John 1:45-49

John 1:45

The First Disciples Nathanael.

I. Look first at the preparation a soul brought to Christ by a brother. "Philip findeth Nathanael." Nathanael's prejudice was but the giving voice to a fault that is as wide as humanity, and which we have every day of our lives to fight with, not only in regard of religious matters, but in regard of all others namely, the habit of estimating people, and their work, and their wisdom, and their power, by the class to which they are supposed to belong. "Philip saith unto him, Come and see." He is not going to argue the question. He gives the only possible answer to it. "You ask me, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Come and see whether it is a good thing or no; and if it is, and came out of Nazareth, well then, the question has answered itself." The quality of a thing cannot be settled by the origin of a thing.

II. The conversation between Christ and Nathanael, where we see a soul fastened to Christ by Himself. The omniscience of Christ, as manifested here, shows (1) how glad Christ is when He sees anything good, anything that He can praise, in any of us. (2) We have here our Lord's omniscience set forth as cognisant of all our inward crises and struggles. In our hours of crisis, and in our monotonous uneventful moments; in the rush of the furious waters, when the stream of our lives is caught among rocks, and in the long, languid reaches of its smoothest flow; when we are fighting with our fears, or yearning for His light; or even when sitting dumb and stolid, like snow men, apathetic and frozen in our indifference He sees us, and pities, and will help the need which He beholds.

III. One word more about this rapturous confession which crowns the whole: "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel." The joybells of the man's heart are all a-ringing. It is no mere intellectual acknowledgment of Christ as Messiah. The difference between mere head-belief and heart-faith lies precisely in the presence of these elements of confidence, of enthusiastic loyalty, and absolute submission.

A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry,2nd series, p. 169.

References: John 1:45. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., No. 921; Homilist,3rd series, vol. vii., p. 22; Ibid.,4th series, vol. i., p. 240.