He that has found and follows Christ soon seeks and finds others. But they are not always prepared to follow at once. So Philip proves here with the son of Talmai here called, not Bartholomew, but Nathanael. And hence, too, we learn that a man otherwise excellent, may be hindered by not a little prejudice. It is a wholesome lesson neither to be hasty in our expectations nor to be cast down if a good man be slow to listen.
“Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus from Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (Ver. 46.) Nathanael was not at all prepared for this. Most surely did his heart look for Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote; but that the Christ was Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, he had yet to learn. He believed in the glory of Messiah's person, as far as the Old Testament had revealed it beforehand: it had never occurred to him how Messiah could be “from Nazareth,” not to speak of “the son of Joseph.” For that village was despicable in the eyes even of a despised Galilean, who doubtless felt the more its miserably low moral repute because of his own practical godliness. Had Philip said “from Bethlehem, the son of David,” no such shock could have been given to the expecting Jew. But in truth, the Lord is here viewed as wholly above all earthly associations, and therefore He could come down to the lowest. For He was the Son of God who came to Nazareth, and only so could be said to be “from Nazareth” any more than “the son of Joseph.”
However this may be, Nathanael does not withhold his expression of hesitation, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” to which Philip answers, “Come and see.” But there was another also to see, and Jesus who saw Nathanael coming to Him, gave him to hear words of grace about himself which might well surprise him in His greeting, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” (Ver. 47.) If the Spirit of prophecy wrought according to Psa. 32, soon was he to know the Spirit of adoption and the liberty wherewith the Son makes free.
“Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.” (Ver. 48.) He is God always and everywhere in this Gospel. Unseen, Jesus had seen Nathanael. He had seen him where evidently he thought himself seen by none, but He who heard the musings of his heart in that spot “under the fig tree” saw him, the irresistible evidence of His own glory, of omniscience and omnipresence. Yet was He who saw him evidently a man in flesh and blood. He could be none other than the promised Messiah—Emmanuel, Jehovah's fellow, “Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” His prejudice instantly vanished away as mist before the sun in its strength. He might not be able to explain the connection with Nazareth, or with Joseph; but a good man would not, none but a bad one could, resist the positive light of One who thus knew all things and told it out in grace to win the heart of Nathanael and of every one who hears His word and fears God since that day to this.
But there is more, I think. Surely the fig tree is not a fact only, or an isolated circumstance, but clothed with the significance usually found in it, at least in scripture. In the great prophecy of our Lord, the fig tree is employed as the symbol of the nation; and so I cannot doubt it is here, If Nathanael were there musing in his heart before God on the expected Messiah and the hopes of the elect people, as many, indeed all men, were at that time, through the impulse of John the Baptist, nay, even whether He were the Christ or not (Luke 3:1515And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; (Luke 3:15)), we may conceive the better with what amazing force the words of Jesus must have appealed to the heart and conscience of the guileless Israelite. This appears to me powerfully confirmed by the character of his own confession. “Nathanael answered and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.” (Ver. 49.) It was a confession precisely of the Messiah according to Psa. 2. He might be Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph; but He could be, He was, none other than “My [Jehovah's] king,” “the Son” (vers. 6, 12), though not yet anointed in Zion, the hill of Jehovah's holiness. Nathanael was prompt and distinct now, as slow and cautious before.
Nor did the Lord check the flow of grace and truth, and Nathanael must borrow vessels not a few, till there was not one more to receive the blessing that would still overflow. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Henceforth ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (Vers. 50, 51.) Was Messianic glory the horizon of that which Nathanael’s soul saw and confessed in Jesus? Not “hereafter,” but from the present, from that out, should the disciples see, if earthly power were still delayed, the open heaven, and the homage of its glorious denizens to the rejected Messiah, the Son of man, whom all peoples, nations, and languages should serve, when He should enter on His everlasting dominion which should not pass away, and His kingdom which should not be destroyed. Truly these are greater things, the pledge of which Nathanael saw thenceforth in the attendance of God's angels on Him whom man despised and the nation abhorred to their own shame and ruin, but to the working out of heavenly counsels and an incomparably larger sphere of blessing and glory than in Israel or the land, as the reader may see in Psa. 8, especially if he consult the use made of it in 1 Cor. 15; Eph. 1; and Heb. 2.