Christ’s disciples were slow to understand what He meant by “food,” just as the woman at the well had been slow to understand what He meant by “water.” To lead the woman and the disciples to the truth, it was necessary that He clearly identify to them the realities represented by the figures of water and food. Accordingly, He explained to her the meaning of living water, and to His disciples the meaning of spiritual food. Because the woman had greater difficulty understanding than did the disciples, Christ led her to the truth by means of a longer and more detailed step-by-step explanation. In the section that follows, Christ instructs His disciples on the true meaning of spiritual food.

As bodily food sustains the human body and perfects a man’s physical condition, spiritual food nourishes and perfects his soul. A soul is perfected when it is united with its end and when it follows the will of God. As to the first, the Psalmist said, “for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge” (Ps 73:28). As to the second, “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work’” (Jn 4:34). Here, Christ as man is saying that the food which nourished His human soul was the act of conforming His human will to the will of the Father and the act of accomplishing the Father’s work. We can understand these two expressions, “to do the will of him who sent me” and “to accomplish his work,” in three ways. First, we can take them to mean the same thing, so that the second explains the first. In other words, the Son of God acted in accord with His Father’s will precisely by accomplishing and completing the Father’s work. Christ’s spiritual food, that which nourished His human soul, was to do the Father’s will, to realize the Father’s wishes, to put into practice what the Father desired to be accomplished, as Christ said, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38). This, too, was the Psalmist’s food, for he said, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is within my heart” (Ps 40:9). Second, these two expressions may refer to two different things which the Incarnate Son of God accomplished in the world. First, He taught the truth, calling us to the faith, calling us to believe in Him and in the Father Who sent Him. And He accomplished this task, as He said, “For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:40). Second, He gave us the power to arrive at the truth: “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). This task, too, He accomplished, as He said, “I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do” (Jn 17:4). Christ’s food, therefore, was to do the will of the Father Who sent Him by calling us to the faith; and He accomplished the Father’s work by leading us to our perfection in eternal glory. Third, according to Origen, every good work a person does should be directed to two things: to the honor of God and to the good of his neighbor, for “the aim of our charge is love” (1 Tm 1:5), and the law is summed up in this: love God with your whole heart, and love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:36-40). The same loves embraces both God and neighbor. By bringing truth and grace to men, Christ perfected them, and in doing this, He did the will of the Father, and He accomplished the Father’s work. Thus, by the same acts, Christ both loved the Father and loved us, He both honored the Father and did good to us. One might object to Origen by arguing that, because God’s works are perfect, they did not need to be completed or perfected. It would then follow that Christ had nothing of importance to accomplish. This would seem to be especially true of man, since man is the pinnacle of God’s creation, for God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gn 1:26). In reply to this objection, one should point out that, although “God made man upright” in the beginning, man later “sought out many devices” (Eccl 7:30) and freely chose to abandon what was right and good for him. He turned away from his highest good, and instead sought inferior temporal goods. It was because of his sin that he lost his initial perfection; and it was his own fault that he now suffered such a deficiency. His tarnished soul beckoned to be restored to its original beauty and perfection. In this sense, the work of the Lord, that is, His work of creating man, needed to be “accomplished,” that is, perfected and restored. It was Christ Who accomplished this by restoring man to life and by wiping away the sin which had cause him to fall from his initial pristine state, as St. Paul explained, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19).

We offer spiritual food to God each time we ask Him to bring us to salvation, for it is His will that all men be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tm 2:4). If it is His will that we be saved, then each time we pray the Our Father, saying, “Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10), then we are praying for our salvation. We pray that His will be done, for we cannot obtain salvation without His grace. In fact, before we receive the grace of salvation, we are first moved by prevenient grace, so that we might know what to ask for: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). As the prophet Jeremiah prayed that man might be restored, saying, “Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored!” (Lam 5:21), so now do we pray that God’s will be done, so that we might be saved.

Next, Christ employed a simile: “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest.” (Jn 4:35) When Christ asked the woman for a drink of water, he made use of a simile concerning living water, for she came to the well to obtain natural water. Now that the disciples had come back from town with food, Christ made use of a simile concerning spiritual food.

The harvest is the time when the fruits of the earth are gathered in. He referred a natural harvest when He said, “There are yet four months, then comes the harvest.” Then He compared a natural harvest to the spiritual harvest, saying, “lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest.”

Note that the fruits of one harvest can become the seeds of the next, for example, when a portion of grain is set aside to be planted next season, or as Sirach observed, “my blossoms became glorious and abundant fruit” (Sir 24:17). Faith and good works are the fruits of spiritual teaching, but they are also the seeds which merit a person eternal life.

The spiritual harvest of which Christ spoke concerns an eternal fruit, namely, the gathering in of the faithful to eternal life. This takes place in two ways: in the present life and at the end of time. When Christ said, “the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels” (Mt 13:39), He was referring to the harvest at the end of time, the final harvest. When He said, “lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest” (Jn 4:35), He was speaking of the spiritual harvest that takes place in the present life. We may understand the present spiritual harvest in two ways. First, according to St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, the gathering of fruit is the assembly of the faithful in the Church. They are the many converts gathered in from various places around the globe. The fields were “white,” ready for the harvest, for the fields of the countryside were full of Samaritans coming out to Jacob’s well to see Christ for themselves. The Samaritan woman, through her charismatic preaching, made them receptive to hear the Word of God, and ultimately to be saved through spiritual regeneration. Christ alerted His small band of disciples to the onslaught of crowds rushing in upon them, saying, “lift up your eyes, and see,” they are even now approaching to receive living water. On a similar occasion, He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Mt 9:37). The grain fields were made “white” by the heat of the summer sun, even as the Sun of Justice shone brightly in their midst and a desire to learn His truth burned deeply within their hearts. The Lord foretold, through the prophet Malachi: “for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall.” (Mal 4:2) And so, Samaritans bolted out of their town, hurrying to the well to meet their Messiah. The day of salvation, which the prophets had foretold, had finally arrived, as St. Paul explained: “when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). Second, according to Origen, the harvest is knowledge of the truth, whereby a person gathers the truth into his soul. According to this interpretation, Christ cited a false doctrine and then rejected it. The false doctrine belonged to the Academicians, who asserted that nothing can be known with certainty in this life. This seems to bear a measure of truth, for even Qoheleth admitted, “All this I have tested by wisdom; I said, ‘I will be wise’; but it was far from me. That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?” (Eccl 7:24) Christ referred to the philosophers’ skeptical opinion when He said, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’?” When He said, “four months,” he alluded to their theory that the universe consists of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Thus, “four months” represents the entirety of the present life. Man must labor under these four elements until the time of the harvest, which signals the beginning of the next life, when he will attain a true knowledge of things. But, Christ rejected this opinion, saying, “lift up your eyes, and see.” Note that, in Sacred Scripture, the prefatorial remark, “lift us your eyes,” is used to alert the reader that an especially profound, yet subtle, teaching is about to be given, as when the prophet said, “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?” (Is 40:26) When Christ said, “lift up your eyes, and see,” He was implying that one can see spiritual things even in this life, as long as one turns away from a concern for earthly things and the desires of the flesh. The reason why these philosophers could not see the truth was not because the truth was unknowable in this life, but rather, because they had fixed their gaze upon earthly things, thereby limiting the scope of their knowledge. Theirs was a self-imposed ignorance. St. Paul taught that God’s “invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20). Yet, these philosophers failed to perceive God as He truly is, because “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25). The fruits of their harvest were errors, not truths. Christ then added, “see how the fields are already white for harvest.” The “fields” are the means by which we acquire the truth; and chief among them is Sacred Scripture, for Christ said, the scriptures “bear witness to me” (Jn 5:39), and Christ is the Truth. There were fields in the Old Testament, but they were not “white,” that is, they were not ready for the harvest, because men of that era could not truly understand the scriptures until Christ came, for “he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (Lk 24:45). Christ made the fields “white”; the Sun of Justice ripened the fruit and made it suitable for harvesting.

Next, Christ discussed reapers and their rewards, saying, “He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together” (Jn 4:36). There are two kinds of reapers: those who harvest natural fruits and those who harvest spiritual fruits. By “natural fruit” we mean any fruit or grain that can be used to nourish the human body and perfect its physical health. By “spiritual fruit” we mean any spiritual good which nourishes the soul of man. The reaper of natural fruits gathers the fruits of the earth, whereas the reaper of spiritual fruits either gathers the faithful into the Church or gathers the truth into his own soul. These two reapers are similar in one respect and dissimilar in two respects. Christ addressed each of these three aspects in turn in the three clauses of His statement. First, the two reapers are similar, inasmuch as each receives his proper reward. Thus, Christ said, “He who reaps receives wages.” Each receives a reward according to his labors, even as the sower and the waterer receive their respective rewards, for “each shall receive his wages according to his labor” (1 Cor 3:8). Second, the two reapers are dissimilar in that natural fruit nourishes the body and perfects its health, whereas spiritual fruit nourishes the soul and perfects it by uniting it with its end, which is God. The natural harvest is for the good of the body in the present life, whereas the spiritual harvest is concerned with eternal life. Thus, Christ said that the reaper of the spiritual harvest, “gathers fruit for eternal life.” There are two fruits taken in by this harvest. One is the faithful themselves, who obtain eternal life, as St. Paul explained to the Romans: “now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Rom 6:22). The other fruit is knowledge of the truth, which leads to eternal life, as the Lord said, “I will again make instruction shine forth like the dawn, and I will make it shine afar” (Sir 24:32), “afar,” that is, unto eternal life. Third, the two reapers are dissimilar in that the sower of natural fruit becomes saddened when another man reaps the harvest, whereas there is no cause for sadness among the sowers and reapers of spiritual fruit, for Christ said that the “sower and reaper may rejoice together.” The fact that one man sows and another man reaps is considered a misfortune in the natural harvest, but it is an occasion for rejoicing in the spiritual harvest.

Concerning the identity of the sowers and the reapers of the spiritual harvest, there are two opinions. First, according to St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, the sowers of the spiritual seeds were the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, and the reapers were the apostles of Christ. “The seed is the word of God” (Lk 8:11), and the patriarchs and prophets, to whom the Word of God revealed certain divine truths, sowed these seeds of truth among the Jews. But, though the patriarchs and prophets sowed, the harvest was left for the apostles to reap, for the former were not able to accomplish God’s work; they were not able to lead men to Christ and to their eternal salvation. This work was given to the apostles to accomplish. They completed what the patriarchs and the prophets began. Today, both prophets and apostles, sowers and reapers of the spiritual harvest, rejoice together in the kingdom of God. This day was foretold by a prophet of the exile: “joy and gladness will be found in [Zion], thanksgiving and the voice of song” (Is 51:3). The fact that patriarchs and apostles now rejoice together, refutes Manichaeans, Marcionites, and others who condemned the patriarchs and disparaged the Old Testament. Second, according to Origen, the sowers of the spiritual harvest are those who confer first principles upon a faculty of the soul, whereas the reapers are those who proceed from the first principles. The prophets revealed certain divine things, but the apostles revealed much more, especially concerning the mystery of Christ, for the Holy Spirit revealed these things to the apostles (Eph 3:5).

Christ said of the spiritual harvest, “For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps’” (Jn 4:37). In the spiritual harvest, both the sower and the reaper rejoice. The Jewish proverb, “one sows and another reaps,” which must have been popular in Christ’s day, was probably derived from Lv 26:16: “you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.” This proverb implies that when one man sows and another reaps, it is a sad occasion for the sower, for he does not benefit from his labor. Christ affirmed that this proverb, which referred to the natural harvest, also holds true for the spiritual harvest, and this for two reasons. First, the prophets had cause for sadness because they died before having seen the fruits of their labor, even as Moses, after he had successfully led God’s chosen people through the desert, died without setting foot upon the promised land. He who opened a way through the sea for the people to cross into freedom, did not himself ford the Jordan River to partake of the promises God made to his forefathers. The water that stood as a barrier between him and the promised land, was the same flowing water that Christ used to spiritually regenerate the penitent, that they might cross over from sin and death to eternal life in the promised land of heaven. Second, the proverb is true of the spiritual harvest, inasmuch as the prophets sowed, while the apostles reaped. But, unlike the natural harvest, where the sower weeps, the sower of the spiritual harvest rejoices along with the reaper, when all is said and done. The prophets and the apostles did not differ in their faith, for they believed in the same God, as St. Paul explained, “now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it” (Rom 3:21). The prophets and the apostle did differ, however, in their manner of living the faith, for the prophets observed various bodily rituals under the law, whereas the apostles were freed from the burden of the law, as St. Paul explained: “when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Gal 4:3-5) Though the prophets labored in one era and in one way, the apostles labored in another era and in another way, yet both rejoice equally, for both have received the same wage, namely, eternal life. Their happy and blessed outcome was prefigured in the transfiguration of Christ, for while He was on the mountain with three of His apostles, He was seen conversing with Moses, who represents the patriarchs, and with Elijah, who represents the prophets. Thus, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles rejoiced together on that mountain and in heaven today. It follows from this that those who were just under the Old Law will rejoice with those who are just under the New Law.

Christ then applied this proverb to the present situation, saying to His apostles, “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor” (Jn 4:38a). He did not say, “I will send you,” but rather, “I sent you.” He sent them twice: first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. The first sending took place before His passion, when He sent the twelve apostles to the Jews, saying, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Mt 10:5-7) In this sending, they reaped where they did not sow, for the prophets sowed the seeds of faith among the Jews, and the apostles reaped the spiritual harvest. Thus, Christ said, “others have labored, and you have entered into their labor” (Jn 4:38b) in order to harvest the fruit of their labor. Neither the patriarchs nor the prophets saw the fruit of the labors in their own day. Understandably, the prophet lamented, saying, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity”; but he remained firm in his faith, for he added, “yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God” (Is 49:4). The prophets’ labor did indeed produce excellent fruit, for Christ said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me” (Jn 5:46). Wisdom, Who is the Word of God, declared, “the fruit of good labors is renowned” (Wis 3:15). The second sending of the apostles took place after Christ’s resurrection, when He sent them, not to the Jews this time, but to the Gentiles, indeed, to the whole world, saying, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). In this second sending, they themselves sowed the seeds of faith where no one had preached before.