Bible Study Series: John 1:43-51. Jesus calls two more disciples. They responded with yes. But they also had some questions.
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For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 1:43-51
43 On the next day, Jesus resolved to go into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me!” 44 Philip was from Bethany, the town of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one of whom Moses wrote in the law and also the prophets, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Then Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good be from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said about him, “Look! A true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “Where do you know me from?” Jesus replied and said to him, “Before Philip called you, I saw that you were under the fig tree.” 49 Nathanael replied to him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel! 50 Jesus replied and said to him, “Because I said that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?” You will see greater things than these. 51 I tell you the firm truth: You will see heaven opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:43-51)
Commentary
This is another pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea) or unit or section about witnessing to friends and family. To be a disciple is to be a missionary.
43:
As noted under v. 35, Klink adds up the days and sees a parallel with the six days of creation (pp. 160-62. Let’s wait until then, but the point for now is that John is not being whimsical and careless.
44:
Bethsaida was on the northside of the Lake of Galilee, east of the Jordan River, which feeds into Galilee. It literally means “house of fishermen” or “Fishertown” (Bruce, comment on v. vv. 43-44). The other Gospels say that Peter and Andrew (and James and John) lived in Capernaum, slightly farther south and on the west side of the Jordan River and still on the Lake of Galilee (Luke 5). They were in the fishing business. Why did Peter and Andre move? I don’t know. They may have met James and John and their father Zebedee, who lived in Capernaum. They became business partners. (It would not surprise me if the four men were related somehow, like cousins, or through Peter’s unnamed wife, cousins again, or two brothers and a sister, but there is no available information to confirm any of this, so let’s not run wild with speculation).
45:
“law and prophets”: The phrase is the shorthand way of saying the whole Old Testament. Further, Novakovic has “also the prophets,” hinting that the grammar does not really assume that Moses wrote the prophets. John knew this. Novakovic is right. “Prophets” is in the nominative case, while “law” is in the dative.
Who is Nathaniel? He comes from Cana of Galilee (21:2), so he had a rivalry with nearby Nazareth. Some scholars say he was Bartholomew, but this would mean that he took another Jewish name (Bar-Tolmai), which just was not done because Jews instead adopted a Greek or Roman name. But Nathaniel and Bartholomew are not nicknames. They are Hebrew, and typically Jews took as their second name a Greek or Latin name (a name like Nathanael / Bartholomew is not the same as a nickname, like Cephas or Peter) So who was Nathaniel? I say Bauckham is right: Nathanael is a close and early disciple who never “graduated” (my word) or was never selected to be one of the twelve (pp. 103 and 110, note 61). He may have been one of the seventy-two (Luke 10:1-12).
46:
Then Nathanael expresses some prejudice. Acts 24:5 says that some people contemptuously and dismissively referred to the early Christians as the “Nazarene sect” (HT: Carson, comment on v. 46). Nazareth is inland from the Lake, by quite a distance for the ancient world (you can look up Bible maps all over the web.) You may come from a despised town or have despised origins or family. Don’t let popular prejudice stop you.
I like Philip’s response: come and see for yourself. One grammarian says the phrase could be translated as “If you come, you will see” (see 11:34). I like that, but most translations go with the more obvious “come and see.” Sometimes people have to find out for themselves. You can talk to them for only so long; then they have to investigate it for themselves. Nathanael is about to find out that something good can come from Nazareth!
Joseph was Jesus’s legal descent. Philip was speaking from his limited perspective at this stage in the story.
See this post about how Joseph relates to his ancestry:
Reconciling Matthew’s and Luke’s Genealogies: Mission: Impossible?
47-48:
In any case, Jesus’s pronouncement on Nathanael is profound. Nathanael was truthful, a son of the covenant, an Israelite, without deceit. “It may be paraphrased ‘one who is all Israel and no Jacob’” (Bruce, comment on v. 47). He was a real Israelite.
To answer Nathaniel’s question, Jesus implies that he got this information on the whereabouts of Nathanael under the fig tree from the Spirit. Fig tree can symbolize “home” (e.g. Is. 36:16; Mic. 4:4; Zech. 3:10). However, it is more likely that Jesus saw Nathanael in the Spirit, by revelation.
For us Renewalists, this is a word of knowledge. It is available to us, when the Father wills it by the power of the Spirit. We know something that we could not know by study or research.
2. Gifts of the Spirit: Word of Knowledge
Gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and 12:28
5. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Came Down from Heaven
The Spirit in the Life of Christ
If he did this miracle of knowledge by the power of the Spirit, then we can do the same, according to the Father’s will, because we too have the power of the Spirit. Yet some theologians say it was by his divine nature. The testimony of Scripture says that Jesus was anointed by the Spirit and worked all of his miracles by the Spirit (see Acts 10:38; John 3:34).
Further, the Father and the Spirit cooperated with his divine nature, so the first and third persons of the Trinity are working together in the Son of God. His entire ministry was about doing what the Father did and in a similar manner.
19 “Jesus then replied and said to them, “I tell you the firm truth: The Son is unable to do anything on his own, unless it is something he sees the Father doing, for the things that he does—the Son also does those things in like manner. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows to him everything that he himself is doing” … (John 5:19-20).
“Unable” should not be over-interpreted, but simply means that in his ministry, the Father empowers him. So in those two verses, the Father and Son cooperate to do the works–the miracles. And the Father anointed the Son with the Spirit. Thus, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit performed the works or miracles in the Gospels. It is the Trinity working together who inaugurated the kingdom of God and confirmed it by the signs and wonders. We too, by the Father’s will, and in the name of Jesus, through the power of the Spirit can do the works of God.
49:
It is clear that “Son of God” “King of Israel” are different terms to refer to the Messiah (Mounce, comment on v. 49). They are titles found in Ps. 2:6, 7:
6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:
He said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father. (Ps. 2:6-7, NIV)
See vv. 14 and 49 for more comments about the Son of God.
50:
“greater things”: It is the angels of God ascending and descending. Nathanael may not have seen them literally, but if he is perceptive, he will be able to perceive that God is with Jesus through the teachings and even his death and resurrection. Nathanael will see the greatness of the Son of Man (Carson, comments on vv. 50-51).
51:
“I tell you the firm truth”: it literally read, “amen, amen, I tell you.” “Truth” comes from the word amēn (pronounced ah-main and comes into English as amen). In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) Jesus says amen only once, but in John he very often says the word twice, so I translate the double word as “firm truth.” It expresses the authority of the one who utters it. The Hebrew root ’mn means faithfulness, reliability and certainty. It could be translated as “Truly, truly I tell you” or I tell you with utmost certainty.” Jesus’s faith in his own words is remarkable and points to his unique calling. It means we must pay attention to it, for it is authoritative. He is about to declare an important and solemn message or statement. The clause appears only on the lips of Jesus in the NT.
Klink points out (comment on 1:51) that no Jewish sage or Rabbi around this time ever said these words about his own pronouncement or statement. Instead, he would use it to affirm someone else’s opinion. Jesus is the only one to use it of his own teaching. It is very solemn. We need to pay attention because what follows is very important.
“you will see”: the verb and pronoun is plural, so Jesus is talking to the disciples, not just to Nathaniel. They will see the revelation of God in Christ.
The wonderful image of angels ascending and descending refers to Gen. 28:10-12.
12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. (Gen. 28:12-13, NIV)
The rest of the passage goes on to say that God will grant Jacob all of Canaan. To spiritualize things more, God is about to give his Son the whole world (John 3:16). It seems the commentators who follow adopt the spiritualized interpretation, without looking for literal angels ascending and descending.
Klink says that when Jesus says that heaven opening up and seeing it is “regularly used as a promise that the disciples will be given some spiritual insights (cf. 11:40; 16:16, 17, 19). … The disciples will ‘see’ (i.e. experience) Jesus in all his works and in his entire person. Jesus is the one who reveals the Father (1:18). What is unique about Jesus is not only his sonship or that he is God or is intimate with the Father. But also that he provides for some to ‘see’ God. Jesus will later declare that ‘the one who sees me has seen the Father” (14:9). This emphatic statement declares that Jesus is (and always was) the opening of heaven. The nature of this opening, this vision, is not to be sought entirely behind one statement but in Jesus’s person and work, which the rest of the Gospel will explicate (Klink, comment on v. 51).
So, the allusion to Jacob’s ladder must be redefined. Jesus’s revelation is more than just a one-time vision. “Jacob saw a vision; the disciples saw the Word-become-flesh. The statement of God is now in the form of a person,” that is, Jesus (Klink, ibid.).
Mounce says that this imagery simply means that Jesus connects heaven and earth “He is the mediator between God and humanity (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5).” Even though the verb is in the future tense (“you [plural] shall see”), Mounce says that “the reference is not to some future point in time but to the entire period of Jesus’s ministry now beginning in Judea” (Mounce, comments on v. 51). Evidently, Jesus is just getting started.
Jesus seems to say, “You think Jacob’s ladder is awesome? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
Beasley-Murray (emphasis original):
The natural reading of v 51 is that the angels ascend to heaven and descend to the Son of Man [Greek: “upon the Son of Man”]; he is the point of contact between heaven and earth, the locus of the “traffic” that brings heaven’s blessings to mankind. “You shall see” relates not to a future beyond the death of Jesus (as in Mark 14:62), but to the entire gamut of the action of the Son of Man for the kingdom of God: from the heaven that became open at his baptism, the blessings of saving sovereignty will be poured out through him–through the signs that he performs, the revelation of his word, the life that he lives, the death and resurrection that he accomplishes (his “lifting up”), till the goal is attained when the Son of Man welcomes the redeemed to his Father’s house (14:3). (comment on v. 51, p. 28)
Then Beasley-Murray goes on to say that the angelic imagery is the affirmation of his entire ministry “for the achievement of divine purpose,” including the teachings in the synoptic Gospel all the way to his ultimate Parousia [Second Coming]. The synoptics give revelation to the future Son of Man, the Gospel of John brings this revelation down in his Incarnation (ibid.).
Bruce:
The words which follow may be a Johannine parallel to the Synoptic prediction of the day when the Son of Man will be manifested on clouds of heaven ‘with great power and glory’ (cf. Mark 13:26; 14:62). But here the imagery is taken from account of Jacob’s vision at Bethel, when he saw ‘a ladder set up on the earth and reached to heaven; and, behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it’ (Gen. 28:12). In this application of Jacob’s vision, however, the union between heaven and earth is effected by the Son of Man; he is the mediators between God and the human race. (comments on vv. 50-51)
Then Bruce goes on to say that Jesus, speaking to an audience in Jerusalem, is referring to his crucifixion. When they see the Son of Man lifted up, then they will know that “I am he.” His being lifted up refers to his exaltation. So Bruce sees a spiritual application related to Christ’s crucifixion and exaltation; he does not see angels going up and down a ladder or often in Jesus’s ministry. Don’t interpret it overly literally.
Carson says that Jesus alludes to the experience in Jacob’s life. The disciples will see heaven-sent visions of divine matters (Acts 7:56; 10:11; Rev. 4:1; 19:11). The disciples are further promised heaven-sent confirmation that the one “they have acknowledged as the Jewish Messiah has been appointed by God.” Jesus is the new Israel, and revelations come through him; just as old Bethel has been superseded by the temple, so Jesus supersedes the temple (2:19-22) and the sacred mountain of the Samaritans (4:20-24). Therefore, the angels descending and ascending will not be literal until after Pentecost, because Jesus himself is the supreme revelation, just as he was the one at the top of the ladder. “There above it [or ‘him,’ meaning ‘Jacob’] stood the Lord, and he said: ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac'” (Gen. 28:13) (Carson, comments on vv. 50-51).
Morris says that the references in Acts 7:56; 10:11; Rev. 4:1; 19:11 are not in view here. So what do the angels refer to, then? The place of the ladder is taken by the Son of Man himself. He is the means to heaven and by him the “realities of heaven” are brought down to earth. The expression is figurative. Jesus will reveal heavenly things and supersede Jacob’s ladder. The revelation of heavenly things through Jesus is a theme developed through the Fourth Gospel. The wide-open heaven and ascending and descending angels symbolize the power and love of God (comment on v. 51).
Keener also spiritualizes the ladder and angelic imagery. He writes: “Thus, in short, Jesus is Jacob’s ladder, the one who mediates between God in heaven and his servant Jacob on earth (cf. John 14:6).” Jesus now mediates between God and Israel in his time. “As Jacob’s ladder he is also Bethel, God’s house (Gen. 28:19). If he replaces Bethel, he also replaces the temple, because he is the new temple (1:14; 2:19-21; 4:20-24; 7:37-39; 14:2; 23) (pp. 489-90). Evidently, we should not look for literal angels ascending or descending in Jesus’s ministry, and we do not find this throughout the Fourth Gospel.
Borchert also says that Jesus takes over the revelatory imagery of Jacob’s ladder and the angels:
Jesus was prepared to open their [the disciples’] eyes. The process was begun by reminding Nathanael of Jacob’s great Bethel experience. In the midst of Jacob’s fearful crisis, Yahweh (the “I AM” of Gen 28:13) had to teach Jacob that God was really present in the world. Here in the Nathanael story Jesus illustrated the meaning of the word becoming flesh and tenting (presencing himself) in our midst (John 1:14) by informing Nathanael that the rabbi he was facing was none other than the personal embodiment of Bethel (“meaning house of God”).
So Jesus is much greater than Jacob’s ladder and replaces it as the center of God’s revelation, particularly during the Incarnation.
So it looks like these commentators are in agreement in the main interpretation (with some minor differences). John spiritualizes Jacob’s ladder and claims that Jesus takes it over and fulfills it. There is no need to look for literal ascending and descending angels. These scholars’ interpretation should not be dismissed out of hand. Double meaning in John’s Gospel abounds, as I note in my two-level diagram that is found throughout John 1-15.
However, if you insist on taking the imagery literally and looking for angels at the beginning (Matt. 4:11) and then the end (John 20:12) of his ministry and places in between, then go for it. For my part, I believe these high-level commentators have the better interpretation.
“Son of Man”: it is used in the divine sense (Dan. 7:13-14), where the Son of Man ascends to the throne of God. And it means an ordinary human, as seen in the prophet Ezekiel, where the title is used many times. Jesus was the Son of Man in both senses—divine and human.
4. Titles of Jesus: The Son of Man
Now we have the issue of Luke 5, where Peter sees Jesus work a miraculous catch of fish and falls to his knees and begs Jesus to depart from him, for Peter is a sinful man. In contrast, here in John’s Gospel Peter seems to accept Jesus easily. How do we account for the differences? John and the Synoptics omit data and compress time. Peter may have reacted so willingly because a major theme in John is that Jesus’s disciples believed better than they knew. Peter’s belief may be shallow at this point. In Luke 5, however, he got his miracle that fits his entire career as a fisherman: a miraculous catch of fish. That triggered his surrender to Jesus so that Peter followed him then and there. Luke’s version expands on and supplements John’s version.
If you would like to see a resolution to the problem, please click here:
Jesus Calls Certain Disciples in Four Gospels. Do the Accounts Contradict?
Here is a multi-part study of angels in the area of systematic theology, but first, here is a summary list of the basics:
Angels:
(a) Are messengers (in Hebrew mal’ak and in Greek angelos);
(b) Are created spirit beings;
(c) Have a beginning at their creation (not eternal);
(d) Have a beginning, but they are immortal (deathless).
(e) Have moral judgment;
(f) Have a certain measure of free will;
(g) Have high intelligence;
(h) Do not have physical bodies;
(i) But can manifest with immortal bodies before humans;
(j) Can show the emotion of joy.
Angels: Their Duties and Missions
Angels: Their Names and Ranks and Heavenly Existence
Angels: Their Origins, Abilities, and Nature
To conclude ……
Nathanael asks him the natural question: how do you know me? Where did you get your information? What is the source of your knowledge of me? Note how Nathanael did not deny the praise. Why would he? It was the truth. Can Jesus say this about us?
Grow App for John 1:43-51
1. Nathanael said, “Can anything good be from Nazareth?” Has anyone doubted your background and disqualified you from believing in Jesus?
2. How did you overcome their doubts?
3.. How did you overcome your own doubts about your background and following Jesus?
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 