Jn. 4:34. Jesus says to them: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
However, He, although they did not ask, explains what was said cryptically and says: "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me (for the salvation of people is the will of God) and to finish His work." The prophets and the law could not finish the work of God, because, being types and shadows of future blessings, they themselves were imperfect. But the Lord finished the work of God, that is, our salvation and renewal. By the work of God, understand, perhaps, man, whom only the Son of God perfected, since He in Himself showed our nature to be sinless and, through the divine life in the flesh, perfected in every good deed, showed it to be complete and conquered the world to the end.
And the law is a work of God, since it was written by the finger of God (Deut. 9:10). The Lord fulfilled this law, because Christ is the end of the law (Rom. 10:4). He brought to an end everything that was performed under the law and elevated its service from the bodily to the spiritual.
The Lord often speaks in a veiled manner in order to make His listeners more attentive, to arouse them to investigate and understand what is said in a hidden way.
Jn. 4:35. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'?
The Lord now begins to reveal more clearly to the disciples what He had previously said in a veiled manner. He says: "You say, that is, you think, that in four months the harvest will come, that is, the physical harvest; but I say to you that the spiritual harvest has already arrived." He said this about the Samaritans, who were already coming to Him.
Jn. 4:35. But I say to you: lift up your eyes and look at the fields, how they have turned white and are ripe for harvest.
"Lift up your eyes," both intellectual and sensory, and look at the multitude of Samaritans coming here, and at their souls, disposed and ready for faith, which, like whitened fields, are in need of harvest. For just as ears of grain, when they turn white, are ready for harvest, so too are they ready for salvation.
Some apply the words "look at the fields, how they are white and ready for harvest" to the elderly, on account of their gray hair and their being reaped by death.
Jn. 4:36. He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit unto life eternal, so that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
The meaning of these words is as follows: the prophets sowed, but did not reap. Nevertheless, through this they were not deprived of enjoyment, but rejoice together with us, even though they do not reap together with us. In material harvests this does not happen. There, if it happens that one sows and another reaps, the one who does not reap grieves. But in spiritual harvests it is not so. Rather, even the prophets, who preached and predisposed the minds of people, rejoice together with us who have drawn people to salvation.
Jn. 4:37. For in this case the saying is true: one sows, and another reaps.
A true saying he calls the proverb that was in common use among the people: "One sows, and another reaps."
Jn. 4:38. I sent you to reap that on which you did not labor: others labored, and you have entered into their labor.
"I sent you to reap that on which you did not labor." The Lord says this so that, when He sends the disciples to preach, they would not be troubled by the fact that they are being sent to a difficult task. "The most difficult part," He says, "the prophets took upon themselves, but I am sending you to what is already prepared."
See how He says everything with authority and command: "I sent you to reap." Let the disciples of the accursed Marcion hear this, and of Manes, and of those like them, who alienate the Old Testament from the New. They are refuted here as well. For if the Old Testament were foreign to the New, how would the apostles have reaped what was sown by the prophets? But if the apostles reaped what was sown in the Old Testament, then it is not foreign to the New Testament, but both are one Testament. Let the Arians also hear that Christ sends His disciples as Lord and Master. He sends them so that they might reap and cut away from earthly things the Gentiles and Jews who had become attached to them, and carry them to the threshing floor, that is, to the Church. In it, through the threshing by oxen, that is, by teachers, and through submission to them, they are ground down and, being freed from all chaff, from everything carnal and consumed by fire, are stored as pure grain in the heavenly granary, and then become food for God, who rejoices in their salvation. Thus Paul reaped, cutting us away from the earth and teaching that our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).
Jn. 4:39. And many of the Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman, who testified that He told her everything she had done.
The Samaritans believe based on the woman's word, reasonably judging by themselves that a woman would not have openly revealed her life before everyone to please another, if the one she proclaimed were not truly great and superior to many.
Jn. 4:40. And so, when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.
Jn. 4:41. And a still greater number believed because of His word.
Therefore, proving their faith by deeds, they asked Him to remain with them permanently. For "to stay" means precisely to settle completely. But He does not agree to this, and spends only two days with them, and through His teaching an even greater number of them believed.
Although the Evangelist does not narrate in detail the wondrous words of His teaching, he gives us to understand the power of His divine teaching from the outcome of the matter. For the Evangelists omit much even of the great deeds, because they write not from motives of vainglory, but for the sake of truth. It is likely that while among the Samaritans the Lord also taught something divine, because they, without having seen any miracle, believe in Him and ask Him to stay. But the Jews, who were granted by Him countless words and miracles, still drove Him away. Truly, "a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Mic. 7:6; Matt. 10:36).
Jn. 4:42. And they said to that woman: we no longer believe because of your words, for we ourselves have heard and know that He is truly the Savior of the world, the Christ.
Look, indeed, in a short time the people surpassed their teacher. For they call Him not a prophet, not the Savior of Israel, but the Savior of the world, and even with the article: He is that Savior, who properly and truly saved all. Many came to save: both the law, and the prophets, and the angels, but the true Savior is He.
Jn. 4:43. After the two days He departed from there and went into Galilee,