When the Samaritan woman at the well asked Jesus to give her the water, which he said would satisfy her thirst forever, he told her to go and tell her husband of these matters and return with him (John 4:16). Why did Jesus tell her to do that? Was it because he knew she lived with a man who wasn’t her husband, and Jesus wanted to acquaint her with her sinful life, so she could repent? If this is so, why did the woman come to fetch water at noon, in the heat of the day (John 4:6-7), instead of later in the evening when it was cool (cp. Genesis 24:11)? Moreover, if the Samaritan woman was alone, which is also quite unusual, generally women accompanied one another, while drawing water. However, it seems this woman knew very well that she was a sinner and avoided the stares and judgments of other women, preferring solitude and the heat of the day to the company of others, and the comfort of a cooler part of the day to draw and carry water for her home.
Jesus never mentioned sin or repentance, yet most commentators tell us that Jesus was exposing the woman’s sin (John 4:18), and she needed to repent. Nevertheless, the Samaritans had no covenant with God (cp. John 4:22). They weren’t under the Law. I’ve often heard that folks need to search their lives and repent of secret sins, because, if they didn’t, they’d be living under the judgment of God. Yet, the word of God never speaks of secret sins and our need to search them out. Without God, man is in a state of rebellion, and it is from this that men need to turn. The Lord will take care of the other sins in our lives
All this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and he has appointed believers to serve in the ministry of reconciliation. We are to tell how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and he doesn’t charge men’s transgressions to their account. Moreover, he has entrusted to us the message of this reconciliation. On Christ’s behalf, therefore, all believers come to the world as ambassadors. God, as it were, makes entreaty through our lips: we, on Christ’s behalf, beseech men to be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)
Simply put, all Jesus was seeking to do was have the woman invite him in, which is what she did. By ceasing her rebellion, she became reconciled to God. Our sin baggage is handled by Christ afterward through the Spirit, because no one is able to follow Christ and live in sin at the same time (cp. 1John 5:18).
So why did Jesus ask the woman to go to her husband and return with him? What we see in the text is the reversal of God’s judgment upon man in the Garden of Eden. It is there that man’s rebellion began. God will not allow man to live forever, while he is in the state of rebellion. Sin, experimentation etc. is a different matter. Just as a babe falls many times before he is able to walk, so man will sin many times before he lives out the image of God correctly (cp. Genesis 1:27). Nevertheless, as long as God’s fellowship is invited, sin isn’t a problem, because there will come a time when the disciple, who is intent on following Christ, will desire to imitate him rather than satisfy his own lust. Jesus told the woman to go and return with her husband, because now that Jesus is recognized as Lord, or at least invited to be Lord (John 4:15), he is intent on helping her overcome sin in her life, and thereby to become a proper image of God. She has stopped eating of the Tree of Knowledge, whose partaker proclaims: I’ll decide what is good for me or evil for me, and she began partaking of the Tree of Life—Christ. Now, he, the Light that has come (John 1:9; 1John 1:5-7), will expose both what is good and what is evil.
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