John 1:35-51
The interest in Jesus by John’s disciples surely blessed John, giving him a sense of satisfaction in seeing his mission beginning to be fulfilled. His ministry was bearing fruit, not losing it!
His mission was to prepare the way of the Lord, calling people to discipleship to Jesus. When some of John the Baptist’s disciples left him to follow Jesus, his mission was fulfilled, not diminished.
Nathanael objected to the idea of the Christ coming from Nazareth. Perhaps this was due to local biases. But perhaps John 7:41 and 52 give deeper reasons. First, the Christ wasn’t foretold as coming from Galilee. Second, they had no record of any Galilean prophets, past or future.
Whatever the case, Nathanael knew enough to reject the notion that anybody from Nazareth could be the Messiah. And yet, after meeting Jesus, he went from “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” to “You are the Son of God and the King of Israel!”
In this passage, God declared several facets of Jesus’ identity through the testimony of five different people.
- John the Baptist — “Behold the Lamb of God!”
- Andrew — “We have found the Messias.”
- Philip — “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
- Nathanael — “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.”
- Jesus — “Ye shall see…the Son of man.”
Acknowledging information regarding Jesus’ identity is crucial, but insufficient. Awakening faith in Jesus as the Messiah is one of the objectives of this Gospel (John 20:31).
Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of John: “What seek ye?” (John 1:38).
John 1:45 seems to indicate that Philip had been on a heart search for the Messiah, and found Him when he was found by Him.
I read this somewhere but cannot confirm its accuracy: Rabbis used the expression under the fig tree to describe meditating on the Scriptures.
