John 01(35–51)

Introduction

I said last week that what we have from verse 19 of chapter 1 to verse 22 of chapter 2 is a week in the life of the Lord. I still think that’s the case, but I had a nagging feeling last week that something wasn’t quite right in the way I was counting the days. So, last week I said that verses 19 to 28 of chapter 1 are Day 1. And verses 29 to 34 are Day 2. That’s fine. Then I said that verses 35 to 42 are Day 3. That’s what I said last week. However, I now think that we should count those verses as two days. So, on Day 3, John the Baptist pointed out the Lord Jesus to two of his disciples and they left John and followed the Lord. And they spent the rest of the day with him. That’s what John tells us in verse 39. John then tells us in verse 40 that Andrew, who was one of those two disciples, went and fetched his brother Simon.

I assumed last week that Andrew met the Lord and fetched Simon on the same day. However, some commentators think that Andrew fetched his brother on the day after he met the Lord. In other words, Andrew met the Lord on Day 3 and fetched Simon on Day 4.

Verses 43 to 51 are therefore Day 5. We don’t know what happened on Day 6, but according to verse 1 of chapter 2, there was a wedding in Cana on the third day which the Lord attended. And when John says that the wedding was on the third day, he meant it took place on the third day after the last event. And that means the wedding took place on Day 7, because the Jews would count the days like this: Day 5 was the first day; day 6 was the second day; and day 7 was the third day.

So, why does any of this matter? That’s probably what you’re thinking. It matters because some of the commentators think that John has recorded this first week in the public life of the Lord to make the point that the first week of his public life marks the beginning of the new creation.

The Lord Jesus is the Word of God, who was with God in the beginning and who is God and all things came to be through him. All things came to be through the divine Word. That’s what John tells us in the opening verses of his gospel. And those opening verses recall what we read in Genesis 1 about the first week of creation, when God made the heavens and the earth and all that they contain.

But now — now that the divine Word has come in the flesh — all things are being made new. The divine Word came in the flesh to deliver us from our sin and misery in this old, fallen creation and to renew us by his Spirit for life in the new creation.

So, John records the first week in the public life of the Lord to make the point that the first week of his public life marks the beginning of the new creation. As the Apostle Paul says: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Whoever believes in the Saviour belongs not to the old creation, which is destined to perish, but to the new creation, which is for ever. Christ the Saviour fills us with his Spirit to renew us inwardly and to enable us to live a new kind of life in this world. And one day we’ll be renewed completely in body and soul and we’ll live with God in the new heavens and earth. And all of that is possible, because the divine Word became flesh and suffered and died to pay for our sins and to obtain for us the gift of his Spirit.

Last week we thought about Days 1 and 2. A delegation from Jerusalem came to find out what they could about John the Baptist. And the Baptist told them that he’s only a voice, crying in the wilderness, telling the people to get ready for the coming of the Lord. So, God was coming in the person of his Son to save his people. That was on Day 1.

On Day 2, John saw the Lord coming towards him and he pointed him out and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ So, God has come into the world in the person of his Son to offer himself as the once-for-all, perfect sacrifice for sins, so that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness and peace with God. That was on Day 2.

Today we come to Days 3 and 4 and Day 5. And it’s interesting that in verse 46 someone is invited to come and see who the Lord Jesus is. And it’s as if John is saying to us: come and see who the Lord Jesus is. Come with me, as we make our way through this gospel, and you will see who he is.

And remember: John tells us at the end of his gospel that he wrote it so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. And by believing, we may have life in his name. So, John wants us to come with him through the gospel and he’ll show us that the Lord Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God. He wants you to know this and to believe it, because whoever believes receives eternal life in the new creation.

Days 3 and 4

Let’s turn to verses 35 to 42 and to what John tells us about Days 3 and 4.

And once again we read about John the Baptist and how he was with two of his disciples. And the Lord Jesus was passing by. And John pointed to him and said to his disciples, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’ And do you remember what I said last week about that way of describing the Lord? I said that all the Old Testament references to lambs are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. All the Old Testament references to lambs were pointing forward to him. So, think again of the lambs which were offered to God as sacrifices for the sins of the people. The lambs died in the place of the people so that the people could live. Or think of the time when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord. The Lord stopped him and showed him a ram which was caught in a nearby bush. And the ram died in the place of Isaac so that Isaac could live. Or think of the lambs which were killed on the night of the Passover in Egypt. The angel of the Lord struck down and killed every firstborn son in every home except in those homes where a lamb had been killed and its blood was painted on the door. The lambs were killed in place of the sons so that they sons could live. And again, there’s the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 who was led like a lamb to be slaughtered for the sins of the people. The Suffering Servant died in place of the people so that the people could live.

All of those Old Testament references to lambs and rams point beyond themselves to the Lord Jesus. God so loved the world that he came to us in the person of his Son to give up his life on the cross as the sacrificial lamb who takes away our sin and guilt and who makes peace for us with God. God became flesh so that he could suffer and die in our place so that we could live by believing in him.

And so, John the Baptist pointed him out to his disciples. And whenever they heard what John said about him, they began to follow the Lord Jesus. For a while they followed John, but John’s role was to get them ready for the one who was coming after him. John’s role was to get them ready for the Saviour. And when the Saviour came, they left John and followed him.

And the Lord turned and asked them what they wanted. And in their reply to him, they called him ‘Rabbi’. And John, the writer of the gospel, explains helpfully that the word Rabbi means Teacher. And the Lord Jesus is a teacher, isn’t he? He went about not only performing miracles, but he also went about teaching the people. He came to teach the people about the kingdom of God and to teach them about himself, because he’s the King who has come to save his people. And he taught them in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Sermon on the Plain about how to live as God’s people. He taught the people many things. And so, he is indeed a Teacher.

And these two disciples wanted to know where he was staying. Presumably they wanted to know where he was staying so that they could stay with him and learn from him. That’s what happened in those days: students or disciples would gather around a teacher to learn from him. So, tell us where you’re staying so that we can stay with you and learn from you.

And the Lord invited them to come and see where he was staying. And they went and stayed with him for the rest of that day.

In verse 4 we learn that one of those two disciples was Andrew. The other disciple is not named, but, from the very beginning, people who have studied John’s gospel have believed that the second unnamed disciple was John himself. We’ll probably see as we make our way through the gospel that John doesn’t like to refer to himself by name. So, perhaps he was the one who was with Andrew and who spent the rest of the day with the Lord Jesus.

And on the next day, Andrew went off and found his brother, Simon. And Andrew told his brother that they have found the Messiah. That is, they have found the Christ. Both words mean Anointed. So, Andrew is telling his brother that they have found the Anointed One. And that was exciting news to tell Simon, because in various places throughout the Old Testament, God promised to send his people a Spirit-Anointed and Conquering King who would save his people from their enemies. And when John the Baptist first appeared, people were wondering whether he was the Christ. Since they believed that God would do what he said he would do and send them this special King, they wondered whether John the Baptist might be the one. However, as we saw last week, John denied it. But now Andrew and the other disciple with him are convinced that they have found the Christ. And it’s the Lord Jesus. And in his excitement, Andrew went to tell his brother the exiting news that they have found the Promised King.

And when Peter appeared before the Lord Jesus, the Lord looked at him and said to him, ‘You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas.’ And John explains for us that Cephas means Peter. And the little footnote in the NIV explains for us that Cephas and Peter both mean Rock. The Lord was telling Simon that from now on he will be known as Peter or Rock.

John doesn’t explain to us why the Lord changed Simon’s name. And so, perhaps the point of the story isn’t what it tells us about Simon Peter, but what it tells us about the Lord Jesus. And what does it tell us about him? It speaks to us of his authority. In the Old Testament, kings had the authority to change someone’s name. But above all, God has the authority to change someone’s name. Think of how God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Jacob’s name to Israel. And here’s the Lord Jesus and he has the authority to change Simon’s name, because the Lord Jesus is God’s Spirit-Anointed and Conquering King. And he’s not only God’s Spirit-Anointed and Conquering King, but he’s also God. He’s God in the flesh. God has come down to earth in the person of his Son to rule over his people as King. And one of the first things he does is to give one of his disciples a new name. And he’s able to do it precisely because he is Christ the King and God the Son.

Day 5

And so, we come to verses 43 to 51 and to Day 5 in the first week of the Lord’s public life. And John tells us that the Lord decided to leave for Galilee. And on the way, the Lord found Philip. And the Lord commanded Philip to follow him. And it’s clear from what we read next that Philip obeyed the voice of the Lord and followed him.

And then, in verse 45 we’re told that Philip found Nathanael. We don’t know much about Nathanael. Andrew and Simon Peter and Philip and John were all included in the Lord’s Twelve Disciples, but Nathanael was not. Some commentators suggest that he may have been one of the Twelve and that we know him by another name. However, that’s unlikely. So, he’s mentioned here and he’s mentioned again in John 21, but he’s not mentioned again.

But Philip found him and told him that they have found the one Moses wrote about and about whom the prophets also wrote about. He’s probably telling Nathanael the same thing Andrew told Simon Peter, which is that they have found the Messiah or the Christ. God announced through Moses and the prophets that he would send his people this special King to save them and to rule over them. And Philip has come to Nathanael with the exciting news: We’ve found him! We’ve found him and his name is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Don’t worry about the phrase ‘son of Joseph’. The Lord did not have a human father, because he was conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit. However, when Philip said this about him, everyone believed Joseph was the Lord’s father.

Philip tells Nathanael the exciting news that they have found the Promised King. And he’s from Nazareth! And look: Nathanael is sceptical. ‘Can anything good come from Nazareth?’ Nazareth was a small place. It was insignificant. And Nathanael can’t imagine that the King of God’s people will come from there. But instead of arguing with him, Philip simply invites him to come and see for himself.

And so, Nathanael went with Philip. And when the Lord saw Nathanael coming, he said of him, ‘Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.’ Or: ‘Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit.’ And that perhaps strikes us as an unusual thing for the Lord to say about Nathanael. Why did he say this? What did he mean by calling him a true Israelite? What did he mean by saying there is no deceit in him? What did the Lord mean?

And I think the explanation is found in what the Lord says in verse 51. We’ll get to verse 51 in a moment, but let me say now that the Lord refers in verse 51 to the Old Testament story of the time when Jacob fled from his home, because he had deceived his father into giving Jacob the blessing that rightfully belonged to Jacob’s brother, Esau.

Do you remember the story? Their father, Isaac, was old and he couldn’t see too well. One day he asked Esau, who was a hunter, to get his weapons and to go out into the open country and hunt some wild game for him. Then he was to use whatever he caught to prepare some food for his father. Afterwards, Isaac would bless Esau. But Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, overheard this conversation. And since she loved Jacob, she went to the kitchen and took some meat from the store and prepared a meal for her husband. Then she told Jacob to dress himself up in some animal skins so he would look and feel and smell like Esau and take the food to Isaac. She thought that Jacob’s disguise will fool Isaac, whose couldn’t see well, and Isaac will bless Jacob instead of Esau.

The plan worked. Even though Isaac was a little suspicious, Jacob convinced him that he was Esau and he received the blessing. So, the plan worked. But Esau was angry with his brother and he was determined to kill him once their father was dead. So, Rebekah sent Jacob away.

She told him to go and stay with her brother, Laban. And on the way to Uncle Laban’s house, Jacob stopped for the night and fell asleep. And in his sleep, he had a dream in which he saw heaven opened. We’ll think about his dream in a minute, but when the Lord says that Nathanael is a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit, the Lord is clearly contrasting Nathanael with Jacob. Jacob was a deceiver. He deceived his father and stole his brother’s blessing. But Nathanael was not like him.

It’s still an unusual thing for the Lord to say. After all, the Lord didn’t say it to Andrew or John or Simon Peter or Philip. Why did he say it to Nathanael? And why did Nathanael respond the way that he did? Look at verse 48 where Nathanael asks the Lord, ‘How do you know me?’ It’s as if what the Lord said to Nathanael about not being a deceiver meant something to Nathanael. Those words had significance for him. And then the Lord said to Nathanael that he saw Nathanael while Nathanael was still under the fig-tree before Philip called him.

What’s going on? It’s not completely clear, is it? What does seem clear is that Nathanael was sitting under a fig-tree when Philip found him and invited him to come and see the Promised King. But what was Nathanael doing under the fig-tree? We don’t know, but it seems possible from what the Lord says and from what Nathanael says that he was thinking about the story of Jacob. Why else would the Lord refer to that story?

And presumably Nathanael took it for granted that no-one knew what he was thinking when he was sitting under that tree. How can anyone know his thoughts? But from the words of the Lord Jesus, it’s clear that he knew what Nathanael was thinking. And I think we can say that he knew what Nathanael was thinking because the Spirit of wisdom and understanding was able to give the Lord Jesus supernatural insight into what Nathanael was thinking.

And that’s why Nathanael was so amazed at the Lord’s words. How do you know me? How do you know I was under the fig-tree? How do you know what I was thinking? Who are you that you have such supernatural knowledge? And Nathanael came to believe that the Lord Jesus is none other than the Son of God and the King of Israel. That’s what he says about the Lord in verse 49.

When Nathanael confessed that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, did he mean by that what we mean by that? When we say the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, we mean he’s the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity and he’s God from God and Light from Light and true God from true God and he’s begotten and not made and he has the same essence as the Father. That’s what we mean when we say that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God. Is that what Nathanael meant?

It’s possible he simply meant that the Lord Jesus is the Promised King, because God sometimes referred to the kings of Israel as his sons. But as sometimes happens in John’s gospel, he said something which was truer than he could imagine, because the Lord Jesus really is the Son of God. He really is God in the flesh. God has come down to earth in the person of his Son to be the Spirit-Anointed and Conquering King who delivers us from our sin and misery and who gives us everlasting life in his everlasting kingdom.

And the Lord responded to Nathanael’s confession by saying to him: You believe because of what I told you about the fig-tree. You shall see greater things than these. What greater things will he see? The Lord goes on to explain what he means. He says in verse 51: ‘I tell you the truth….’ We might say: ‘I tell yous the truth…’ or ‘I tell you all the truth…’ because he’s not just speaking to Nathanael. He’s speaking to everyone around him and to everyone who believes. So, he’s speaking to us. He’s saying: The day is coming when all of you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. The Lord Jesus is the Son of Man. So, all of you will see the angels of God ascending and descending on me. That’s what he’s saying.

He’s alluding to Jacob’s dream. In his dream Jacob saw a stairway. It was probably a tower like the Tower of Babel. And people in the ancient world built these towers as a way to connect heaven and earth. They supposed that God — or the gods — would use a tower to come down to earth to visit us.

And so, in his dream, Jacob saw one of these towers. And he saw angels, going up and down the tower. God was sending them to earth to do his will; and having done his will, they returned to heaven.

And then Jacob saw the Lord. The NIV in Genesis 28 says that God stood above ‘it’. That is, he stood above the tower. However, another possible translation is that the Lord stood above ‘him’. That is, the Lord stood above Jacob. In that case, Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28 was about how the Lord came down the tower to speak to Jacob. And then, in John 1, the Lord alludes to that dream and he says that the day is coming when we will see heaven open just as it did for Jacob. And just as Jacob saw the Lord, so we will see the Lord. We will see the Lord Jesus Christ. And the angels will accompany him.

Do you know what he’s referring to? He’s referring to the Lord’s second coming. The Lord will come again one day in glory and with power and with his angels to raise the dead and to gather together all of his people — everyone who believed in him — and he’ll bring us into the new heavens and earth.

Conclusion

In verse 49, Nathanael confessed his faith in the Lord Jesus, who is both the Son of God and the Promised Saviour–King. In verse 50, the Lord commends Nathanael for believing. ‘You believe’, he said. And in verse 51, the Lord assures Nathanael — and he assures all who believe — that one day he will come back for his believing people and he will take us to our eternal home in his presence.

The Lord Jesus Christ is God. Since he is God, he has all life in himself. And out of his overflowing goodness and love, he gives his life to us: not only life in this world, but life in the world to come, where we will be with God and where we’ll be perfectly happy and holy for ever as we behold his glory and worship him without weariness for ever and for ever.

The only thing keeping us out of God’s presence and the only thing preventing us from being perfectly happy and holy is our sin. But God so loved us that he sent his Son to take our sin away and to open up for us the way into God’s wonderful presence where we’ll be perfectly happy and holy for ever.

And since this is true, we should believe in the Lord Jesus for eternal life in the presence of God. And since this is true, we should keep believing in him and let nothing cause us to fall away from him. This life may be full of trials and troubles and sorrow and sadness. We may often feel weary and we may be tempted to give up the faith. But the day is coming when we will see heaven opened and the Son of God will appear with his angels. And when we see him like that, we will know we were right to believe in him and we were right to persevere in the faith despite all the trials. We were right to believe in him, because in the end, we will be filled with glory as we behold his glory in his presence for evermore.