection and the same ascension, but the doctrines that are

related to that one work of Christ vary considerably, and are made known only in their

appointed seasons.

John the Baptist not only said "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand", but

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world".  The former

utterance was made known by Matthew, who did not include the latter, whereas John

ignores the former and include the latter. It is therefore suggestive of the non-Jewish

trend of the Gospel of John that he is inspired to record the ministry of the Lord in

Samaria. Moreover, it is in entire accord with the confessed purpose of John in writing

this record, which was:

This Woman of Samaria is led on to believe that Jesus is the Christ, and many of her

own townspeople believed with her. Just as Nicodemus stumbled at the announcement of

the new birth, saying, "How?" (John 3: 4) so, at first, the woman took the reference to

"living water" physically, saying: "Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is

deep: from whence then hast Thou that living water?"

The testimony given to Nicodemus is prefaced by the words, "And needed not that

any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man" (John 2: 25). It was this same,

intimate, knowledge that convicted the woman of Samaria. When she admitted that she

had no husband, the Lord revealed that He knew all about it, and that she had previously

had five husbands; consequently, upon her return to the city, she said:--