John 4:17-19 - I can see that you are a prophet

4:17,18

Jesus knew what the woman’s situation was, and at this point the woman said she had no husband. However, that was not the whole truth. Jesus’ encounter with the woman began with Him speaking to her about matters relating to the circumstances around their meeting, i.e. getting water from the well. He then made somewhat cryptic remarks about the water of life, and then talked about the circumstances of the woman’s life. 

Jesus knew that there was far more to it than her “having no husband”. She had had five husbands, the previous ones either being deceased or divorced, and now she was living with someone. The woman had not wanted to mention this, presumably knowing that it was wrong. So we see that Jesus did not go immediately to the “sin issue”, but He did go there, despite the woman’s reluctance to. By nature we do not want to face up to the reality of sin, fearing condemnation. The gospel means that the reality of sin can be faced up to without fear of condemnation. Because of the gospel we can handle the truth!

4:19

The woman is maybe still trying to deflect attention away from herself with her remark “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet”, and will continue to do so in the next verse. However, Jesus does want to focus on us! We are His creation, He cares about the state that we are in, and has come to do something about it. The Samaritans accepted only the first five books of the Old Testament, i.e. the Pentateuch. They understood Deut 34:10 to mean that there were no prophets until the coming of the prophet spoken of in Deut 18:15-19. One might say that they were the cessationists of their day! In view of this it might mean that the woman’s “I see you are a prophet” is recognising Jesus as the Prophet. However, it seems somewhat unlikely that the woman would have had such a developed theological sense!