One of the Bible’s clearest and most powerful explanations of religious liberty is found in the story of Jesus and His conversation with the woman at the well. The story begins with the simple explanation, “And He had to pass through Samaria [on His way to Galilee]” (John 4:4). The transformed life that emerges at the end of the story makes it clear that Jesus had to pass through Samaria because the Holy Spirit had a divine appointment waiting for Jesus. The lesson? Religious liberty never happens accidentally. It is always the result of someone listening to and obeying the directions of the Holy Spirit.
Samaria was located north of Jerusalem, in the area once occupied by the ten northern tribes of Israel. After the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians and many of the surviving Israelites were carried away captive, “[T]he king of Assyria brought men from Babylon…and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof” (2 Kings 17:24). When lions began killing some of these Samarian immigrants, an Israelite priest was brought in to “teach them the manner of the God of the land” (2 Kings 17:27). What resulted was a mixture of true and false worship. The Bible says of the Babylonian inhabitants of Samaria, “So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places…and served their own gods” (2 Kings 17:32, 33). The lesson? Mixed worship of God means no worship of God, and in the end, slavery to sin and the absence of religious liberty.
In the story, Jesus stops to rest at a town called Sychar, which means “drunken.” It is here that He meets a woman coming to draw water from Jacob’s well. The prophetic symbolism of the setting is significant. A woman often represents a church in Bible prophecy―so here is a woman, or church, that lives in a drunken city in a land of Babylonian confusion. The connections with the prophecies of Revelation are hard to miss. Revelation chapter seventeen depicts a harlot, or fallen church, with the name “BABYLON THE GREAT” written on her forehead. Chapter eighteen describes Babylon as a place of spiritual confusion, full of “devils, and the hold of every foul spirit” in which the “nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Revelation 18:2, 3). The entire picture is one of spiritual depravity and illicit relationships between the harlot, or the church, and the nations of the world.
The story in John 4 soon reveals that this woman at the well has also made poor choices in her relationships with men and, in many ways, can unfortunately be compared to the harlot in Revelation. Yet buried deep beneath her fallen lifestyle is an honest heart searching for truth and for freedom from sin, and it is the unspoken cry of this heart that caught the attention of the Savior. By the end of the story, God has set her free and, in doing so, also reveals the path to freedom for wayward people and churches today.
Jesus begins the conversation by asking the woman for a drink of water—a request for hospitality and courtesy that a Jew of that time would rarely ask of a Samaritan. The gesture of trust awakens curiosity, and the woman soon finds herself in a conversation with the unusually kind Man. Jesus eventually makes the woman a startling offer. “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13, 14).
Although the woman lived in a town called “Drunken” in a land of spiritual confusion, she immediately recognized that this Man was offering something she could never draw herself from Jacob’s well. One can imagine the woman standing there in front of Jesus, with the memories from a lifetime of bad choices and heart-wrenching consequences flooding her mind. She suddenly realizes that what she desires more than anything else is freedom from sin, liberty of the heart and mind, and an opportunity to begin a new life with true emotional, physical, and spiritual freedom from the things that have held her in bondage. As the longing for spiritual refreshment and cleansing wells up inside of her, she suddenly realizes that this Man represents her only hope of freedom. The cry nearly burst from her lips, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw” (John 4:15).
Jesus has successfully brought the woman to the place where she recognizes her need for divine intervention to experience freedom from sin. But before He can give her this gift, she must be willing to bring something to Him. If she refuses, she will remain forever in spiritual bondage. If she fails here, her newly realized hope of freedom will never materialize. If she withdraws now, Jesus will never be able to reveal Himself to her as the Messiah and Savior of the world.
“Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither” (John 4:16). In seven short words, Jesus goes to the one place in the woman’s life that she hopes will never be revealed. He reveals the weakness at the root of her sin. He unmasks the string of choices that have defined who she is and how she lives, and asks her to surrender the mindset that has kept her in bondage to sin.
In the Bible, marriage represents the union of a man and a woman into “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). The meaning goes far beyond the merely physical. The book of Ephesians uses marriage as an analogy to describe the union that Jesus Christ wants with His people. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). The church’s marriage relationship with Christ requires more than just the Savior’s love, however. It also requires surrender and submission by the church. Ephesians 5:22 says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord,” and verse 24 repeats this command with the words, “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” The husband represents that to which the woman is submitted. In a spiritual sense, the husband represents anything to which the church has submitted itself. And because we cannot serve two masters, the church cannot be submitted to Christ and to the world at the same time. It must choose who its master will be.
The woman immediately understands what Jesus is requiring of her, and she quickly answers, “I have no husband” (John 4:17). She might as well have said, “I have no illicit relationships. I am submitted to no one. There is nothing that controls me. I am a free moral agent and have done nothing wrong in my past relationships with the world.” Jesus responds with prophetic insight, “Thou hast said well, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly” (John 4:17, 18).
The mask is ripped away, and the woman stands exposed for who she has become—no longer a pure bride, but a harlot. Five failed marriages have culminated in a sixth controlling relationship that does not even claim the veneer of lawfulness and decency. The woman’s religious liberty and entire future depend upon her answer. Will she admit her wrongdoing and surrender to Christ the relationships that have kept her submitted to, and controlled by, the world?
Desperate to change the subject, the woman swings the conversation to matters of minor theological significance. She asks Jesus if the correct place of worship is in Samaria or Jerusalem. The question betrays a pagan mindset that confines God and His service to a specific place or region rather than to all of creation. That mindset is reflected today when Christians act like it is possible to serve God while also being united with the world.
Jesus’ reply to the woman is direct yet filled with love. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). The truth for the woman on this day was that to be set free from sin, she must surrender to Christ every other controlling relationship. She looks at this Man standing in front of her, and weighs the decision in her mind. Six men have previously promised her the world, yet have left her in bondage to sin. Will this seventh Man be different? Could He actually be the perfect husband? Will He give her freedom and victory over sin? She pauses, and then makes her choice. “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things” (John 4:25).
The issue of religious liberty hinges on the same choice today. Will the church fully accept Christ as its master, or will it remain submitted to the world and its policies, philosophies, customs, and expectations? The truth can set us free, but we must be willing to surrender everything that separates us from the Freedom-Giver. The power belongs to God. The choice is ours.