John is a wonderful book. Firstly, it gives us an old gentleman, and following this a very immoral woman. Nicodemus had come to the Lord Jesus, but this immoral woman didn’t come to the Lord Jesus. Rather the Lord went to her. We have to realize this is the portable, traveling tabernacle. You shouldn’t laugh at this. Don’t forget that Paul spoke of the Rock that followed them (1 Cor. 10:4). If you can say that the Rock followed them, surely you can say that the tabernacle followed them. In fact in the wilderness the tabernacle did follow them for at least thirty-eight years. So in the Gospel of John the tabernacle traveled from that old man in Judea to a thirsty, immoral woman in Samaria. The Lord’s intention, the tabernacle’s intention, was to attract her to enter into the tabernacle, to enter into Himself. But she didn’t know this. She pretended to be so religious. She talked about worshipping God and religion. She was not only immoral but religious.
She had come to draw water, and the Lord spoke to her concerning the living water. When she asked that the Lord would give her the living water, He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here” (John 4:16). What is the husband? This is one of the trespasses. The Lord touched her main trespass. That one trespass implied others. Then she lied to the Lord by telling part of the truth, making even another trespass. She said that she didn’t have a husband, so the Lord helped her to confess: “You have well said, I don’t have a husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; this you said truly” (vv. 17, 18). What was this? The Lord Jesus helped this immoral woman who was full of trespasses to realize her sins.
When such a gentleman as Nicodemus came the Lord didn’t ask him to call his wife. Nicodemus was a gentleman and very ethical. I am pretty sure he did not have more than one wife. So the Lord didn’t need to touch him by his trespasses. Outwardly, perhaps he had few trespasses, but what about his nature? His nature had been bitten by the old serpent four thousand years ago. When Adam was bitten there in the garden, Nicodemus was also bitten, and that poisonous nature was in Nicodemus. The Lord’s word was marvelous, indicating that although Nicodemus was moral and ethical and gentle and good outwardly, inwardly his nature was that of a serpent.
In the very next chapter, in dealing with the immoral woman the Lord didn’t try to touch her sinful nature. The Lord touched her trespasses. The Lord knew that she was altogether immoral. She had had five husbands. Not one of her husbands had satisfied her, so she was still thirsty. His talk with her was to help her realize that she had a lot of trespasses, so she needed the One who was perfect to be her trespass offering.
In John 8 there is another case. The Pharisees, the self-righteous ones, brought another immoral woman to the Lord Jesus saying, “Teacher, this woman has been caught committing adultery, in the very act. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such persons. What then do you say?” (John 8:4-5). Their intention was just to destroy the Lord’s position and name. So the Lord gave them a little instruction. He said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” This means that the Lord even touched them not only by their outward trespasses, but also by their inward sinful nature. When all those self-righteous ones heard this word, it touched their conscience. They all went away from Him, but this one woman eventually laid her hands upon the real trespass offering.
All these cases show us that in John there is not only the tabernacle, but also the offerings. There is the sin offering and the trespass offering. And these are items of the rich grace. When the tabernacle came, it came full of grace. We all have received of the fullness of this grace and even grace upon grace (1:16). After all these cases, there is another case, that of death. In chapter eleven Lazarus got sick and died. But his death wound was healed.