The One Worth Following
John 1:35–51
Introduction
Well, we return this morning to our series in the Gospel of John. So please turn again with me in your Bibles to John chapter 1.
Whom should we follow? That’s a question that everyone in this world has to answer. Nobody follows nobody; no matter how self-sufficient or entrepreneurial you might believe yourself to be, everybody follows somebody. We all look to others who have gone before us to show us how to navigate life, in all of its different arenas. Parents, teachers, coaches, mentors: we need people in our lives who have traveled down the path that we hope to walk, and who can not only instruct us out of their experience, but who can be an example to us as we make that same journey—someone who can say, “Yes, I’ve faced that challenge before; this is how you handle it,” or “I’ve gone through this before; here is what to avoid and what not to miss.”
In the Christian life, this is basically a summary of discipleship. Through the ministry of the local church, believers in Jesus are to help one another to follow Jesus ever more faithfully—to press after Christlikeness in our own lives, until we are perfectly conformed to His image, when we see Him face to face. But that path of sanctification that we all must walk goes much more smoothly when we can follow the example of those who are ahead of us in the Christian life. Sadly, those who often appear to be good examples to follow are not always what they seem to be. Or, in the case of some, they are good examples—for a time. And then, in a most grievous fashion, they show themselves to be untrustworthy.
Conservative evangelicalism has been suffering mightily in recent years from this kind of failure of leadership. Pastors, who we considered models in the faith—faithful mentors whose examples we could follow—have dishonored Christ and have devastated His people by disqualifying themselves from ministry. This has hit us very close to home. And through our grief, we are absolutely perplexed. Bewildered. “How could someone with such sound doctrine fail to bring the implications of that doctrine to bear on his life?” “If anyone knew of the consequences of such a foolish path, he knew it. How could he let this happen?” “If he knew the Bible so well—so much better than I know it—do I have any hope of persevering to the end?” And: “If he was so seasoned, and trusted, and seemingly-faithful, and it turned out he couldn’t be trusted, can I look up to anyone as a model in the Christian faith? Who can we follow, if not him? or him? or him?”
One answer to those questions, dear believer, is: for every high-profile pastor who disqualifies himself from ministry, there are thousands of unknown pastors whom Jesus has kept faithful for a lifetime. And so don’t despair. He has saved, and sanctified, and kept, and preserved so many—including one who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls himself the chief of sinners. He can keep you! And a second answer is: praise God that there are godly leaders whose example we can follow. There are men, by God’s great grace, who can say, “Follow me, as I follow Christ.” And John MacArthur and Phil Johnson are two of those men. And praise God that He has given them to us for as long as He has as worthy examples to follow.
But then there’s a third answer. And that is, ultimately, even if all of our mentors and heroes and examples fail us, as they must do in some measure, we don’t ultimately follow them. We follow the One to whom they point us. We raise our eyes higher than our shepherds, to the Chief Shepherd, who is worthy of all our trust! He is that choice stone laid in Zion, the cornerstone upon whom we may believe, and will never be disappointed, 1 Peter 2:6. Jesus, dear friends, will never fail us. He has had His trial. He has met with every assault and temptation of the enemy, and He has emerged from the battle in victory. He is the One worth following with all of our hearts, to our dying breath—even if the rest fall away. He is the One worth following.
And our text for this morning teaches us that very lesson. You’ll remember that we find ourselves in this first section of the body of John’s Gospel: chapter 1 verse 19 to chapter 2 verse 11. And in this section, as I’ve said, John records the events of a single week of Jesus’ early ministry. Day One came in verses 19 to 28, when John the Baptist testified to the leaders from Jerusalem that he was not the Messiah, but that all glory belonged to Jesus of Nazareth.
Day Two spans verses 29 to 34, in which John proclaims not only that the Messiah is coming, but that He is here: that He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the Superior King of glory, who is greater than the greatest men who have ever lived. He is the Anointed Messiah, filled with the Holy Spirit without measure, who baptizes in the Spirit, so that we are enriched with His fullness. And He is the Son of God Himself—the eternal God in human flesh, who is worthy of all your trust, all your worship, and all your devotion.
Well, we come this morning to the next several days of this first week of Jesus’ ministry: days three, four, and five occur over the span of verses 35 to 51, in which Jesus calls His disciples to follow Him. And I think it’s easy to look at this portion of Scripture and focus on what it says about the disciples—almost treating it as a series of biographies on the disciples. And surely there’s some sense in which that’s appropriate.
But I believe John’s intent is to emphasize what these interactions teach us about Jesus. In other words, the focus isn’t so much on the followers, but on the One they’re beginning to follow. This has been John’s method up to this point: John the Baptist proclaims that he himself is not the point, but that Jesus is the point, and that He is coming soon. Then He identifies Jesus as the One whose forerunner he has been commissioned to be. And now, from verse 35 to the end of the chapter, the Apostle John keeps introducing us to Jesus by narrating His first interactions with His disciples. And in these interactions, John fastens us upon the glory and the beauty of the One whom we follow as disciples, presenting Him to us as the One worth devoting all of our lives to follow after. Let’s read John chapter 1, verses 35 to 51. {Reads Text}
Now, in one sense, these seventeen verses break down neatly into two sections. Verses 35 to 42 chronicle Jesus’ interaction with Andrew, an unnamed disciple, and Simon Peter; and verses 43 to 51 record Jesus’ interaction with Philip and Nathanael. But as I said, this account is less about the disciples and more about the one whom the disciples are following. We find in this passage reason after reason, enticement after enticement, for why you and I should join these five men and be Jesus’ disciples—why we should shape and organize our entire lives around following Him. And so in these interactions with His first disciples, we can glean no fewer than nine truths about Jesus that identify Him as the One worth following with all of our hearts. And while we could probably make two or three sermons out of these nine truths, my goal is to maintain the flow of the passage, and so we’ll seek to cover all nine this morning, albeit more briefly than we could.
I. The Telos of Our Ministry (vv. 35–37)
And that first truth is, number one, that He is the telos of our ministry. “Telos,” t-e-l-o-s, is the Greek word for the goal, or the end to which everything points. We borrow that word into English to signify an ultimate aim. Jesus is the point of all our ministry.
We see this in verses 35 to 37: “Again the next day,” that is, Day Three of New Creation Week, “John [the Baptist] was standing with two of his disciples.” We learn in verse 40 that one of these disciples of John was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, and the other one remains unnamed throughout the account. But you remember that John’s practice is to never name himself. He only refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And so, while it wouldn’t make sense to leave out the name of one of these disciples, it does fit that, out of humility and a deep sense of unworthiness, John wouldn’t mention himself. It also makes sense because the report that “John was standing with two of his disciples” certainly sounds like eyewitness testimony. And so these two disciples are the Apostles Andrew and John, the author of this Gospel.
“And,” verse 36, “[John the Baptist] looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’” And I love that you couldn’t get John the Baptist off of this note. It was the first thing he said about Jesus when he saw Him walking about publicly back in verse 29. And the very next day, John exclaims the same truth about Jesus. Even in a more private setting with some of his disciples, his private conversation matched his public preaching. As soon as John sees Jesus, he returns to that wonderful melody of penal substitutionary atonement, of forgiveness of sins by the sacrificial death of our spotless Lamb, slain by the judgment of God in the place of sinners. John was a Gospel-centered preacher! His chief concern was to see sinners looking upon their Substitute in faith, so that their sins would be forgiven, and their righteousness furnished unto them.
Spurgeon tells of a man who complained that he always preached the Gospel in his sermons. “It’s the same old song, Spurgeon! You need new material!” Spurgeon said, “I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he would come and hear me no more; but if I preached a sermon without Christ in it, he would come.” “Give me something fresh, preacher!” Well, Spurgeon replied, “Ah, he will never come while this tongue moves, for a sermon without Christ in it! a Christless sermon!” It’s just unthinkable to him. He calls it “a brook without water; a cloud without rain; a well which mocks the traveler; a tree twice dead, plucked up by the root; a sky without a sun; a night without a star.” John the Baptist “was always on the old string.” “Behold, the Lamb of God! Behold, the Lamb of God!”
And that recitation of the Gospel in miniature—that summarized proclamation of substitutionary atonement by grace alone through faith alone in Christ—moved John’s disciples to take their leave of him, and to follow after the Lamb. Verse 37: “The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.” “Rabbi, this is the Lamb? This is the One who takes away sin? Then as much as we love you and have benefited from your teaching, we must take our leave of you and follow after Him.” O how readily and eagerly do sinners, sensible of their sin, fly to Jesus in faith, when they learn that by Him and Him alone they may be freed from their sin!
And O how readily and eagerly do godly ministers happily deliver up their disciples to follow after the One to whom all our teaching points! John the Baptist does not regard his disciples lost as they leave him to follow Jesus. He lost nothing! He recognizes that those men belonged to the Son of God all along—that they were only a stewardship, entrusted to him by the Chief Shepherd, so that he might prepare them to be joined to Him when the proper time came.
That doesn’t mean that it was easy. The cords of love and respect had bound John’s disciples to him—the way any student comes to love and admire his mentor, who had guided him in the way of blesséd wisdom. But like a high school teacher who delights to see her students graduate and go on to university, or even a father who gives his daughter away to be married to her husband, so John the Baptist joyfully hands these disciples back to their true and ultimate Master. “Lord, You have entrusted these precious souls to me for a time. They have become very dear to me, and I love them. But though I will miss them, it is my delight to deliver them back over to You, so that their joy would be made full, and so that You will have what you are worthy of.”
Faithful ministers recognize that Jesus is the telos of our ministry. The servants of God aren’t in the ministry to build kingdoms for themselves. And so when the Lord calls some of their disciples to be cared for by another undershepherd, or even to come home to be with Him, those servants don’t think of it as having lost something that was theirs, but as fulfilling their stewardship, and giving all glory to the One who is the point of all our ministry. “Don’t look at me! My entire purpose is for you to Behold the Lamb!”
II. The Accessible Savior (vv. 38–39)
Well, a second truth that identifies Jesus as the One worth following is, number two, that He is the Accessible Savior. Look at verses 38 and 39. “And Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek?’”
John says, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” and Andrew and John start following after Him. And after walking for a few moments, Jesus notices that these two guys are walking behind Him. And in such a gracious manner, He turns to them and He asks, “What do you seek?” Now, this is not New York City. I’m from New Jersey, and when people on the East Coast see strangers looking at them, let alone following them, they get aggressive and confrontational: “What are you looking at? You got a problem?” In New York and New Jersey, if you’re walking on the street, you don’t make eye contact. One of the most surprising things to me when we first moved to Santa Clarita was how people on the street looked you in the eye and smiled at you. But, “What do you seek?” is not, “What are you looking at? Can I help you?” No, it’s, “What can I do for you?” Matthew Henry says, “He that came to seek us never checked any for seeking him; but, on the contrary, it is a kind invitation of them into his acquaintance whom he saw bashful and modest.” This is the Savior who has come to seek and to save the lost. And He is a gentle Savior—the One who will not break a bruised reed and will not extinguish a smoldering wick. And so He delights to be engaged by these two new followers; indeed: to engage them Himself. He is not aloof, or inaccessible, or agitated by their interest in Him. He is delighted. He is an accessible Savior.
We see it even more as the scene continues. “What do you seek, friends?” “They said to Him, ‘Rabbi…, where are You staying?’” They’re so sheepish! What they are really “seeking” is to become His disciples, to so attach themselves to Him that they might be with Him (cf. Mark 3:14), that they might follow Him wherever He goes and learn from Him, that they might begin to have a relationship with Him the way they had with their beloved John. But they rightly feel that they can’t just come out and say that. So they ask where He’s staying, so they can have a long enough talk with Him that they could enter upon such serious matters. “Rabbi, where are You staying?” And verse 39: “He said to them, ‘Come, and you will see.’”
“So they came and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.” In other words, by the time they got to where Jesus was staying, it was about 4:00 in the afternoon. The Jews measured the time by starting with 6:00am, the first hour of sunlight. By 4:00pm, people would begin winding down their daily activities and preparing to head inside for nightfall. This would take us from the third day into the fourth day of this week that the Apostle John is chronicling.
And again: the point not to be missed is that Jesus is the accessible Savior. Though we might be backward in coming to Him, perhaps uncertain if we’re presuming upon His graciousness, or proving to be an inconvenience for Him, nevertheless, He is eager to receive us! When He sees the first motions of a willing heart, He readily reciprocates, and those who come to Him, as He says, He “will certainly not cast out,” John 6:37. O what happy disciples are they who have an accessible Master—a teacher who is glad to be followed! Such is our Savior, who was willing to be sought by these two disciples for an entire evening. Commenting on this verse, the great church father, Augustine, said “What a blessed day they must have spent, what a blessed night! Who could ever tell us what they heard from the Lord? Let us too build a home in our hearts, where he can come and teach us and converse with us!” (153).
III. The Substance of Our Proclamation (vv. 40–42a)
A third truth that identifies Jesus as One worth following comes in verses 40 to 42. He is the telos of our ministry, and He is the accessible Savior. But He is also, number three, the substance of our proclamation. Verse 40 says, “One of the two who heard John speak and followed [Jesus], was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.” And then, the next day, verse 41, Andrew “found first his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which translated means Christ). He brought him to Jesus.”
So, the first thing Andrew did after spending the previous evening with Jesus was to tell someone about Him! The fifth-century church father, Cyril of Alexandria, said, “Those who just received their talent immediately make a profit and bring it to their master” (87). No doubt Andrew and John were enraptured by the conversation they had with Him, savoring His instruction, marveling at His wisdom. And this time with Jesus confirmed for them what their previous Rabbi, John had proclaimed to them: this was the Messiah.
The moment Andrew realizes this, he sets upon the work of evangelism. Calvin said the nature of faith is not to conceal or quench the light, but to spread it in every direction (71). Similarly, John Gill said that the nature of grace is “very communicative, and those that have it, are very desirous that all others should be partakers of it.” And not just “all others,” generally, but Andrew finds his brother—which teaches us an evangelistic principle that I’ve long called “the principle of proximity.” Our evangelism starts at home, in circles closest to our everyday lives. In other words, we don’t drive past our family and our neighbors to do our evangelism. We start with those whom God’s providence has brought closest to us.
And what did Andrew say to Simon? With a kind of joy and eagerness that we can barely imagine, he would have burst through the door, grabbed Simon by both shoulders, shook him, and said—like a man who found treasure hidden in a field, who found a pearl of great price—“Simon, we have found the Messiah! We have found the One we’ve read about, and waited for all these years! This is the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King promised throughout the Old Testament, the One full of the Holy Spirit without measure, the One who out of that fullness baptizes His people in the Holy Spirit! He is the root of Jesse from Isaiah 11, the Servant of Yahweh from Isaiah 42, the Spirit-anointed evangelist of Isaiah 61!”
This Jesus is the substance of our Gospel proclamation! He Himself is the Good News that Isaiah 61:1 says the anointed One will preach to the poor (cf. Luke 4:18). Paul says in Acts 13: “We preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus.” “He is the anointed Messiah of Psalm 2, the Son of God, the inheritor of the blessings of David, the One who will not undergo decay!” “We preach Christ, says the Apostle Paul. We preach the Messiah! And here He is!” And so Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus, that he would follow Him as well.
IV. The Lord of Our Identity (v. 42b)
And then, in the fourth place, we learn in the second half of verse 42 that Jesus is the Lord of our identity. Verse 42: “Jesus looked at [Peter] and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is translated Peter).”
Now, it is proof of Jesus’ deity that He can look at a man he’s never met and out of the great storehouse of His own omniscience tell him both his name and his father’s name. But beyond that, Jesus not only tells Simon who he is, He tells him who he’s going to be. Jesus changes Simon’s name to Cephas—Kephas in the Aramaic, which means “rock.” That’s Petros in the Greek, and it’s where we get “Peter.” Imagine you meet someone for the first time, you extend your hand and say, “Hi, I’m Mike,” and they say, “No, I don’t like ‘Mike’ for you. From now on, your name is Robert.” You’d say, “Excuse me, but who do you think you are to change my name? You don’t own me! You don’t dictate my identity!”
But you see, that’s exactly the point. In the Old Testament, a monarch would often rename a person to show his own greatness and authority. In Genesis 41:45, Pharaoh names Joseph “Zaphenath-paneah.” In 2 Kings 23:34, Pharaoh made Eliakim king and changed his name to Jehoiakim. God Himself changes Jacob’s name to Israel in Genesis 32:28. Changing the name was a show of authority. And that’s exactly what Jesus is doing here. He is showing that He is the Lord of our identity. We are who He says we are! Jesus’ disciples belong to Him. He is their Master, and they are His slaves. Our identity is what He tells us it is!
But more than that: this name change not only signifies Jesus’ Lordship over our identity. It also reveals Him as the One who transforms His disciples into what they must be. In the Gospel accounts, Simon is anything but a rock. He is impulsive, impetuous, quick to speak, and before the Gospel is over, one who will deny His precious Lord three times in the hour of His greatest need. But what does Jesus say? You, Simon, shall be Peter. You’ll be the rock. You’ll be the one to preach to the men of Israel on the Day of Pentecost. You’ll be the one to make the lame man walk. You’ll be the one who stares down the threats and the beatings of the Sanhedrin and says, “We must obey God rather than man! Do with us what you need to do!” Pastor John says, “Jesus’ penetrating omniscient look saw not merely Simon, but also the man He would mold him into. … Over time, Jesus would transform Simon’s character to match the new name He had given him, and use him as the foundational leader in the earliest days of the church” (John 1–12, 66). Calvin said Christ’s announcement of Peter’s name-change was “magnif[ying] the grace which He determined afterwards to bestow upon him” (73).
You see, friends, Jesus is the Lord of our identity, but He is also the sanctifier of our souls. He is the One who transforms our identity, who makes us to be what He calls us to be. It’s one thing to follow a man who can give you a nickname. But it’s another thing to follow the God-man, who can transform your character to match the new name He gives you! O, here is One worth following!
V. The Seeker of Our Souls (v. 43)
A fifth truth that identifies Jesus as the One worth following is, number five, that He is the seeker of our souls. And we see that in verse 43. “The next day”—so this would be Day Five of New Creation week—“He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me.’”
The sovereignty of God is on full display in this verse. Philip didn’t go seeking for Jesus of Nazareth; Jesus purposed to go into Galilee. He was on a mission. He was determined to go to another place, and there to find one of His disciples, who didn’t yet know anything about who He really was. He found Philip. Matthew Henry comments on this and says, “Christ sought us, and found us, before we made any enquiries after him.” It reminds us of John 15:16, where Jesus tells all of His disciples, “You did not choose Me but I chose You.” Of course. Disciples don’t pick their master. The master elects his disciples.
And so does our Master. Before we ever dreamed of having any designs to believe in and follow after Him, He sought us out! “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,” Romans 5:10. So far from determining our own discipleship, when God saved us, we were alienated from God, hostile in mind, and engaged in evil deeds, Colossians 1:21. Whatever we were doing before salvation, we were not “seekers.” Romans 3:11: “There is none who seeks for God.” We were running as far and as fast as we could away from God! “Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, / But yet in love He sought me; / And on His shoulder gently laid, / And home rejoicing brought me.” That is the testimony of everyone whose Shepherd is the King of Love! “I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew / He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me; / It was not I that found, O Savior true; / No, I was found of Thee.” Praise God for sovereign grace—that the One we follow was so full of grace that while we persisted in open rebellion to Him, He sought us, and subdued our sin, and overcame our rebellion, and by His own sovereign power transformed our hostility into a delightful, willing faith!
He found Philip and said, “Follow Me.” And that was enough. “Leave your family, forsake your friends, abandon your profession, and follow Me.” And so powerful is the sovereign grace of Christ—so efficacious is the Lord’s word—that Philip left all and followed after his new Master (cf. Gill). And O, may He speak that powerful word over each one of us! “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You,” and I will come!
VI. The Fulfillment of the Scriptures (vv. 44–45)
Well, He is the telos of our ministry, the accessible Savior, the substance of our proclamation, the Lord of our identity, and the seeker of our souls. A sixth truth that displays Jesus to us as the One worth following is, number six, He is the fulfillment of the Scriptures. Verses 44 and 45: “Now Philip was from Bethsaida,”—the house of fishing, on the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee—“of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’”
Jesus found Philip, and Philip found Nathanael. As has been often said, one lit torch lights another (Morris, 143). Just as Andrew gets a savor of Christ and immediately sets out to tell others, so also Philip gets that savor and goes to bear witness. Faithful followers of Jesus earnestly entreat and call others to become faithful followers of Jesus!
Nathanael, we learn from John 21 verse 2, was from Cana in Galilee, and he is most likely to be identified with whom the other Gospel-writers call “Bartholomew.” Just like “Simon Barjona” means “Simon, son of Jonah,” so “Bartholomew” means “the son of Tolmai,” or “Ptolomy.” Thus, it would make sense that Bartholomew would have another name. He was “Nathanael bar-Tolmai.” We also see that Bartholomew is coupled with Philip in the lists of the twelve disciples in Matthew 10, Mark 3, and Luke 6. That makes a lot of sense if Bartholomew is Nathanael, and Bartholomew first heard of Jesus from Philip.
Well, Philip finds Nathanael and says, “We have found the One of whom the Scriptures speak—the One whom Moses and the Prophets have told us to look for all these years!” Which means Philip and Nathanael were among a group of faithful Israelites who studied the Scriptures, and who believed the Scriptures—even despite the Pharisees suffocating control of the nation. And they would read the law and they would study the prophets, and they would set their hope upon the Messiah who was prophesied to come.
Genesis 3:15 promises that the Seed of the woman would come and crush the head of the serpent, and thus undo the curse of sin that the whole creation groans under. Genesis 12, 15, and 17 promises the Seed of Abraham—the One who would come forth from this nation God would build and would bring universal blessing to all the nations. Genesis 49:10 says Shiloh will come from the tribe of Judah to rule “and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” Number 24:17 says, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; A star shall come forth form Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel.” Deuteronomy 18:15 promises a great prophet like Moses will arise from among Israel.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of a virgin-born son named Immanuel, God with us (7:14)—of a coming Prince of Peace, upon whose shoulders the government will rest (9:6). Jeremiah calls Him the righteous who will reign as king in wisdom, and will be called “Yahweh our righteousness” (23:5–6). Daniel calls Him “Messiah the Prince” (9:25). Micah says a ruler whose days are from eternity will be born in Bethlehem, and will shepherd the flock of Yahweh, and will be their peace (5:2–5). Zechariah says He’ll be pierced, and Israel will mourn over Him like for an only son (Zech 12:10). And Malachi says that Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.
Philip says to Nathanael: “It’s Him! He’s here! We’ve found Him! the One who Moses and the Prophets wrote about! the One who is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures! the One on whom we have so steadfastly fixed our hope according to God’s own Word!
VII. The Knower of Our Hearts (vv. 46–49)
And then, in verses 46 to 49, we learn of a seventh truth that demonstrates to us that Jesus is the One worth following. Number seven, He is the knower of our hearts. At the end of verse 45, Philip calls Jesus, “Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph”—both of which are not quite right. According to Luke 4:16, Jesus had been brought up in Nazareth, but He was not from there. He was born in Bethlehem. And Joseph was Mary’s husband, but the Man Christ Jesus had no father according to His humanity. Doctor Luke puts it precisely in Luke 3:23 when speaks of Jesus “being, as was supposed, the Son of Joseph.”
And if you think about it, both of those minor errors could prejudice someone against any claim that Jesus was the Messiah. As we just mentioned, the Messiah would be born of a virgin, whose goings forth are from the days of eternity. Calling him the Son of Joseph might obscure that truth. And no Scripture—nothing in the Old Testament, or even in the Talmud or the Midrash—had said anything about Nazareth. And so Nathanael stumbles over that. And he says, verse 46, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” And Philip replied, “Come and see.”
And so he came. And, verse 47, “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him,” “Can any good thing come out of Cana in Galilee?” No, He didn’t say that, though He could have! No, He praises Nathanael: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” As Paul would say in Romans 9:6: “They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” There were plenty who were Jews by birth who were not, as Paul says in Romans 2:29, Jews “inwardly,” whose hearts were circumcised. Jesus says Nathanael is a true Israelite, an Israelite indeed.
And He describes that as being one “in whom there is no deceit.” No guile, no fraud, no pretense (cf. Augustine, 161). The Greek term dolos was sometimes used in secular literature for the bait used in catching fish (Morris, 145). And you understand that: the fisherman holds out to the fish the deceit that he’s offering it food, when really he’s offering it a hook to capture it! There is a kind of duplicity there. In Psalm 12:2, David complains that it seems there are no godly men left. He says they speak “with a double heart.” They pretend to be one thing, but they are really another. Jesus says the true people of God are not like that. First Peter 2:1: “Putting aside…all deceit.” Psalm 32:2: “How blessed is the man…in whose spirit there is no deceit.” Spurgeon said of Jesus, “He carried His heart where all might read it,” and the same is to be true of His followers. The people of God are not sly politicians who disguise their true intentions in order to take advantage of people. Nathanael may have been blunt and a bit unpolished, but he was plain-spoken. You didn’t have to guess where you stood with him.
But let’s be sure not to miss the point. Jesus sees right into Nathanael’s heart, enough to tell him whether or not there is deceit in him. This Jesus is the One who knows us before we ever know Him. And so Nathanael replies, verse 48, “How do You know me?” “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’” Now, people debate the significance of the fig tree. Several passages in the Old Testament—Isaiah 36:16, Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10—treat the fig tree as something each family would have at their home. And in certain rabbinic literature, the fig tree is often associated with a place for prayer and meditation upon the Scriptures—where one might have communion with God under the shade of the leaves as a covering from the hot sun. And so perhaps Nathanael was reading the Scriptures or praying under his fig tree, and Jesus means that such humble pursuit of God showed that he was an Israelite indeed.
Whatever the precise meaning, Nathanael recognizes that this is a display of divine omniscience. There was no natural explanation for how Jesus might have seen him under his fig tree. He knew immediately, “If this Man can see into my home, and if He can see into my heart, then Nazareth or not: this One is, verse 49, my Rabbi, the Son of God, the King of Israel!” Before, he wondered if any good thing could come from Nazareth. Now, he is convinced that the best thing there ever was has come from Nazareth: His teacher and prophet; the Son of God, absolutely equal in nature to the Father, and thus God of very God Himself. And if Nathanael is an Israelite indeed, this Jesus is the King of Israel, and so his Lord. And so He is worth following with all His heart.
VIII. The Revealer of Divine Glory (v. 50)
We’re quickly running out of time, and so I’ll have to treat these last two points more briefly than I’d like. Truth number eight: Jesus is the revealer of divine glory. We see this in Jesus’ reply to Nathanael in verse 50: “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
Now, this could sound like a reproof—almost like Jesus thinks Nathanael believes too easily. That’s not what He’s saying. Jesus is commending Nathanael’s faith, and assuring him that Jesus will confirm the well-groundedness of Nathanael’s confidence by even greater signs than that. This is a reference to the miracles that Jesus will perform—thirty-seven recorded in the Gospels—the first of which is about to take place in Nathanael’s hometown of Cana, just at the beginning of chapter 2 (cf. MacArthur, 73). They’re going to witness demons cast out of people. They’ll witness lepers cleansed. They’re going to see Peter walk on water. They’re going to see thousands fed from five loaves and two fish. These men will see blind men receive their sight, dead men get up and walk, and they’re going to see Jesus raise Himself from the dead, as they place their hands in the wounds of His cross.
And of course, these miracles—or signs, as John calls them—reveal divine glory. After Jesus turns the water into wine, John tells us in chapter 2 verse 11, “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.” The miraculous works manifest glory. And that glory is, chapter 1 verse 14, “the glory as of the only begotten from the Father”—the glory of the eternal Son of God—the only begotten God, verse 18, who is in the bosom of the Father, who has explained Him, who has exegeted Him; who has shown us the Father, as Jesus Himself will say in John 14:9. Jesus is the radiance of the Father’s glory and the exact representation of His nature! He is God in the flesh! And therefore He is worth committing your entire life to follow after Him!
IX. The Mediator between Heaven and Earth (v. 51)
And then, in the ninth place, we find that Jesus is the mediator between heaven and earth. Verse 51: “And He said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’”
And we could probably do a whole sermon on this one verse. There is certainly a rich variety of interpretation. Jesus’ reference to the heavens opening may be referencing times in His ministry where the Father spoke from heaven: at His baptism, and at the transfiguration. And the angels ascending and descending could be referring to moments when the angels come from heaven to minister to Jesus, like during His temptation, and at His affliction in Gethsemane. But I actually think Jesus is talking about His second coming, when the heavens will open literally, and the Son of Man comes “on the clouds of heaven,” “in the glory of His Father,” “with His angels”—Matthew 16:27 and 26:64!
But one thing is for certain: Jesus is intentionally alluding to Genesis 28:12, where the patriarch Jacob dreams of a ladder spanning from earth all the way up to heaven, and he sees “the angels of God…ascending and descending on” that ladder. Jesus is telling us that He is Jacob’s ladder! the Mediator between God and man! the only “way,” John 14:6, passable between heaven and earth! No one comes to the Father but by Him! “There is one mediator between God and men,” 1 Timothy 2:5, “the man Christ Jesus”! We enter the holy place, Hebrews 10:20, “by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh.” The only ladder which sinful men and women may climb from the wretchedness of this curséd earth up to the blessedness of heaven is Jesus of Nazareth! Son of God by Nathanael’s confession, and Son of Man by His own confession here in verse 51, and thus the only reconciler of God to man, as the One who subsists in both natures, divine and human!
Conclusion
O dear people! Here is the One worth following! Our parents and teachers and coaches and leaders and (God forbid) our pastors may fail us. They may all fall—every last one of them! And this Jesus will still be worth following!
Are you following Him today? Dear unbeliever: because of your sin against God and your unbelief in Jesus, you sit here this morning dead in your trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2 says you are “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air”—the devil—“the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” I can tell you plainly: Satan is not someone worth following! The world is not worth following! You yourself are not worth following! You’re a bad master; your lordship cannot deliver you from your sin.
But the One who is the ladder from earth to heaven—the only mediator between God and man—He is a good Master. He is the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for the sheep; who stands between His sinful, guilty sheep and their Judge, and receives all of the punishment they are owed in Himself; as He hangs on that cross, and all the wrath of God that could only be satisfied in the execution of strict justice upon you for eternity in hell is poured out on Him in its fullness, and is extinguished in the ocean of His infinite righteousness! This One lived the perfect life of holiness that you were commanded to live but failed to live. And He died the death of the wrathful condemnation you deserved. And He rose again from the grave, taking His life up again, so that you may join Him in His conquest of sin and death, if only you will lay hold of Him by faith alone. Turn from your sins. Repent of your worthless efforts to earn your way to heaven. And receive Him. Put all your trust for righteousness before God in Him. Come and follow the One worth following!
And dear brothers and sisters: follow this Savior faithfully! Organize and design and shape and plan all of your life around being His disciple. If there is something that you recognize is competing with Him for your allegiance—for your undistracted, single-minded devotion—cut it out of your life. Even if it’s your right hand! Jesus says cut it off. If it’s your eye, pluck it out! It’s better to go into heaven maimed, than to go whole into hell!
And He is so worth it! He is the telos of all true ministry. He is the accessible Savior, who is not inconvenienced by bashful inquirers following Him around, but who is glad for sinners to “come and see” Him, to spend an evening with Him, learning of Him, who welcomes interruptions, and who is eager to save those who discern their need of Him. He is the substance of our proclamation—the very personification of Good News: the Gospel wrapped in flesh—the One Simeon looked upon and exclaimed, “My eyes have seen Your salvation!” He is the Lord of our identity, as He names us as His own, especially belonging to Him, and then He transforms us into what He has remade us to be. He is the seeker of our souls, who purposes and determines to find us. Even while we were running away from Him and delighting in our own ruin and destruction, He comes to seek and save that which was lost.
He is the fulfillment of the Scriptures. Decades and centuries and millennia of promises and predictions all find their perfect fulfillment and resolution in Him! He is what God has promised, by His inviolable Word. He is the knower of our hearts—the omniscient God of heaven, who knows both our circumstances and our character before we ever have an inkling of who He is. And knowing us as thoroughly as He does, He still seeks us. He is the revealer of divine glory, manifesting the wonder and the beauty and the power of God by His miraculous works, showing us the invisible Father, whose perfect image He is. And He is the mediator between heaven and earth, who brings God to man and man to God, who binds God and man together even in His own glorious Person.
O, He is the One worth following! Follow Him!