 This video is part of a study series titled Biblical Salvation Settled Wonsome for All. Please see the playlist link in the video description. In this video we carry on our study of John's Gospel. So we're now on John chapter 4. This probably won't take as long as it took between chapters 1 and 3 because there's not there's not as much to cover in this chapter. But we've got much more meat coming in chapter 5 and 6 and so on. So We don't need the first six verses. That's just introducing the context of Jesus going to Samaria and coming to the well But we have enough context starting from verse 7. So there came a woman of Samaria to draw water Jesus said on to her give me to drink For his disciples were gone away on to the city to buy meat then said the woman of Samaria on to him How is it that you being a Jew ask a drink of me, which I'm a woman of Samaria For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans Jesus answered and said on to her if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you give me to drink You would have asked of him and he would have given you living water The woman said on to him sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep From whence then have you about living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob which gave us the well and drank there of himself and his children and his cattle? so Jesus introduces this concept here of Living water. Okay, we will see in a few verses later that this is Associated with eternal life. It's just not been made quite as clear yet But it comes as no surprise that we'll see that in a few verses But it comes as no surprise that we have similarities in this dialogue With other passages about eternal life and living water. So for example It is a gift of God as we see here as is described in Ephesians 2 8 and 9 for by grace You say through faith and that not of yourselves. Why because it is the gift of God not of works unless any man should boast Notice that receiving the living water is as simple as asking to receive so it says, you know You would ask if you knew this gift This is similar language to Revelation 22 17 and the spirit and the bride say come and let him that he is say come and let him that is a first come And whosoever will let him take the water of life freely. So you ask it's freely received the water of life And he's it's given freely there Now the Samaritan woman doesn't grasp the concept of living water rather like how Nicodemus perhaps didn't grasp the concept of being Born again However, unlike Nicodemus this woman will be receptive to Jesus words and so you know she will ask for this living water as well We'll see in a few verses So in verse 13 carrying on this conversation Jesus answered and said on to her Whosoever drinks of this water that's at the well obviously shall first again But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him which was the living water shall never first But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life The woman said on to him, sir, give me this water that I thirst not neither come here to draw So Jesus quite clearly shows here that this living water is Associated with everlasting life. That's the context of what he means So, you know, it's nothing to do with drinking a communion or anything like that That that's how it's been applied to drinking the water is associated with taking eternal life So we have a clear passage with eternal life as the context Jesus plainly said that by drinking this water of eternal life We shall never thirst. Okay. Not what we might first. We shall never thirst So if we can lose or forfeit our eternal life Technically, you can't get away from the fact that this means we will be thirsty again And I'll show this demonstrated on the next slide And ultimately that would conclude that the living water Did not do what Jesus said it would do So this is very consistent with what Jesus is saying here This is very consistent with the language used in John chapter 3 when we looked at that in my previous video when Jesus described to Nicodemus the concept of Being born again. Well being born is a one-time event. It's not an ongoing life-long process as people misapply it That's what being born means. It's a one-time event. You were born once as a baby So just in the same way as being born in the spirit is a one-time event Therefore because that's how Jesus equates it. Otherwise the equation would make no sense So drinking the living water that springs up into everlasting life Never needs to be drank again unlike the physical water from the well. Okay, which Jesus has already just pointed out there I mean he's spelling out for us here So just as trying to turn the concept of being born again into a lifelong process is counter-intuitive to the very meaning of being born It's equally ridiculous to make the living water a Constant drink that we must continue to drink over our lifetime or risk losing eternal life because then the comparison With the water at the well doesn't work because we'd still have a continual thirst Okay, and again this analogy wouldn't work if that's how you're gonna play So the next diagram will help give a visual on what I've been trying to explain between John chapters 3 and 4 so far now in this diagram here I've put forward a dichotomy that I didn't address in my previous video because we're starting off simple We're getting more complex as we work our way through this series. So There's two schools of thought and they're completely opposed. Okay, there's no meeting in the middle for these two They're completely opposing doctrines. They cannot be brought together You either believe one or you believe the other So the first school of thought is eternal security or sometimes known as one saved always saved and ultimately that what that means is once You've believed you're saved you have a everlasting life You can't lose that life now if you sin after you're saved You still keep that life now. There's obviously the issue of what happens when we sin And I can't address that yet because we've not come up to the relevant passages It will become more apparent as we progress through the series But that's the premise is that you you pass on to life eternal and you have it forever There's no losing it. There's no going back from there. Okay, even if you slide back slide fall You still are technically saved you still technically have eternal life. You're just falling in a carnal sense The other school of thought is conditional security and this is where we can lose salvation So if you stop believing or if even if you sin too much You know, if you fall too deep in sin, you can lose your salvation You essentially forfeit it and you have to start the repentance and believing all over again So taking this statement that of drinking the water of eternal life This guy under the eternal security model He drinks the water so he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is passed from death on to life He has eternal life. He shall not come into condemnation. He's born again We can say that about him. He has drank the living water and we can say definitively He will never first again. We can objectively say that about it Now one of the conditional security models So he drinks the living water believes on the Lord Jesus Christ gets born again He's saved but then he sins or he stumbles and he falls back down and loses his salvation Well, now he's gone thirsty again. He needs to drink that water all over again So he goes through that process becomes born again again But then something happens. He stumbles and he falls again and loses his salvation again Well, now he's got thirsty a third time So again, he needs to go through this repentance process of drinking the water going back into his eternal life status And this is essentially what conditional security is it's kind of bouncing back and forth between these two And so the objective is to try and stay above this line when you die. That's basically the objective So we cannot really say the same about this man we can't say that he will never thirst again because Well, he might die quenched if he's lucky maybe God will grant him a favor and allow him to die in this position But then there's also a risk that he might die here See if he dies while he's in this state, he's gonna die thirsty. So the living water Didn't do its job. Okay, and there's all this to be considered about If God is keeping us and God keep us on the right track and is able to keep us Why he would allow him to die down here because he could have seen to it that maybe he died there So that he wouldn't go there I'm not gonna address that right now because it's still early days and really this isn't even the clearest passage to address this We're gonna get a lot better stuff coming out of John chapter 5 stronger stuff coming out of John chapter 6 and Strong stuff coming out of John chapter 10 So I'm gonna revisit this but this is gonna start the premise of Consistent themes that are gonna keep coming up throughout John's gospel the more we read it. Okay So it will just become more apparent as and then through this lens once we understand this And we understand how this works Then we can correctly interpret the warnings about falling away and not continuing in faith to those that abide in it So we must grasp this but before we can actually understand Those concepts in the right way when the Bible says things like falling away or not abiding in him Now I'm not gonna labor this point too much for now because it will become more clear later But just picking up from verse 10 where Jesus said if you knew the gift of God You know, you would say give me to drink so we won't unpack too much now what this actually means But it's quite a powerful understanding in our salvation that will become apparent later in the series particularly when we understand what it means to be a new creature and walking in the spirit and so forth and so picking up on this if you knew the gift of God So then to say under the conditional security model that we can lose salvation does raise some fundamental problems Namely that if if we know this gift of God and we understand this gift of God Why would we ever? Willingly choose to forfeit our salvation because they'll say things like well You are free will so you can choose to give your salvation up with the problem is if you knew that gift Why you would ever willingly give that up if you if you knew it and then following the previous study that we did on John chapter 1 3 particularly in chapter 3 if we must be born again or born in the spirit To enter into the kingdom of heaven Why would a born-again spirit? Choose to depart from salvation. So this is a problem with the free will argument that we've not really unpacked enough of The Bible yet in this series to be able to answer that now So well, I'll cover that later and we'll revisit what Jesus said here in John chapter 4 So let's get back to the passage in verse 16. Jesus said on to her go call your husband and come here The woman answered and said I have no husband Jesus said on to her you have well said I have no husband If you had five husbands and he whom you now have is not your husband in that same truly The woman said on to him sir. I perceive that you are a prophet So there's not too much to cover in these verses. I just want you to notice that Jesus isn't Constantly badgering her about her sins and banging on about repent of your sins to be saved But he does address the issue though that this woman does it does indeed have sin so a lot of these preachers that stand on soapboxes in the middle of city centers they It's like they preach 90% sin and repentance of sin and then 10% the actual act of how Jesus saves us and that Jesus brings eternal life But really Jesus does address here that the woman does indeed have sin and and she really already knows this She even confessed it So it doesn't need constantly harping on about and and a lot of these repent of your sins preachers They constantly harp on about this and it's like okay. Well, you keep pointing out everyone sins But what do they actually need to do to be saved and that's they seem to talk very little about that often so My friend James Nelson and I when we're giving the gospel and we we do address it We do talk about it and we do cover it. We explain to people that there is sinner in need of a savior But a lot of people don't necessarily have a problem understanding that anyway, but we need to focus on how to be saved So that's just a side comment. It's not majorly important for now as far as our salvation doctrine is concerned Continuing our conversation then in verse 20 our fathers worshipped in this mountain and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men are to worship Jesus said on to her woman Believe me the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the father You worship you you know, not what we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews But the hour comes and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father seeks such to worship him God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth The woman said on to him. I know that Messiah comes which is called Christ When he is come he will tell us all things Jesus said on to her I that speak on to you. I'm he so there's not a huge amount of salvation doctrine We can take from this passage per say as opposed to how to actually be saved or how we apply salvation It does not say that salvation is given to those who worship in spirit and in truth rather because the Jews have salvation Because Jews salvation is of the Jews Therefore they're the ones who are the true worshippers that worship the father in spirit and in truth at least at the time when Jesus was talking and Just like today you might say that salvation is of the Christians But much like the Jews before is it does not mean that all Christians are saved and actually Probably the minority actually So to worship God in spirit and in truth We must know who we worship and to know who we worship. We must have salvation So we must get salvation, right? And I bring this up now not because I need to really make cover it now as it's been obvious so far But groups such as Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church They make these arbitrary claims to monopolize salvation because they descend from a line going back to the apostles and Because they can evidence supposedly what what early Christians believed But really they can only evidence the Christians that they bothered to preserve what they believed So just as the Samaritan woman based her worship on what her fathers did and the Jews and the Pharisees Equally made this this claim on account of being the children of Abraham, which we'll see later in in John's Gospel This did not actually warrant their salvation as Jesus will repeatedly prove throughout John's Gospel Because they had a false salvation and that stemmed from false doctrine, which so does the Catholic and the Orthodox Church So it's a false gospel you can claim to be from a line of popes or Descendants all you want. It's meaningless if you have a false gospel, okay? Now it's not clear that's not clear enough from this passage It will just become more apparent as you understand more about salvation when you Study the Bible about how much they just make stuff up to be perfectly honest So but for now we'll just carry on moving through the passage anyway now between verses 27 to 33 The disciples questioned Jesus, so we've moved away from the the woman at the well to the disciples questioning Jesus about that exchange Jesus then said on to him in verse 34 at my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work Do not say that they're off yet for months and then comes harvest Behold I say unto you lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white already to harvest and He that reaps receives wages and gathers gathers fruit on to life eternal That both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together and Hearing is that same true one sows and another reaps. I Sent you to reap where on you bestowed no labor or the men labored and you are entered into their labors so To be honest if it's not already immediately obvious what the context of this this red bit is in verse 36 This is not an instruction for you to get eternal life or how to get it It's a reference to the fact that a saved believer can now get other people saved by preaching the correct gospel because unsaved people Will only ever preach a false gospel if any at all So they will not reap any fruit on to life eternal But those who preach the right gospel they can get other people saved and to be honest The harvest is plenty and the laborers really are fruit, you know few neither has a true statement being known So that's all we really need to take from that So let's move into verse 39 and many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman Which testified he told me all that he ever did that I ever did. Sorry So when the Samaritans were come on to him They besought him that he would tarry with them and he abode their two days and many more believed because of his own word and Said on to the woman now we believe not because of your saying for we have heard him ourselves I know that this is indeed the Christ the savior of the world now This is not necessarily the strongest Proof text for the point I'm about to make But notice that the some many Samaritans Believed on Christ because of the woman saying there in verse 39 But then many more believed because of Christ's own words and so Again, this is not that necessarily the clearest passage for this point But when it when it comes to sharing the gospel Unsaved people cannot understand the Bible themselves So we can't just expect to give people the Bible leave them be let them get on with it and just assume They will come to the truth themselves without was actually bothering to expound it for them Many people read the Bible for themselves and come up with all sorts of crackpot doctrines Okay Rather a saved person is required to expound the word of God and explain it to the unsaved Likewise though the flip side to that is that man's own words without any help from God's word Does not really have the same power as the word of God And so I'll get on to this in the next slide But we should really avoid using Christian ease nomenclature that no normal person understands because you risk Undermining the gospel or unintentionally preaching a false gospel which I'll show on the next slide So just a couple of verses to show this point Romans 10 14 how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher? So Roman shows that a preacher is required for people to hear and believe on Christ Okay, he doesn't say we'll just give him a Bible say see you later and never see him again And just let them figure it out for themselves. It doesn't say that it requires preaching That's why he says go ye and all the world preach the gospel to every creature And then in Acts 8 31 and he the Ethiopian eunuch said how can I accept some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. So this is the Ethiopian eunuch wanting some help to Understand the Bible. I actually probably should have put the preceding verse in there But but never mind so the point is that we don't just give people a Bible Let them read God's word and figure it out for themselves. We need to expound it We need to preach it But on the other hand we don't get so obsessed with our preaching that we start using all our own little weird Christianese terms and not using the word of God because really Christians end up saying some stupid things. So let me just show you this on the next slide So when you're sharing the gospel with other people Stick to using simple biblical language such as what Jesus is using in God John's gospel You know, he's saying whosoever believes in me shall not perish. He's using very simple Easy to understand language and not only is it easy for us to understand. It's easy for us to explain as well Avoid using Christian ease nomenclature because really this leaves people confused And here's a few examples of some of the most annoying catchphrases in Christian circles for preaching of the gospel Number one the one that I hate the most is this repent of your sins to be saved This phrase is never found in the Bible Except erroneously in the new trip living translation, which I won't touch with the barge public. That's another story It muddies the waters between salvation by faith without works and works of obedience required for salvation Okay, it starts to muddy that that fine line there Now it is true the Bible does Frequently use the word repent Okay Sometimes in a salvation context, but not always sometimes it's talking about repentance in a non-salvation subject It never tax this phrase of your sins at the end of it That's just people that people add on the end of it and this is the most annoying catchphrase in Christianity. Okay The Bible never says repent of your sins to be saved. Okay chapter and verse you can't find it Unless maybe for you using the the new living translation, but I haven't checked them out now Denominations that that blatantly have a works salvation like Catholicism or Mormonism They actually don't have a problem with using that catchphrase. Okay, they like it just as much as other Christians do So if people who preach works for salvation Keep using this phrase and don't have a problem with it Then Christians who actually believe in faith alone need to start distancing themselves from that catchphrase Okay, you need to start thinking of something else to say preferably whosoever believeth, but that's that's another another thing for another day Also, the book of Mormon Frequently uses the phrase repent of your sins over and over and over again and any Christian who's not not a Mormon would have to Conclude that that book is basically satanic. Okay, it's not the word of God We don't acknowledge it. We don't put it in our Bible and it keeps saying repent of your sins over and over again So again, we want to distance ourselves from that if we're not Mormons Now it is confusing it confuses people when they genuinely want to be saved They believe in Jesus But they do still struggle with sin and they wonder if they're not saved now because of this stupid catchphrase that told them They have to turn from your sins, but then they recognize that they're still struggling with sin and they're still praying To God for help with those sins and they're still battling with those sins sometimes for many years. Okay Now I plan to do a video later in this series about defining Repentance Sometimes it does mean from sin. Okay, there are examples of where the context of repentance is from sin but not necessarily in a salvation context now We saw at the beginning of our series or when we did John chapter 1 through 3 that John's gospel is written for the purpose of you to believe in having eternal life And he doesn't ever mention the word repent once Now if you actually understand what the word repent means in a salvation context It just means turn from unbelief to belief then it makes perfect sense why John never said it because it's already implied in the word Believe all right, but I'm not gonna get too much on that now because as I say John doesn't really mention the word repent So there's no point covering it now. We'll have to cover it later in the series, and I'll give repentance its own Video if I can so that's the first annoying catchphrase over the second annoying one is surrender your life to Jesus Okay, and again, this is a ridiculous catchphrase. Why? Because the unsaved person is dead in sin. He has no life to surrender to Christ It's Christ that gives life abundantly Christ already surrendered his life on the cross We don't surrender our life because it has no value to begin with so again this phrase surrender your life to Jesus It confuses people it makes people start to border and work salvation stop using it. It's a stupid phrase This one submit yourself to Christ, Lord. I don't even know what that means to be honest I mean sometimes it said as make Jesus the Lord of your life. That's another way of saying it but as far as I'm concerned Jesus is Lord whether you make him Lord or not. Okay now what you should do is call upon the name of the Lord Believing in him right doesn't say submit yourself to his lordship whatever that's supposed to mean It says call upon the name of the Lord and you shall be saved. Okay Come down to the altar and pray the sinner's prayer now again I agree with this one This is found nowhere in the Bible and it's actually very very embarrassing For people like me who believe in faith alone and believe in eternal security Because we get falsely associated with the people who preach this because People who don't believe in faith alone and people who don't believe in eternal security They'll point to Christians that said well, how do you know you're say well, you know I came to the altar and I prayed a prayer and well. Yeah Well, I know they're not saved if that's their answer Okay, you didn't need to tell me that but I get lumped with those people just by default So that is really embarrassing and it is false. The Bible says whosoever believe in him It doesn't say whosoever come up down the altar and pray at them. Okay, and this is another irritating one You need a personal relationship with Jesus Now the word relationship is never found in more literal translations of the Bible It's usually reserved for looser or heretical translations Relationships take work and salvation is not of works and the correct biblical word for relationship He's actually fellowship, but fellowship is for those who are already saved So this thing you need a personal relationship with Jesus Well, then John would keep telling us if he's trying to tell us how to have eternal life He would keep telling us to have a personal relationship with Jesus. That's not what he's doing He's telling us to believe on him. Let's believe on him first Let's get saved first then let's worry about having a personal relationship with Jesus And I'm all for having you having a personal relationship with Jesus, but not for your salvation Salvation is believing on him. So now that I've got that off me chest. Let's go back to the passage Verse 43 now after two days he departed from there and went into Galilee for Jesus himself Testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country Then when he was coming to Galilee the Galileans received him having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast For they also went on to the feast So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee where he made the water wine and there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee He went on to him and he sought him that he would come down and heal his son for he was at the point of death Then said Jesus on to him Except you see signs and wonders you will not believe so I want to focus on verse 48 But these verses I only included them for context. There's nothing I need to pull out of those So this statement here except you see signs and wonders you will not believe this statement could be Misconstrued that we have to perform miracles and have powerful testimonies of miracles in order to convince people To accept the gospel, but this is particularly problematic in new new apostolic reformation movements health and wealth movements who have false gospel anyway, but The problem is this undermines the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit because it's the power of the gospel That's the salvation of men not not miracles Okay, miracles are a bonus really for those who already believe but it's that it's the gospel to get people to believe now This is obviously an unusual Response by Jesus because he was normally Critical of those who saw all sorts signs and wonders and we see this in these passages here from Matthew's gospel So in 16 for a wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and there shall no sign be given on to it But the sign of the prophet Jonas and he left them and departed and then in chapter 11 verse 21 He says woe unto you chores in woe on to you Bethsaida for if the mighty works Which were done in you had been done in tire inside on they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes So Jesus shows criticism of groups who either sought signs and wonders or did see them and didn't believe anyway So it's quite unusual that Jesus Responded in this way now so it begs the question why you know why why did Jesus do that so The thing is it's not really made clear exactly why but remember that Jesus knows the thoughts of men and there's verses in the Bible that I've put there that show that Jesus knows that he knows the thoughts that are in men So let's just look at a couple of verses around verse 48 just to show what happened differently in this particular approach So notice that it was the nobleman that approached Jesus. Okay, Jesus didn't approach the nobleman in this exchange But the nobleman approached Jesus to seek healing of his son So he was not just seeking signs and wonders to be impressed of selfish motives, you know He had concern for his son. We all do as believers Don't we you know, we want people to be healed and you don't have to be a believer to want your family healed It's a perfectly loving thing to want for people. So Perhaps if Jesus had not responded to this healing the nobleman would have had doubts that Jesus is the Christ so Jesus's miracles the purpose of them is not to impress people into believing on him. Okay Jesus himself said only a wicked generation seeks a sign and the only sign that's given to them is the sign of the Prophet Jonas referring to Jesus as death burial and resurrection. Okay The purpose of his other miracles though is to demonstrate to us as believers and as his people that he is the Christ That's the primary purpose. He said things later in John like If you don't believe me believe the works that I do which he was saying to a Jewish people Which we should have been his people really that will just become more apparent as the series progresses But we'll see that later. But anybody could just come up and say I'm Jesus everybody, you know But his miracles actually proved that he was the Christ That's how we know he was the Christ because other people that go around saying I'm Jesus don't do the things that Jesus actually did. All right But that's slightly outside the context of salvation though. So I won't really dwell on that and then after verse 48 It says in verse 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said on Tim Your son lives and himself believed in his whole house So in response to the healing the nobleman and his household Belief so they were just you know, they were receptive to Jesus and so You know Jesus just said if you haven't seen these signs if you haven't seen the ceiling you might not have believed So that's all we can really take for that. We don't want to Try and turn this into something It's not like the the new apostolic reformation and other groups like that do do seem to do with this first And so this concludes our study of John chapter 4 It's built upon the truths already established in John chapter 3 particularly in relation to being born again and drinking the water of eternal life That salvation is to those who believe the transition to eternal life happens in a moment So this will just become more apparent as we progress in our study through John's gospel in the upcoming videos that I'm going to be Doing going through chapter 5 going through chapter 6 We're just going to get stronger and stronger verses Especially when we get to John chapter 10 That's going to be particularly exciting And then later in the series we're going to have to deal with the more difficult passages like John chapter 14 and 15 Where to the untrained eye seems like is undermining what what he's actually said in the earlier chapters And so it's important that we understand those in the right way. So if you've read this far watch this far Sorry, thank you very much for for keeping up with me. I hope that you're getting something out of it