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Joh_1:51. Πιστεύεις is, with Chrysostom and most others (even Lachmann and Tischendorf, not Godet), to be taken interrogatively; see on Joh_20:29.[129] But the question is not uttered in a tone of censure, which would only destroy the fresh bloom of this first meeting (Theophylact: “he had not yet rightly believed in Christ’s Godhead”); nor is it even the expression of slight disapproval of a faith which was not yet based upon adequate grounds (De Wette, comp. Ewald); but, on the contrary, it is an expression of surprise, whereby Jesus joyfully recognises a faith in Nathanael which could hardly have been expected so soon. And to this faith, so surprisingly ready in its beginning, He promises something greater ( ἐς ἐλπίδα φέρτερον ἕλκων , Nonnus) by way of further confirmation.
τούτων ] Plural of the category: “than this which you now have met with, and which has become the ground of your faith.”
καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ ] specially introduces the further statement of the μείζω τούτων as a most significant word.
ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ] The double ἈΜῊΝ does not occur in other parts of the N. T., but we find it twenty-five times in John, and only in the mouth of Jesus,—therefore all the more certainly original.
ὙΜῖΝ ] to thee and Andrew, John, Peter (James, see in Joh_1:42), and Philip.
ἈΠΆΡΤΙ ] from now onwards, for Jesus was about to begin His Messianic work. See chap. 2. Thus, in this weighty word He furnishes His disciples with the key for the only correct understanding of that work.
ὄψεσθε , κ . τ . λ .] The “opened heaven” is not intended to be taken in its literal sense, as if it stood alone, but is part of the figurative moulding of the sentence in keeping with the following metaphor. Observe here the perfect participle: heaven stands open; comp. Act_7:56. The ascending and descending angels are, according to Gen_28:12, a symbolical representation of the uninterrupted and living intercourse subsisting between the Messiah and God,—an intercommunion which the disciples would clearly and vividly recognise, or, according to the symbolic form of the thought, would see as a matter of experience throughout the ministry of Jesus which was to follow.[130] The angels are not therefore to be regarded as personified divine powers (Olshausen, De Wette, and several), or as personal energies of God’s Spirit (Luthardt and Hofmann), but as always God’s messengers, who brought to the Messiah God’s commands, or executed them on Him (comp. Mat_4:11; Mat_26:53; Luk_22:43), and return to God again ( ἀναβαίνοντας ), while others with new commissions came down ( ΚΑΤΑΒΑΊΝ .), and so on. We are not told whether, and if so, to what extent, Nathanael and his companions now already perceived the symbolic meaning of the declaration. It certainly is not to be understood as having reference to the actual appearances of angels in the course of the Gospel history (Chrysostom, Cyril., Euthymius Zigabenus, and most of the early expositors), against which ἀπάρτι is conclusive; nor merely to the working of miracles (Storr, Godet), which is in keeping neither with the expression itself, nor with the necessary reference to the Messiah’s ministry as a whole, which must be described by ἀπάρτι ὄψεσθε , etc.
ἈΝΑΒΑΊΝ .] is placed first, in remembrance of Gen_28:12, without any special purpose, but not inappropriately, because when the ὄψεσθε takes place, the intercourse between heaven and earth does not then begin, but is already going on. We may supply ἈΠῸ ΤΟῦ ΥἹΟῦ ΤΟῦ ἈΝΘΡ . after ἈΝΑΒΑΊΝ . from the analogy of what follows. See Kühner, II. p. 603.
Concerning Ὁ ΥἹῸς ΤΟῦ ἈΝΘΡ ., see on Mat_8:20; Mar_2:8, note. In John likewise it is the standing Messianic designation of Jesus as used by Himself; here, where angelic powers are represented as waiting upon Him who bears the Messianic authority, it corresponds rather with the prophetic vision of the Son of man (Dan_7:14), and forms the impressive conclusion of the whole section, confirming and ratifying the joyous faith and confession of the first disciples, as the first solemn self-avowal on the part of Jesus in their presence. It thus retained a deep and indelible hold upon the recollection of John, and therefore it stands as the utterance of the clear Messianic consciousness of Jesus unveiled before us at the outset of His work. It is exactly in John that the Messiahship of Jesus comes out with the greatest precision, not as the consequence and result, but as already, from the beginning onwards, the subject-matter of our Lord’s self-consciousness.[131]
[129] As to the paratactic protasis, which may be read interrogatively or not according to the character of the discourse, see C. F. Hermann, Progr. 1849, p. 18; Scheibe in Schneidew. Philolog. 1850, p. 362 ff. Comp. also Nägelsbach’s note on the Iliad, p. 350, ed. 3.
[130] This expression tells us nothing concerning the origin of Christ’s knowledge of God, which ver. 18 clearly declares, and which cannot therefore be attributed to a series of progressive revelations (Weizsäcker); the expression rather presupposes that origin. Comp. also Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 286 ff.
[131] The historic accuracy of this relation, as testified by John, stands with the apostolic origin of the Gospel, against which even the objections of Holtzmann in his investigation, which are excellent in a historical point of view (Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1867, p. 389), can have no effect.
Note.
The synoptical account of the call of the two pairs of brothers, Mat_4:18 ff. and parallels, is utterly irreconcilable with that of John as to place, time, and circumstances; and the usual explanations resorted to—that what is here recorded was only a preliminary call,[132] or only a social union with Christ (Luther, Lücke, Ebrard, Tholuck; comp. also Ewald and Godet), or only the gathering together of the first believers (Luthardt), but not their call—fall to the ground at once when we see how the narrative proceeds; for according to it the μαθηταί , Joh_2:2, are with Jesus, and remain with Him. See on Mat_4:19-20. The harmony of the two accounts consists in this simply, that the two pairs of brothers are the earliest apostles. To recognise in John’s account not an actual history, but a picture of the author’s own, drawn by himself for the sake of illustrating his idea (Baur, Hilgenfeld, Schenkel),—that, viz., the knowledge of the disciples and that of Jesus Himself as to His Messianic call might appear perfect from the outset,—is only one of the numerous self-deceptions in criticism which form the premisses of the unhistorical conclusion that the fourth Gospel is not the work of the apostle, but of some writer of much later date, who has moulded the history into the form of his own ideal. On the contrary, we must here specially observe that the author, if he wished to antedate the time and place of the call, certainly did not need, for the carrying out of his idea, to invent a totally different situation from that which was before his eyes in the Synoptics. Over and above this, the assumption that, by previously receiving John’s baptism, Jesus renounced any independent action (Schenkel), is pure imagination. Weizsäcker (p. 404) reduces John’s account to this: “The first acquaintance between Jesus and these followers of His was brought about by His meeting with the Baptist; and on that occasion, amid the excitement which the Baptist created, Messianic hopes, however transitory, were kindled in this circle of friends.” But this rests upon a treatment of the fourth Gospel, according to which it can no longer claim the authority of an independent witness; instead of this witness, we have merely the poet of a thoughtful Idyll. And when Keim (I. p. 553) finds here only the narration of an age that could no longer endure the humble and human beginnings of Jesus, but would transplant into the time of His first appearance that glory which, as a matter of history, first distinguished His departure and His exaltation, this is all the more daring a speculation, the more closely, according to Keim, the origin of the Gospel verges upon the lifetime of the apostle, and must therefore present the most vivid recollections of His disciples.
[132] So, most recently, Märcker, Uebereinstimm. der Evang. d. Matt. u. Joh., Meiningen 1868, p. 10 ff. The τὸν λεγόμενον Πέτρον , Mat_4:18, furnishes no proof, as is plain from the parallel in Mar_1:16, which is the source of Matthew’s account, but as not those words. They are simply a personal notice added from the standing-point of the writer, as in Mat_10:2.