Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

John 4:38

John 4:38. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not toiled: others have toiled, and ye have entered into their toil. The disciples are the reapers of this harvest; their commission including, however, that of the disciples of Jesus throughout all time was to reap a harvest which had not been prepared by their own toil. Whatever toil may be theirs, it is toil in reaping, in joyfully gathering the results of earlier toil. The surprise and gladness with which they would shortly witness the faith of the men of Sychar was an emblem of what should repeat itself continually in the history of the Church. While the disciples are reapers, this harvesting in Samaria shows clearly who is the sower, whose has been the earlier toil. The words point to Jesus Himself. From beginning to end of the narrative His ‘word,' first in the conversation with the woman, and then as spoken to the Samaritans (John 4:39), is the instrument by which the joyful result is gained. Nor must we limit our thought of His ‘toil' to what is related of the work of this evening by Jacob's well. The ‘toil' that has made any harvest possible is that of His whole mission. All that was necessary that He might be able to say ‘I am the Christ,' the self-renunciation and sorrow and pain of His atoning and redeeming work, virtually included in His one act of acceptance of that work, and present to His thought from the beginning, is involved in His ‘toil.' He says, indeed, ‘ Others have toiled,' and neither here nor in chap. John 3:11 can we take the plural as simply standing for the singular. He Himself is chiefly intended, but others are joined as having shared in the preparatory work. He had been alone in conversing with the woman of Samaria; but He had taken up and made use of all that she had received from the teaching of Moses (John 4:25), and all that the Jews had learnt from the prophets. Thus He includes with Himself those who had prepared the way for His coming. For Him, and therefore with Him, they too had ‘toiled;' but all His servants who come after Him find the field prepared, the toil past, the harvest of that toil ready to be reaped.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

John 4:38

Old Testament

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