A Great Exchange

Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him…

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:27-30… 39-42).

She came to the well thirsty. She came carrying a heavy water jar. She came bearing a heavy heart overflowing with guilt and shame. She came from a town inhabited by outcasts, but it was her town and they were her people. She met “the Messiah” (see John 4:25-26). He gave her “living water” (John 4:10). Immediately everything changed. Her thirst for water was replaced by a compulsion to tell her people about the Christ. She was so driven that she left her water jar and went away into town. Her report of the encounter with Jesus was so compelling that Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. During the next two days many more of her neighbors believed after hearing His words in person. The Holy Spirit inspired John to record the conversion of this Samaritan woman in great detail in order to reveal a precious truth about salvation. When a sinner is saved something marvelous happens. We might call it a great exchange.

The Spirit of Truth paints a wonderful picture here of the exchange that occurs when a sinner becomes a saint. Can you recall your conversion? Some of us had a dramatic encounter with Christ that resulted in immediate and obvious changes in our lives. Others grew up in a Christian home and when we personalized our faith in Christ there was little outward change because we were already immersed in a holy lifestyle by loving Christian parents. Either way, there was a change. We stopped living for self and started living for Christ. The Spirit inspired John to call this exchange the new birth. John wrote that when we receive Christ by faith we are born of God… “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). When the Samaritan villagers heard and believed the words of Jesus in person they experienced the same transformation that the woman at the well experienced. Jesus taught that this exchange is like passing from death to life… “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

The Spirit teaches that in order to make room for the new life in Christ, the old life of self must end. He moved Paul to teach that before we are baptized, or immersed in the new life of Christ we must be crucified, or put to death through Christ… “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). The Spirit of Truth also teaches through Paul that when the old life of self is passed away we are free to become a new creation… “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The Spirit compels Christ followers to imitate the Samaritan woman by exchanging old life of self for new life in Christ. Paul described this exchange… “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Every day we are challenged to replace the cares and concerns of this world with increasing faith and maturing life in Christ.

As we grow up into Christ we no longer live for self, but we live for Him because we’ve experienced…

A Great Exchange.