What was he doing there? Something good evidently. The following suggestions have been made:
I. THAT HE WAS THERE FOR GRATEFUL CONTEMPLATION. A tradition says that at the massacre of the innocents he was hidden by his mother beneath the fig-tree in her garden at Bethlehem. This is too remote a reference, having occurred thirty years before.
II. THAT HE FIRST HEARD OF CHRIST BENEATH THE FIG-TREE. When Philip found him he was seated beneath his own fig-tree. But this was known to Philip and perhaps to others. Our Lord’s allusion was obviously to some circumstance understood only by Nathanael.
III. THAT IT WAS FOR PRAYER WITH RESPECT TO SOME SPECIAL DIFFICULTY. No doubt Nathanael’s devotions were the reverse of those of the Pharisees. But this suggestion is too vague.
IV. THAT IT WAS FOR THE SPECIAL STUDY OF GOD’S WORD. No doubt Nathanael was waiting for the consolation of Israel. On one memorable occasion, as he sat there with the sacred roll spread out on his knee, light suddenly dawned. The scripture was Genesis, the life was that of Jacob, the passage the vision of the ladder (verse 51), and above all a voice speaking of a seed in which all the families of the earth should be blessed. On that day perhaps Philip summoned him to the presence of the Master. Conclusion:
1. How do you spend your hours of privacy? Some in sinful thoughts, shameful deeds. Let the sinner know that God sees him.
2. Experience proves the worth of meditative prayer (Mat_6:6).
3. Resort to your fig-tree frequently. (S. Buss, LL. B.)
Christ’s knowledge of His people
I. Their CHARACTERS He understands.
II. Their CONDUCT He observes.
III. Their THOUGHTS He discerns. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Christ the Witness of our secret hours
I. WHAT THIS INCIDENT TEACHES US OF CHRIST. His Divinity. Let us leave the trite and well-trodden method of proving this, and try a simpler way. Jesus demands our adoration as more than man, and on the ground that He alone of all the minds that have lifted up the world with intelligence has the power of reading all men’s thoughts and hearts and experiences through and through. The leaders of thought have never been equal to this. Had they even pretended to it ,hey would have been set down as miserable jugglers. A general knowledge of human nature is all that the acutest have attained. The limit of this is soon attained and is not always accurate. But here is a man who all through life knew what is in man. He wanted no information about the diseases He cured. He saw the lack of selfsacrifice in the young man. He judged faultlessly the Pharisees, Judas, Pilate, the faithless wife, the woman that was a sinner. How could He be a Saviour without knowing our real state? the Light of the world without its lying open to His inspection? the Judge without comprehending every secret motive, error, sin?
II. WHAT THIS INCIDENT TEACHES US OF NATHANAEL AND OF THE BLESSING HE RECEIVED.
1. He was not a faultless character, but genuine, lowly, teachable, having a soul open to receive spiritual light.
2. The blessing imports
(1) That which falls on all genuine unconscious goodness that hides itself from men, and therefore is more precious to God. This is one of those new gracious ideas which the gospel brings into the world. Not only is righteousness independent of station or publicity, but it is acceptable to God and a sign of spiritual purity in the degree that it turns to God alone for its Approver.
(2) Attainments are of slow growth. It needs time to form habits. But sincerity in the religious life is indispensable at the very outset. This was Nathanael’s one promising, solid grace. Hence the encouragement held out to genuine repentance and the unsparing condemnation of hypocrisy.
(3) The modest and faithful performance of a lower duty prepares the soul for the higher services and privileges. The man that was true under the fig tree afterwards sees angels of God, etc. (Bp. Huntington.)
Nathanael under the fig tree; or, religion in secret
I. IT IS IN SECRET THAT TRUE RELIGION HAS ITS ORIGIN. Thus we perceive that the rise of religion in the soul must necessarily be out of sight. The new creation is accomplished by the secret agency of the Holy Spirit. The origin of great rivers is sometimes wrapped mystery; they rise in Borne inaccessible regions on which human eye has never gazed. For centuries the sources of the Mile were unknown; to discover them was the highest ambition of many an adventurous explorer; but till very recently every attempt had been of no avail. Indeed, the fountain-heads of some of our own rivers lie far away from the haunts of men. If you would trace the Severn to its source, you must ascend the height of Plinlimmon, and there, in a dreary, wild, secluded region, you will find the obscure fountain, where the noble river rises. Truly, this is not an unapt representation of the beginning of the Divine life in the soul.
II. IT IS IN SECRET THAT TRUE RELIGION IS MOST IMPORTANT. This is manifest when we consider that
1. Man is a lonely being. It may be a startling statement, but it is profoundly true. Between man and man there lies a wide distance; beyond a certain point they cannot approach each other; thus every one stands emphatically by himself. A casual visitor to a large town is frequently overwhelmed with a painful sense of loneliness. Man is alone in most of those circumstances which make up the sum of his existence. His thoughts and reflections, his hopes and fears, are for the most part unknown to his bosom friends. The stage of a theatre is generally so decorated as to present a very gorgeous appearance. You might imagine that those who move and talk upon it live in a kind of fairy land. Beautiful forms chatter and dance, amidst sunny groves and laughing streams. All this, however, gives you but a very erroneous idea of what those men and women are in real life. Still, were you allowed to go behind the scenes, where they retire after having played their parts, you might form a sounder estimate of their actual character; but the proceedings there are never beheld by the crowd of spectators who fill the house. But a man’s religion follows him into the most retired places; it leaves its impress upon his most private actions; it forms and fashions his most secret meditations.
2. Religious declension invariably begins in secret. This shows how jealous we should always be of the integrity of our inner life. Think of a stream, which, as it winds its way along the meadow, supplies man and beast with its crystal waters. But one day it becomes suddenly thick and troubled. What can be the cause? Somebody has been tampering with the fountainhead. It is in secret that the foundation of our religion is laid. And if the foundation be not firm, the superstructure must be in danger.
3. We can form a more accurate judgment of our religion from our secret life than from anything else. There are two distinct spheres wherein a man’s religion may be tested; namely, in public and in secret. Some profess religion from the love of praise--some from a baser motive still, the love of gain. But such motives as these can have no possible influence upon us in secret.
III. TRUE RELIGION IN SECRET IS ACCOMPANIED BY TRUE RELIGION IN PUBLIC. We have a remarkable instance of this in the case of Nathanael. When called upon to act in public, he practised the principles which he cherished in secret.
1. He who has God’s love in his heart cannot altogether hide the fact from others. Religion is not a latent principle, buried up in the depths of the soul; for it displays itself in works of righteousness before the world.
2. The secret life of man cannot but tell on his public life. If a man commune much with God in secret, he cannot be otherwise than God-like in public. Unconsciously to himself, he sheds abroad a powerful influence wherever he goes. (A. Rowlands, B. A.)
The secret side of religion
I. RELIGION HAS A SECRET SIDE TOWARDS GOD, AS WELL AS AN OPEN SIGN TOWARDS MAN. There is a part of religion that is strictly private and personal. From the secret good in Nathanael we may draw the conclusion that there is more good in the world than we know, more good in men than we can see.
II. THE SECRET SIDE OF RELIGION IS THE SURE TEST AND SIGN OF ITS REALITY. From Christ’s words to Nathanael we may gather
1. Christ bases His estimate of men upon what is inward rather than what is outward, upon what is secret and private rather than upon what is public and open.
2. Christ pursues a method of judgment with men far different from that taken by the world.
3. The secret side of religion is the surest sign of its reality, because free from many evils which often are associated with the public and open.
III. THE SECRET SIGN OF RELIGION HERE SHALL BECOME THE OPEN SIDE HEREAFTER. Christ honoured it in Nathanael, and, to the amazement of the man, made it known. He will recognize and honour and make known the secret goodness of all His servants by and by. Sometimes the secret life of religion becomes openly known here. Hereafter comes the grand and complete revelation. “Your Father, that seeth in secret, shall reward you openly.” In religion, and in the service of Christ, let every man be true to his own nature. Let no man despise his brother because his brother is not as himself. Let Nathanael be Nathanael, and let Peter be Peter. Behind our open life and public duties let there be a secret life with God, of thought and prayer. (Homiletic Magazine.)
The Old Testament and the New
There is an analogy between what is here said at the opening of the Gospel and what is written at the opening of the Old Testament of the law in the Book of Genesis.
I. The two portions of Scripture REPRESENT THE REIGNING PRINCIPLES OF THE TWO DISPENSATIONS, EACH BY A TYPICAL OCCURRENCE ON ITS THRESHOLD.
1. There, at the garden of Eden, man a transgressor, conscious of his guilt, hides himself under the leaves of a tree to escape the punishment he deserves and dreads, and there the eye of the Almighty searches him out with a summons to judgment.
2. Here, at the introduction of the Gospel, just when the Lamb of God appears to take away the world’s sin, man seeks the same covering, not to hide himself, from God, but to draw near to Him for communion; and here the same searching eye discovers him, not for rebuke, but for encouragement and blessing. Adam was ashamed and hid himself; in Nathanael there was no shame needing to be hid.
II. THE TWO CHARACTERISTIC MOTIVE POWERS OF THE TWO PARTS OF REVELATION, both necessary, the terror of the law, alarming and rousing the conscience, and the attraction of grace moving and melting the heart. Not a jot or a tittle passes from the law till all is fulfilled, because conscience burns in us with its perpetual fire, and in his weakness and self-love every man needs to know that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” yet none the less are we Christians to be mindful that we live under the new dominion of mercy, when no faintest movement of faith is forgotten, and no retiring act of holy obedience is unnoticed and unrewarded. (Homiletic Magazine.)
The fig tree
The advantages of the fig tree as a shade are shown in the following: “As we approached, one of the camel-drivers, pointing to a cluster of six large fig trees, cried out, ‘Tacht etteen,’--under the fig tree? And soon we felt the pleasantness of this shade; for there is something peculiarly delightful in the shade of the fig tree. It is far superior to the shade of a tent, and perhaps even to the shadow of a rock, since not only does the mass of heavy foliage completely exclude the rays of the sun, but the traveller finds under it a peculiar coolness arising from the air gently creeping through the branches. Hence the force of the Scripture expression, ‘When thou wast under the fig tree.’“ (Mission to the Jews from Scotland.)
