Jesus has a wonderful interaction with a Samaritan woman in the city of Sychar which was in Samaria. He talked with her of living water and told her details about her own life that He did not learn from gossip among strangers, but because He has the mind of God. This is the conclusion of that conversation:
The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” John 4:19-26
I want to notice a particular short phrase that Jesus utters in His conversation with her at the well. He says in John 4:22, “salvation is of the Jews.”
One could dismiss this as contextual only to the very conversation He is having about Samaritans and the Jews, that He is simply settling a generations-old argument regarding who truly worships God. If this is one’s conclusion, there is a much greater context being missed: the Jews have not been faithfully worshipping God either, though they may have been worshipping in the right place.
There is an important lesson in this that we must acknowledge. True worship is not what mountain we are on or what building we are in. Even if we are in the right place but do not give to God the worship He has defined, our worship is in vain.
And yet, this is not our focus today. Instead, we will consider this comment, “salvation is of the Jews.”
It is easy to mistake this statement to mean that being Jewish is the key to salvation, but that is not the intent. This was the mistake of those early Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision and adherence to times and festivals. Salvation is not Jewishness. No, but salvation has come through the Jewish people and was realized in Judah where Jesus was crucified for the sins of man.
Stephen’s impassioned defense of his faith (Acts 7:2-53) is a repudiation of the failure of God’s people, Jewish people, to recognize the very Messiah they were expecting. It was an indictment of generations of failure and the outright rejection of God and His prophets by those who “received the law by the direction of the angels” and did not keep it.
In the midst of this amazingly concise history of God’s relationship with His children, he asserts,
“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” Acts 7:51-53
While it is a blistering rebuke, it is also a recognition of the fact that God’s plan of salvation, which the Jews spurned, has its heritage through the Jewish people.
On Mount Moriah, after the Angel of Yahweh stayed Abraham’s hand from plunging the knife into Isaac’s chest, God said to him in Genesis 22:18, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” This is a simple but profound prophecy of how through his lineage salvation would come to man in the person of Jesus.
Before Stephen preached his remarkable sermon for which he was killed, also indicting the Jews for killing Jesus, Peter said this regarding this promise of Jesus to the patriarchs of the Jewish faith:
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. Acts 3:13-15
A little later he continues,
Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” Acts 3:24-26
Salvation is of the Jews and was brought to the Jews first. Paul expresses this in Romans 1:16-17, where he says,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
Yes, “for the Jew first” and then for the whole world — “Greek” signifying the gentiles, anyone who was not Jewish — the rest of the world.
It is important, then, for us to be interested in the Old Testament scriptures. It is estimated that there are more than 295 separate references to the Old Testament from quotations. When one accounts for allusions, it is a much more significant number of passages that reflect the impact of the Old Testament upon the New Testament.
That “salvation is of the Jews” ought to entice us to know more about the prophecies and types which are found in the Law and the Prophets.
In fact, in Genesis 22, and the telling of Abraham taking Isaac to Mount Moriah we see two important types, or foreshadowing, in those events.
First, we see Isaac as a type of Christ as he willingly accepts his death to please God. Isaac asks his father
“Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” His father replies, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” (Genesis 22:7-8) Abraham expected to kill his son and fully expected that God would raise him from the dead to fulfill His promise. (Hebrews 11:19)
As important as is Abraham’s obedience, it is Isaac’s own quiet obedience that is notable for its similarity to that of Jesus. He could have struggled against his father and prevailed — escaping before Abraham could attempt to kill him — but he did not. Though he asked about the sacrifice on the way up the mountain, we have no indication that he uttered a word of complaint.
Isaiah prophesied about Jesus in Isaiah 53:7 that “as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” We see this fulfilled in Matthew 26:62-63. Even Jesus asked His Father if there was any other way (Matthew 26:39,42), but quietly resolved to do that which had to be done.
The second type we see in the events at Mount Moriah, we read in Genesis 22:13-14:
Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, Yahweh-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of Yahweh it shall be provided.”
God ultimately provided a lamb to sacrifice in the place of Isaac, just as He provided Jesus to die on the cross of Calvary in our place.
It should be noted that it is no accident of history that God chose Mount Moriah for Abraham.
2 Chronicles 3:1 identifies this same mountain as the place where Solomon built the Temple,
“Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”
We see this verse give further significance to this place.
Also not an accident or coincidence, Jesus was crucified for our sins just a few hundred yards from where the temple stood. Some would conjecture that Jesus’ crucifixion occurred on the very spot where Abraham was with Isaac. We will never know, but whatever the distance, it was very close.
The Jews of the first century knew these things. They knew the prophecies of Isaiah 53 & Psalms 22. And yet, most could not accept Jesus as the Messiah who was foretold. With the benefit of the whole of Scripture, we know that “salvation is of the Jews.”
God set a plan in motion through His people and through the covenant He made with them. Everything always pointed to Jesus and the Cross. Though God’s plan of salvation was accomplished through His long and patient relationship with the Jewish people, how glad are we that He extended His loving redemption to us all?
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. 1 Timothy 1:17