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How Not to Be a Heretic | How Not to Be a Docetist

December 8, 2024
John 4:1-15

¹Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ²(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

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Purpose

To discover and experience Jesus Christ in our midst

To cultivate mutually encouraging relationships

To participate in God’s mission to the world 

Opening Prayer

Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, encouraged and supported by your holy Word, we may embrace and always hold fast the joyful hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Responsive Prayer — Isaiah 11

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

    the Spirit of counsel and might,

    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

But with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

Summary and Connection

This study explores the heresy of Docetism, one of the earliest heresies that the Church faced. Derived from the Greek word dokeo, which means “to appear,” Docetism claims that Jesus did not have a real human body, but only seemingly appeared to be a man. Its popularity might be attributed to the Greek tendency to disdain the physical world and elevate the spiritual forms. Influenced by contemporary Greek culture, the early gentile believers might have struggled to believe that God came in full human form. However, we will see that Jesus becoming man is imperative for our salvation and forgiveness of sins, and because of incarnation, we worship a God who suffered with us and empathizes with our weakness. We are in a new sermon series called How Not to Be a Heretic, and we want to explore the importance of Jesus’ manhood and its implications for us today.

Discussion Questions

1. Looking at the Bible

Observation: Read the passage privately. What does the text say? What is the theme of this passage? Do you notice any keywords?

• Jesus refers to Himself as the living water (verse 10), saying that whoever drinks the water he offers will never thirst again (verse 14). What is the meaning behind this water metaphor, and what are its implications?

2. Looking at Jesus

At Central we believe that all of Scripture points to Jesus. In other words, Jesus is the theological center of the Bible. Every passage not only points to Jesus, but the grand narrative of the Bible also finds its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus.

• The disciples went to buy food, but Jesus was tired from the long journey and rested by the well. Being thirsty, he also asked for water. What kind of picture does this paint about Jesus? How is it different from how we usually think of God, and what theological importance does it have?

3. Looking at Our Hearts

• Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew who was speaking to you, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (verse 10). Similarly, what are some misunderstandings of Jesus that personally hinder us from coming to him? 

4. Looking at Our World

• Notice John’s explanations throughout the story, specifically: “he had to pass through Samaria” (verse 4) and “for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (verse 9). Why did he include these comments? What’s the importance?
• As God’s hands and feet, how can Christians be the salt and light to neglected, segregated communities today? 

Sending

• View Study Guide Notes

  Question 1: Throughout his gospel, John frequently uses the symbolism of water. Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at the Wedding in Cana (John 2). Jesus told Nicodemus that no one could enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and Spirit (John 3:5). At the crucifixion, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus with a spear, and water mixed with blood flowed out of his side (John 19:34). In today’s passage, John records Jesus describing himself as the “living water.” This has two implications.

  First, through the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, God spoke against Israel for forsaking the living water: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Jesus, by offering the water that will result in never thirsting again, was claiming to be God. The second implication is the fulfillment of the prophecy of when “living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem” (Zechariah 14:8). Isaiah’s prophecy connects God’s pouring water with his Spirit: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3). Jesus was pointing to the eternal life that he would pour out to all believers through his Spirit. He later echoes this during the Feast of Tabernacles:

  Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)

  Jesus not only promises eternal life but also the abundant life (John 10:10). Unlike the world and its idols, the Spirit-filled life is the life that won’t thirst again, promising everlasting joy and pleasure. Jesus extends to us the same invitation as the Samaritan woman: to come drink from the spring of living water. As Augustine wrote in his “Confessions”: “Because you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”

  Question 2: Throughout his writings, the Apostle John writes against Docetism and emphasizes Jesus’ physical body. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1:1). “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (2 John 7).

  The incarnation of Jesus has tremendous theological importance, and numerous theologians throughout church history have written about its significance and various implications. Concerning salvation, Anselm of Canterbury reasons in his book “Why God Became a Man” that Jesus had to assume human nature in order to be the substitutionary atonement for the sins of human beings. Athansius of Alexandria explains that the incarnation also shows the “great, sheer love” God has for us (“On the Incarnation”). In his humility, Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7). Moreover, the Son of God not only came as a man, but he was born in a manger, in the small town of Bethlehem, to a carpenter named Joseph. In “Faces of Jesus,” Frederick Buechner wrote: 

  [The incarnation] is a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers... Until we too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it, we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken.

  Jesus’ humility, love, and obedience in his coming as a man should fill our hearts with gratitude and compel us to likewise be humble, loving, and obedient.

  Question 3: The Samaritan woman did not know that she wasn’t simply talking with a Jewish man but with the Son of God. Jesus later reveals to her that he is the Messiah (John 4:26). Although modern Christians rarely struggle with the heresy of Docetism, different forms of docetic thinking continue to emerge. We may think of God as detached from us — as a supernatural being who is uninterested in us and cannot relate to our pain and suffering. However, Jesus’ manhood allows us to see that he went through every human limitation and weakness just as we do. Jesus is the only person who knows exactly what we are going through. As God, he knows our hearts and thoughts; as man, he has experienced firsthand the same, if not greater, pain. Don Carson concludes, “The God on whom we rely knows what suffering is all about, not merely in the way that God knows everything, but by experience” (“How Long, O Lord?”).

  In his poem “The Sacrifice,” George Herbert ends each stanza with the line “Was ever grief like mine?”, emphasizing that no man has suffered like Jesus did. In “The Collected Letters,” C.S. Lewis writes:

  God could, had He pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape him. Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane. Otherwise we should have missed the great lesson that it is by his will alone that a man is good or bad, and that feelings are not, in themselves, of any im-portance. We should also have missed the all-important help of knowing that He has faced all that the weakest of us face, has shared not only the strength of our nature but every weakness of it except sin. If He had been incarnate in a man of immense natural courage, that would have been for many of us almost the same as His not being incarnate at all.

  After experiencing all the extremes of spiritual, physical, and emotional pain, Jesus became the mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). Understanding the exact situations that we face, Jesus pleads our case before the Father as our advocate (1 John 2:1) and intercedes on our behalf (Romans 8:34). As God already knows and forgives all of our shortcomings, let us boldly come before him and ask for the living water. The author of Hebrews exhorts us:

  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

  Question 4: The Jews and Samaritans had centuries-long animosity between them, and sometimes it would even lead to violence. The Jewish derogatory term for the Samaritans were “half-breeds,” as they were Israelites who intermarried with the foreigners during the Assyrian Exile. The Jews also condemned them for corrupted religious practices, because they built their own temple on Mount Gerizim rather than worshipping in Jerusalem. However, there was even further division between Jesus and the Samaritan at the well, as she was a woman. The Israelites had a very male-dominated society; women were seen as unimportant and were very limited in their rights. John describes that it was the sixth hour (verse 6), around noon, which was an unusual time to fetch water. The woman came alone (instead of in a group as was the norm), implying that there was public shame upon her and that she was socially outcast. This Samaritan woman was in every way different from Jesus: race, gender, religious morals (a rabbi vs. an adulteress), and social standing (Jesus had numerous disciples while the woman was socially outcast). However, Jesus intentionally goes out of his way to meet her. The common way to travel from Judea to Galilee was a longer route, crossing the Jordan River twice, reflecting the Jewish disdain for Samaritans. Nevertheless, John writes, “he had to pass through Samaria” (verse 4), which shows Jesus’ resolve to meet and save this woman.

  In the Old Testament, God describes himself as the “Father to the fatherless and protector of widows” (Psalm 68:5). He condemns any discrimination toward the foreigners (Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 10:19). God repeatedly sides with the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the immigrant, and warns anyone who oppresses them. “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow” (Deuteronomy 27:19). “The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow” (Psalm 146:9). “For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow…” (Jeremiah 7:5). “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor” (Zechariah 7:9). In the New Testament, Jesus often eats with tax collectors and prostitutes and condemns the rich and religious leaders. Jesus says on the final judgment:

  Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” Then he will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:34-46)

  It is evident throughout the Bible that God sides with the morally, legally, culturally, religiously, financially, racially, and socially oppressed; God repeatedly identifies himself as the God of the minority. God commands us to do likewise, to spread his love and grace to the poor and the marginalized.