Jesus Talked With Nathanael

Philip had run to his closest friend and told him about Jesus. In response to his friend's understandable skepticism, Philip merely said, Come and see for yourself.

Notice that when he came into view, Jesus saw Nathanael, He saw his heart, and said “Here’s a real Israelite.” That must have been humbling for Nathanael, because he had kind of implied Jesus wasn’t, since Jesus was from Nazareth.

Then Jesus said, “In him is no deceit,” or “no guile.” Jesus was saying Nathanael was honest and up front, he had integrity. This must have made Nathanael pretty uncomfortable! How could Jesus understand him like that?

Then Jesus told him,

"Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree." (John 1:48)

What Nathanael said next is remarkable

"Rabbi, you are the Son of God and the King of Israel!" (John 1:49)

That was the most dramatic thing any of these men had said yet about Jesus. How did such a skeptic turn into a believer, just like that? What could possibly have happened in Nathanael’s heart?

The fig tree was the common place for prayer, especially for young rabbinic students. And in Nathanael’s day, the rabbis taught that every time one prayed they were to pray for the coming of the Messiah. So what was Nathanael doing when Philip came to find him? Nathanael put two and two together in his mind. Only Messiah would have seen him praying for Messiah.

Nathanael’s response of faith must have pleased Jesus, because He gave further revelation – that’s what happens when you and I respond to God in believing faith, He opens our eyes to even deeper insight,

"Did you believe me just because I said that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see something even greater. I tell you for certain that you will see heaven open and God's angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man." (John 1:50-51)

This is the first time the term “Son of Man” comes up, and is rich with meaning. We will study more what this phrase means as we get deeper into the blended gospels.

Jesus was talking about Jacob’s dream as he was running away from his brother, falling asleep alone in the desert. Jacob saw the angels going up and down from earth to God and he knew God would be with him. The actual staircase was hidden in plain view! How many people must have read about Jacob’s dream over the centuries and never even thought about the significance of that staircase.

The staircase was Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, connecting God with people.

God uses witnesses to bring people to Jesus

The natural overflow of discovering Jesus for these men was to bring others to Him. So how strong is that natural overflow in your life and mine right now? Which is stronger, self-consciousness, lack of confidence, and wanting people to like you; or a sense of excitement to introduce people to Jesus?

When you and I love God the most, we will point people to Him, and not to ourselves, regardless of the circumstances. How well do you and I do that? How well do we point people to Jesus by urging them to pray and look to the Bible for answers, instead of to ourselves for answers? Who will you ask to “come and see” Jesus this week?

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The First Five Disciples Begin To Follow Jesus

The next day John the Baptist was still preaching repentance and baptizing people, preparing them to follow Messiah. Jesus again came to where John was teaching, so John spoke to the two disciples who were standing near him, intent on what he had to say. Andrew and John heard the Baptist announce once again that Jesus was the Lamb of God.

When John pointed Jesus out to them, there was no question but that they would follow Him.

Do you think their hearts pounded when Jesus turned around and saw them? Pay attention to that. With each person who came to Jesus, Jesus looked at that person and read their heart. As Jesus saw them He said “what do you seek?”

Those are the first words Jesus says in John’s gospel, maybe the first words He spoke as He began his public ministry.

“What are you looking for in life? What are you looking for from Me?”

Think of Who Jesus was and what these two men must have been thinking and wondering about. John and Andrew wanted to be near Jesus and spend time with Him. They wanted to know Him.

So Jesus invited them to come and spend time with Him. They spent an entire afternoon and evening with Jesus, and they fell in love with Him. No doubt the Lord told them something about His mission, revealed their own hearts to them and answered their questions. They were so fascinated they could hardly tear themselves away.

Others can tell you about Jesus, and about God, but you will only really get to know Him by spending time with Him yourself.
* How close am I willing to get to Jesus and how long am I willing to stay with Him?
* Does He ever get a whole day from me, let alone my whole life?

It seems as though both Andrew and John got the same idea of racing to get their brothers,
--> but Andrew was the first to find his brother Simon.
--> Andrew was the first to announce, “We have found the Messiah,” and bring his brother to Jesus.
--> In fact, all throughout the gospels, Andrew was bringing people to Jesus – the boy with the loaves and the fish, and later some Greeks who were looking for the Messiah.

When Simon arrived it says Jesus looked at him. The meaning of that word is to look intently, like looking at a work of art. Then Jesus told Simon he would be Peter, a rock, solid, dependable and true. I think Peter must have hung on to that three years later during the events surrounding Jesus’ trial.

The day after that Jesus decided to go up to Galilee where all these men had their fishing businesses, and He found Philip. Philip was from Andrew and Peter’s home town, Bethsaida, a small fishing village, so probably they all knew each other.

Philip had the same response as Andrew and John, he fell in love with Jesus and went to find his good friend Nathanael. In the other gospels Nathanael is referred to as Bartholomew, “Bar” means “son of,” so he was Nathanael, son of Tolmai, and he and Philip were inseparable friends, always grouped together on later missionary expeditions.

Nathanael was a student of the scriptures, so Philip told him about finding the one Moses and the prophets had written about. But when Philip said Jesus was from Nazareth, right away Nathanael was skeptical. Nazareth was considered only a grade above Samaria, full of Gentiles and the worship of pagan deities. What prejudices are revealed by your and my attitudes?

Did you notice how Philip didn’t argue? He just said what Jesus had said before, “Come and see.” To Nathanael’s credit, he did.

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John and Andrew Continue To Learn About Jesus

2) John also said Jesus was the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
The word baptism comes from the Greek word “baptizo”, which means “immerse” or “wash.” The baptism of the Holy Spirit is an immersion in the Spirit, a total saturation in God that washes away all sin and changes you from mortal to immortal. A new life is created within you by the Holy Spirit, and that new life is eternal.

Are you wondering if you’ve been baptized by the Holy Spirit?
1) Scripture explains that the moment you put your faith in Jesus, then you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

2) If you know you believe in Jesus, and you know that you’ve put your faith in Him, then you will know you have the Spirit.

3) Your life will show it. With God’s Spirit comes all of Who God is, and His character will become visible in you

4) You also receive gifts from the Spirit, an empowering to serve others, especially other believers, in a variety ways. Your prayers are answered in powerful ways, you notice that God makes what you do and say effective in other people’s lives.

5) This is a one time event, scripture explains. But again and again you can be filled to the brim and overflowing with God’s life and power, His Spirit.

Being baptized with water is a visible way of illustrating this profound and powerful spiritual thing that has happened, God creating new life in you.

Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world and baptizes with the Holy Spirit

Have you put your hands on Jesus and confessed your sin? Have you accepted the substitute that God has provided so that you can live forever, instead of suffering the corruption and death that sin brings? Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? This is the very heart of being a Christian.

When you tell people about Jesus, it’s not about God fixing all the problems, or making sure you have all the things you want, or that you will never suffer again, life will be smooth sailing. We think we want those things. But what we really long for is what we really need, to be forgiven, and to be made one with God and with each other through His Holy Spirit.

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When John and Andrew First Learn About Jesus

John declared Who Jesus is in two ways:
1) Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away sin. This relates back to Adam and Eve when God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, or they would die.

Adam and Eve did eat the fruit of that tree, introducing sin and death into the world, something all people have had to live with up to today. But God, in His mercy, had already prepared a way out. God provided a way for His people to experience and understand His forgiveness. They wouldn't be able to earn it. God forgave them out of His own love and mercy.

The way God provided, to illustrate the awfulness of sin and to point to Himself Who would one day absorb both sin and it's aftermath - corruption and death - was through the sacrificing of an animal that had no flaws.

Typically a person would bring a lamb to the altar and lay their hands on the lamb's head, symbolically transferring their sin to the lamb, before it was sacrificed. Its death represented their own; the result of sin is always death. There was nothing particularly sacred in the animal. The effectiveness of these sacrifices was based entirely on what Jesus, Who is both man and God, would do.

These sacrifices were based on substitution. In Greek this concept of substitution is found in the word huper, which means "on behalf of" or "in another's place." Huper is the chief Greek term for expressing the principle of substitution, and substitution is the chief salvation concept in the Bible.

The animal was sacrificed, killed, in place of the person who was confessing their sin before God. The ultimate expression of this concept was found in the Passover lamb, and this is what John the Baptist meant about Jesus.

The Passover Lamb died in the place of every first born Hebrew the night God judged all Egypt, during the tenth plague. The blood of the lamb saved the lives of every household which had literally painted the lamb's blood on their door posts. The Passover lamb pointed to the Lamb of God Who would one day save the lives of every person who painted the blood of His sacrifice on the doorposts of their hearts.

As the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus had to be without any flaw – not born with the inherited sin nature and not ever having committed sin. Jesus obeyed whatever the Father gave Him, and even submitted to the whole of the Mosaic law though He Himself is God.

By His sinlessness Jesus was qualified to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins, the perfect substitute to absorb all the punishment and wrath for sin. Because He is God, infinite and eternal, Jesus' sacrifice was once and for all, enough for all sin past, present and future.

We are saved because God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die huper ("on behalf of") us, or "in our place." He stood in our place, as a sinner, and took the full force of the wrath of God for our sins. As a result, we are able to stand before God "as Christ," and be seen in Jesus' righteousness.

To believe this takes faith because we don’t have a lamb to put our hands on, and we don’t have Jesus physically here, either, to put our hands on. So you and I need to figuratively put our hands on to Jesus as we confess our sins, and envision our sin transferring to Him, and believe that His death is in place of the death that your sin and mine brings us.

[Tomorrow: 2) John also said Jesus was the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.]

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Blended Gospels: Jesus first contact with those who would become His disciples

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!"

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, "What are you seeking?"

And they said to him,"Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

He said to them, "Come and you will see."

So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Philip said to him, "Come and see."

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!"

Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?"

Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

Jesus answered him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these."

And he said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

[John 1:35-51, ESV]

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