Woman of Samaria
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conform his life and his work to their customs and regulations. He was
not influenced by their unreasonable prejudices against the Gentiles.
He, on the contrary, sternly rebuked their conceit and selfish seclusion.
The Pharisees rejected Christ. They ignored his miracles and the
truthful simplicity of his character. They refused to recognize his
pure and elevated spirituality and all evidences of his divinity. They
scornfully demanded of him a sign that they might know that he was
indeed the Son of God.
But the Samaritans asked no sign, and Jesus performed no miracles
among them; yet they received his teachings, were convicted of their
great need of a Saviour, and accepted him as their Redeemer. They
were therefore in a much more favorable position before God than
the Jewish nation, with its pride and vanity, blind bigotry, narrow
prejudice, and bitter hatred of every other people on the earth. Jesus,
in face of all these prejudices, accepted the hospitality of this despised
people, slept under their roofs, ate with them at their tables—partaking
of the food prepared and served by their hands—taught in their streets,
and treated them with the greatest kindness and courtesy.
In the temple at Jerusalem there was a partition wall separating
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the outer court from the inner one. Gentiles were permitted to enter
the outer court, but it was only lawful for the Jews to penetrate to the
inner inclosure. Had a Samaritan passed this sacred boundary, the
temple would have been desecrated, and his life would have paid the
penalty of its pollution. But Jesus, who was virtually the foundation
and originator of the temple—the services and ceremonies of which
were but a type of his great sacrifice, pointing to him as the Son of
God—encircled the Gentiles with his human arm of sympathy and
association, while, with his divine arm of grace and power, he brought
to them the salvation which the Jews refused to accept.
Jesus had spent several months in Judea, giving the rulers of Israel
a fair opportunity of proving his character as the Saviour of the world.
He had performed many mighty works in their midst; but he was
still treated by them with suspicion and jealousy. In passing through
Samaria on his way to Galilee, his reception among the Samaritans,
and the eagerness with which they listened to his teachings, were in
marked contrast with the incredulity of the Jews, who had misinter-
preted the prophecies of Daniel, Zechariah, and Ezekiel, confusing the
first advent of Christ with his second majestic and glorious appearing.