John 4:36Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"And the reaper receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life." The fruit of the earthly harvest serves not eternal life, but temporal life. Spiritual fruit, by contrast, serves a life that does not grow old and is immortal.

Do you see that the words are sensible, but the meaning is spiritual? By the very form of the expressions, earthly things are separated from heavenly things.

When He spoke about water and described its properties, He said that whoever drinks of this water will never thirst. So here He says that this fruit is gathered for eternal life.

"So that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together." Who is the sower, and who is the reaper? The prophets were the sowers, but they themselves did not reap. The Apostles reaped.

The meaning of these words is this: the prophets sowed, but did not reap. Yet through this they were not deprived of joy, but rejoice together with us, though they do not reap together with us. It is not so in bodily harvests. There, if one person happens to sow and another to reap, the one who does not reap grieves. But in spiritual harvests it is not so. The prophets, who preached and disposed the minds of men, also rejoice together with us, who have drawn men to salvation.

He says that now is the time of the word that calls to faith and shows its hearers that the preaching under the law and the prophetic preaching have reached their end.

For the law, as in shadows, pointed beforehand in typological service to Him who was to come, that is, Christ.

The prophets, after it, transmitted words from the Spirit and proclaimed Him beforehand as coming "in a very little while" (Hab 2:3; Heb 10:37), and as already about to appear and come.

When He entered within the doors, the word of the Apostles was no longer to refer what was expected to a distant time. It was to indicate that its arrival had already come.

"Do you not say, 'There are still four months, and then comes the harvest'?" (Jn 4:35). He was burning with desire to labor and was planning to send workers.

You count four months until the harvest, but I reveal to you another harvest, white and ripe. See, I say to you: "Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are white and ready for harvest" (cf. Jn 4:35).

And so He was preparing to send reapers. For in this case the saying is true: "One sows, and another reaps," so that both the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.

"I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others labored, and you have entered into their labor" (cf. Jn 4:35-38). What does this mean?

"And the reaper receives wages." The one who reaps such fields receives a reward from God. In a broader sense, Jesus Christ is speaking here of all the Samaritans and Jews who were to believe.

"And gathers fruit for eternal life." The one who reaps visible fields gathers fruit for temporal life, but this one gathers fruit for eternal life.

"So that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together." Having gathered such fruit, both the one who sowed and the one who reaped rejoice together.

They see that this fruit has been gathered there and together receive a reward for it: one because he sowed, the other because he reaped.

The sowers are Moses and the other prophets after him. They reaped men from unbelief and transferred them into the garners of the eternal dwellings.

See the difference between bodily and spiritual harvest. Whoever reaps a material harvest gathers corruptible and temporal fruit. Whoever reaps a spiritual harvest, that is, turns men away from their error, gathers eternal fruit.

That is, he brings the fruit of his harvest, the believers, into blessed and unending life. Again, in material agriculture, it is not the sower who rejoices, but the reaper who enjoys the fruit and reward of his labor.

In spiritual agriculture, however, both the one who sows, that is, teaches, and the one who reaps, that is, converts and gains his brethren, rejoice equally.

Then, pointing to the inhabitants of Sychem streaming toward Him across the plain, He continued: “You say that there are still four months until the harvest. Look at these fields, how they have yellowed for the spiritual harvest. You will joyfully reap the harvest which I have sown by labor and suffering. And I, the sower, rejoice at the thought of this coming joy.”

"The reaper receives wages," and so forth. If this is so in the realm of spirit and faith, then those who sow these seeds should be spiritually more joyful than the farmer.

This is especially so because the reaper, both of an ordinary field and of a spiritual field, receives a reward. That reward consists in this: both gather fruit, one for temporal life, the other for eternal life.

The latter, of course, is higher than the former. This is certainly great joy for those who reap the spiritual field.

Since the one who sows it also rejoices spiritually in his sowing, it follows that at the harvest both sower and reaper will rejoice together.

Whom the Lord means here by the sower and the reaper He explains further (Jn 4:38), [...]

Verses 36-38. Continuing to speak in language not His own, the Savior urges the disciples to take part inwardly in His joy. Both the sower and the reaper rejoice equally over the ripened harvest.

The Savior sowed. The disciples had not taken part in His long conversation with the Samaritan woman. But the harvest is ripening. It remains for the disciples to reap and rejoice, as He who sowed rejoices.

"The saying is true: one sows, and another reaps." Saying, word, λογος, is a popular proverb. In Plato: "an old saying (λογος): like always rejoices in like" (Sympos.).

The word dabar is used in the same sense in Isaiah, Is 65:21-22, and in Saint Matthew, Mt 25:24.