1. He was a man who honestly made inquiries which fairly suggested themselves. He did not invent doubts and raise questions. When Philip said Nazareth his mind went to the prophecy about Bethlehem; hence his question. When Christ read him he naturally asked for the sources of Christ’s knowledge.
2. A man who honestly yielded to the force of truth. Christ’s omniscient knowledge he felt to be an irresistible proof of His Messiahship.
3. A man who in simple honesty believes much upon the evidence of one assured fact. Prom Christ’s knowledge he infers His teachership; His Divine Sonship; His sovereignty. Such is the man who obtains the blessing of the text.
II. THE GRACIOUS REWARD. The words imply
1. That his perceptions would be more vivid. “Believest thou” “thou shalt see.” Faith develops into experience, experience into actual vision.
2. That other truths should be discovered.
(1) More of Christ’s Godhead. From omniscience to omnipotence; from knowledge of the heart to power to change the heart.
(2) Christ’s human sonship. Godhead not half so wonderful as when it comes to be united to humanity.
(3) An opened heaven. He who knew the secrets of his heart would establish relations between his heart and heaven. These blessings are for guileless believers only. Christ cannot do mighty works because of unbelief.
III. THE SPECIAL SIGHT. Intercourse between earth and heaven by way of the Mediator.
1. The angels ascend first to carry Christ’s upward messages and our prayers and praises.
2. Angels descend with blessings to man through Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The first promise
Notice this incident
I. AS A GLORIOUS END WHICH MERGES INTO A STILL MORE GLORIOUS BEGINNING.
1. The Lord who receives His disciples. He first appears as “walking alone,” waiting for the Father’s first gift. The preparations for the kingdom are complete, but as yet He is without an avowed disciple. How will He win them?
(1) The first announcement which sent men to Christ was “Behold the Lamb of God.” This is the sovereign secret of our Lord’s attraction all through time.
(2) But He who takes away our sins also seeks. Two disciples follow Him, but find Him not till He turns with the searching question: then He finds Philip.
2. Those who come to Him.
(1) They are representatives of the devout in Israel waiting for His coming.
(2) They represent those who are prepared by repentance and faith.
(3) They illustrate the manner in which His disciples come to Him. Two by the preaching of another. Two seek their fellows and communicate the glad tidings. One is directly sought by Himself.
3. The communion between Christ and His disciples that day begun. It was reserved for the last to declare on behalf of all what Jesus was to their devotion: Divine Son, Supreme Lord. This, however, to them was but the beginning of joys, and the Redeemer promises greater things.
II. THIS FIRST PROMISE is an encouragement to the faith of these humble disciples, and a prologue to all the wonders of redemption.
1. Our Lord here utters in figurative language the mystery of His mediation between heaven and earth. Christ here gives us in His first exposition of those Scriptures which testify of Him the meaning of Jacob’s vision. The disciples were to see the Son of Man opening heaven and earth.
2. But though the Son of Man is the great word here, the angels have their specific meaning, viz., that heaven is always open to earth, that abundant blessing answers to abundant prayer, and that Christ’s servants have all heaven ministering to their good. Both worlds are thus made one, and earth to us, as to Jacob, becomes the gate of heaven. What an encouragement to expect larger communications! We need not make the angels the bearers of our prayer: that office Christ appropriates We need not make them bearers of the Divine response that office the Holy Spirit appropriates. They are nevertheless the symbols and instruments of the providence of God. Their ministry to Christ he has transferred to us.
3. This glorious introductory saying which passed from prophecy to promise now returns to pure prophecy again, and our Lord fore-announces the day when heaven and earth shall in the fullest sense be made one. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
Believing and seeing
I. OUR LORD’S PROMISE TO HIS NEW DISCIPLES. The words may be translated either as a question or an affirmation. In either case they are a solemn and glad recognition of Nathanael’s belief. Here is the first time that Christ uses the word. It was the epoch in history when Christ first claimed and then accepted a man’s faith. The “greater things” have a proper fuifilment in the gradual manifestation of Christ’s person and character which lay all unrevealed yet. “If you continue to trust in Me,” you shall see unrolled before your eyes the great facts which will make the manifestation of God to the world. Light is here thrown upon
1. The relation between faith and discipleship.
(1) The two terms are synonymous.
(2) Our Lord uses the word without any definition of what they were to believe: He Himself, and not thoughts about Him, is the true object of faith.
(3) Nathanael’s creed was widely different from ours, and yet his faith and ours are identical.
2. The connection between faith and sight. There is a great deal about seeing in the context. A double antithesis:
(1) “I saw thee”--“thou shalt see Me.”
(2) “Thou believest”--“thou shalt see;” i.e, in the loftiest region of spiritual experience you must believe first in order that you may see.
(a) Unless we trust Christ and take our illumination from Him, we shall never behold a whole set of truths which when once we trust Him are all plain to us: God, man, yourselves, duty, destiny.
(b) If we trust Him we get light on things which are mist and darkness except to faith. The world says,”Seeing is believing,”--which is true in regard to outward things. Believing is seeing in regard to God and spiritual truth.
3. The connection between faith and progress. Christ like a wise Teacher stimulates His disciples with the promise of “greater things.” Here is something which will give you ever new powers and acquirements, and ensure you against stagnation. Everything else gets worn out sooner or later.
II. OUR LORD’S WITNESS TO HIMSELF. Mark how with superbly autocratic lips He bases this great utterance upon nothing else but His own word. “From henceforth,” i.e, from the first hour of His official work. The promise is that in no vision of the night like Jacob, hut in practical, working reality ye shall see that ladder again, and the angels moving upon it in their errands of mercy. The ladder is Christ; He is the sole medium of communication between earth and heaven, the ladder with its foot on the earth, in His humanity, and its top in the heavens.
(1) Christ is the medium of all revelation. (.2) In Him the sense and reality of separation between heaven and earth through sin are swept away.
(3) By Him all Divine blessings angel-like descend.
(4) By Him prayers and desires rise to God.
(5) If we ever enter heaven at all we shall enter it through Him alone. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The glory of the Mediator
I. THE OMNISCIENCE OF HIS INTELLECT.
II. THE WONDERFULNESS OF HIS DISCLOSURES.
1. The heavenly world.
2. This world in connection with angelic agency.
3. This angelic agency is rendered through His mediation.
III. THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF HIS CAUSE. “Hereafter,” etc. Because
1. Time develops prophetic truth concerning Him.
2. Time affords opportunity to execute the mighty plan on which every victory is sketched.
3. It is future time that must and will unfold the results of His great undertaking. (J. H. Hill.)
The dawn of faith and its consummation
Christianity is not a mere set of doctrines, but a life of faith in and through Christ. This is well illustrated in this chapter. These early disciples differed in temperament and in their methods of reaching Christ, but they had one faith in common. Men have been ever asking, How does this faith begin? To what does it lead? These questions are answered here.
I. THE DAWN OF FAITH. Christ’s words imply the great fact of experience from which faith rises.
1. What was that fact?
(1) Not the proof of Christ’s miraculous power contained in the fact that Christ saw him although unseen. This might prove Christ to be a teacher sent from God, but no such miracle could prove Him to be the Redeemer and object of saving trust. Christ rejected belief founded exclusively on miracles. Miracles were imperative in the case of the Jews.
(2) But the fact that Christ saw into him and penetrated the deep necessities of his heart. Nathanael had probably been praying under the fig-tree. Prayer unveiling the soul before the heartsearching glance of God reveals the real man. Nathanael knew therefore at once that Christ was acquainted with his doubts, sorrows, aspirations. He therefore who thus knew him could deliver him. The same heart-searching glance rests upon us. Here, then, faith begins. “Lord, Thou knowest all things,” “Thou art the Son of God.”
2. That fact is the dawning of a faith that must continually grow. Two things necessary to the strengthening of belief.
(1) Its evidence must be certain. Faith in Christ rests upon the deepest of all kinds of certainty--experimental evidence. The evidence of testimony may fail, the certainty of reasoning may be destroyed. But when we know whom we have believed nothing can overturn our conviction. Here is the only cure for doubt.
(2) Its power must advance with advancing life. When faith in Christ as the only satisfier of the soul’s need is reached, every new experience in life brings new proofs of its power.
II. THE CONSUMMATION OF FAITH. Christ declares Jacob’s dream to be fulfilled in Him. The greater things are those which Jacob dimly realized.
1. The felt presence of God.
2. The sacredness of life. “How dreadful is this place!” etc.
3. Union with the angelic world. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
Israel and the Israelite
I. THE NARRATIVE IN EVERY LINE THROWS US BACK ON NATHANAEL’S GREAT ANCESTOR
1. We may learn how hard it is for a life to get rid of moral stain. Jacob’s life was purified by hard afflictions ere it was changed to Israel, the prince that prevailed with God.
2. A character may be so cleansed from moral stain that opposite virtues may be associated with the life. Jacob the supplanter was recovered from his guile.
3. The reflection cast upon the old patriarchal life is full of grace when one is welcomed to the love of Christ by the words, “Behold an Israelite indeed.”
II. NATHANAEL.
1. His requirements. We are apt to have no great thoughts of a simple guileless life. We associate it with a kind of weakness, and think of it as likely to be imposed upon and led astray. No doubt there is danger. This, like every other grace, wants cultivating; pruning as well as developing. And Christ expects cultivating in this disciple just as in the zealous Peter, the ambitious James, the thoughtful Andrew and Philip.
2. The promise that met that requirement. How helpful the vision was to Jacob! The reality was still more helpful to Nathanael.
(1) Literally it was fulfilled at the baptism, after the temptation, in the agony, and at the resurrection and ascension.
(2) Morally it was fulfilled in the establishment of relations with heaven through the Lamb of God.
3. Circumstantially it was fulfilled in the fruits of Nathanael’s missionary life. (T. Gasquoine, B. A.)
