Yet because so many of the Samaritans in the time of Christ were faithful to the measure of light they had, and kept alive in their hearts the hope of a coming Messiah, God made for them a wonderful way of escape.
Every Bible reader knows and loves that beautiful scene by the well of Sychar, in Samaria, where the Saviour began by asking a woman for water to drink, and ended by explaining to her some of the deepest truths of God's Kingdom.
We understand now why the woman was so surprised that a Jew should condescend to speak to her, and why the Jews would have 'no dealings with the Samaritans.' As we have seen, a great barrier divided her from all ordinary Jewish teachers—she had been taught to believe in an altered Bible.
Not merely a different translation, remember, for the Bible should be the same in every language, but a Book of the Law in which some of the words had been changed and the original meaning destroyed.
So the woman said to our Lord, 'Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.' (John iv. 20.)
The Saviour had not said so, but she felt sure that He, as a Jew, would certainly contradict the old traditions of his countrymen.
But the Lord Jesus Christ had come to show the world that it was no longer a question of this mountain or that. Such matters had been but a shadow of the good things to come. 'God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.' (John iv. 24.)
With these words Jesus, the Messiah, for whom both Jews and Samaritans were waiting, threw down the barrier of ages, and united the two nations in a spiritual worship.