John 1:35-43

DISCIPLES OF JESUS

John 1:35-43. “On the following day, John again stood, and two of His disciples, and looking upon Jesus walking about, says, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard Him speaking, and follow Jesus. And Jesus turning, and seeing them following, says to them, What are you seeking? And they said to Him, Master, which is interpreted Teacher, where dwellest Thou? And He says to them, Come and see, And they came and saw where He dwelleth, and they abode with Him that day; it was about the tenth hour;” i.e., four o'clock in the afternoon. The Apostle John, the author of this Gospel, is too modest to call his own name, always alluding to himself in some indirect way. Lord, help all of us preachers to profit by John's modesty! How many are not satisfied with their names, but want D.D. and LL.D. added to them! Here, John specifies that Andrew was one of those two disciples, but does not give the name of the other, there being no doubt but he himself is the other one; and I believe, as these two were the first disciples of Jesus, that John himself led the way, being actually the first of all; as you see here they are falling in line, and following Jesus, at the instigation of John the Baptist, who, in the Divine economy, taught the primary department in the school of Christ, thus preparing His disciples for Him, as the disciples of Christ, including the apostles, were first the disciples of John the Baptist, this explaining the reason why none of the original apostles were baptized with water after they followed Jesus, they all having received the baptism of John.

John 1:40. “Come and see.” When John and Andrew, pursuant to the diagnosis of John the Baptist, said to Jesus, “Master, where dwellest Thou?” (“Where is Your lodging, that we may appoint a time to come and see You?”) Jesus said, “Come now.” Lord, help us to profit by Thy example, and quit all of this buncombe of appointing an hour to call! Now is the accepted time. Tomorrow may never come. We should be always ready for the Lord's work. “The King's business requires haste.” The sainted Miller Willis, during a fashionable, worldly, pseudo-revival, while the pastor, in a very formalistic way, was announcing from the pulpit that penitents could call upon him at his office at a stated hour, or, if they preferred it, call upon one of his official members at another hour, startled the whole congregation by a loud, sudden exclamation, “The Lord Jesus Christ is ready at all hours!” so that no burdened soul need wait a moment. Immediately after John and Andrew followed Jesus, the latter finds his brother Simon and notifies him: “We have found the Messiah, which is interpreted Christ; and he led him to Jesus. And Jesus looking on him said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah; but thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter.” Cephas means rock in Hebrew, and Peter in Greek. The moment Jesus saw Simon, He looked down into the deep interior of his heart, and saw his wonderful solidity and stability, and consequently named him Cephas in Hebrew and Peter in Greek, which means rock. Did not Peter show much vacillation and instability? He did, till the sanctifying fires of the Holy Ghost, which he received at Pentecost, burnt out the vast accumulations of debris with which hereditary depravity had encumbered him. After this glorious work, the rock was clearly revealed to all who knew him. He was steadfast as Mt. Zion, and inflexible under the combined powers of earth and hell. He lived a hero and died a martyr. So it is with all of us; like Peter, we are unstable as water and unsubstantial as mud till we receive the sanctifying fires of Pentecost.

John 1:44. “On the following day [i.e., the day after Jesus called Peter], He finds Philip, and says to him, Follow Me. Philip was from Bethsaida, from the city of Andrew and Peter.” Bethsaida stood on the northwest coast of the Galilean Sea, at a great spring, which issues from the base of a mountain contiguous to a beautiful, fertile plain, quite convenient for the site of the city and its gardens. Jesus pronounced an awful woe against it (Matthew 11:21), which has been signally fulfilled in its utter desolation, with scarcely a vestige to mark its situation, and many centuries without an inhabitant. As the situation is beautiful and the water excellent, it is a favorite camping place. Our party stopped and lunched there. This city was the home of Peter and Andrew and Philip. However, in the days of our Savior, Peter was a married man, having left the home of his nativity and settled in Capernaum, which became the home of Jesus after His rejection at Nazareth, and, as we believe, making the house of Peter His home. “Philip finds Nathanael, and said to him, We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets in the law did write, Jesus the Son of Joseph, who is from Nazareth. And Nathanael said to him, What good is able to be from Nazareth? Philip says to him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, says concerning him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” Nathanael is a Hebrew word, and means

“Given of God.” We here see that he enjoyed the sanctified experience, being a guileless Israelite, confirmatory of the conclusion that he was saved from all depravity; i.e., sanctified wholly. “Nathanael says to Him, Whence do you know me? Jesus responded and said to him, Before Philip called you, I saw you while you were under the fig-tree. Nathanael responded and says to Him, Master, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel. Jesus responded and said to him, Because I said to thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, dost thou believe? Thou shalt see greater things than these And He says to him, Truly, truly, I say unto you, You shall see heaven opened, and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” Here we find that Nathanael was thoroughly convinced of the Christhood of Jesus because He saw him under the fig-tree. He was there alone, sequestered and hidden, and Jesus was nowhere about there, but away beyond great mountains and obstructions, so he knew that He had no chance to see him; hence, when He told him that He saw him, he knew that He was omnipresent, and believed in His Divinity unhesitatingly. Here our Savior alludes to the ladder which Jacob saw in his night vision, while sleeping on Mt. Bethel. Hence we see that Jacob's ladder, connecting earth and heaven, was a type of Christ, who is the Mediator between God and man, bridging the intervening chasm, and bringing heaven and. earth into intercommunication. “The Son of man” has a deep signification, and is quite a favorite phrase in the diction of our Savior. Humanity, before the fall, enjoyed membership in the Divine family. In the fall, spiritual life was forfeited and superseded by death. Therefore the wicked are denominated the children of the devil (John 8:44), spiritual life and Divine sonship only being regained by the regeneration of the Holy Ghost. Now, since Jesus is the only unfallen Son of Adam, He, in an exclusive and peculiar sense, is truly the Son of man.