"Greater Than These" John 1:43-51 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Morning, Emmanuel.

I want to thank Jesus in the choir and orchestra for leading us in worship.

And now let's continue to worship our Lord together by opening his word.

Together, I invite you to open your Bibles to John and chapter 1, is our text that we'll study this morning.

John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

We're going to finish a little minute mini-study in the Gospel of John by finishing chapter 1 this morning.

So what I would like to do is just begin by reading God's Word together.

Would you open your Bibles and find the end of John's Gospel in chapter 1?

And I'm going to read verse 43 down to the end of the chapter.

So follow along with me as I read from God's Word.

John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

Look down at verse 43.

The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

He found Philip and said to him, Follow me.

Now Philip was from Betheda, the city of Andrew and Peter.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom the law, Moses and the law, and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nathaniel said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Philip said to him, Come and see.

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.

Nathanael said to him, How do you know me?

Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you and you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.

And Jesus answered him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?

You will see greater things than these.

And he said to him, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

This is the word of the Lord.

In which university invites faculty who are retiring or leaving the university or sometimes not even leaving, just respected faculty who they want to give the opportunity to speak to students about what really matters to them.

The premise is if this were your last lecture that you were going to give to your students, what is it that you would want to tell them?

What bit of wisdom?

What life advice?

What's really crucial that you would really want to impart?

University of Virginia, if you just do a quick Google search, you'll find, I mean, any number of universities who have this kind of a lecture series.

University of Virginia says that theirs is 30-plus year standing, and very simply it gives their students the opportunity to hear from respected professors what really matters to them.

The passage of Scripture that we just read is not exactly Jesus' last lecture.

He has three years left of his ministry, but it very much is a passage in which in which Jesus communicates to his disciples what really matters to him.

It's the first time in John's Gospel where Jesus begins to speak for himself.

Up until now, we have been introduced by Jesus, by John the writer of this gospel, who told us that Jesus is the eternal word who was forever with God and is God.

And then John the Baptist, the messenger promised in the Old Testament, comes preparing the way for this Lord Jesus by saying the long-promised Messiah is coming, you better get ready.

And last week we saw Jesus begin to call some disciples to follow him, but only in this passage, at the end of the chapter, does Jesus really begin to speak for himself and tell you who he thinks he is.

You notice Jesus thinks this is of crucial importance in verse 51, with the way that he communicates to his disciples.

Verse 51, he said to them, Truly, truly, which is an unparalleled way of speaking about yourself in any literature anywhere.

What he's saying is, truth, truth.

What I'm saying to you is emphatically, absolutely true in and of itself, and is of crucial importance for you to hear.

I think the way to understand this text is that this is Jesus for the first time speaking for himself and communicating what really matters to himself, to his disciples.

And what he communicates to them is the kind of savior that he is.

That's what Jesus wants us to see in this text is he wants his disciples, and through them us, he wants us to understand the kind of Savior that he is, that we might love him, as we'll see in the text, and follow him for ourselves.

So let's study this passage under that heading, the kind of savior Jesus is.

We're going to see three truths about the kind of Savior we have in Jesus Christ.

The first of those is in verse 43.

That is that Jesus is a Savior who seeks.

Jesus seeks.

Look at verse 43 in your text.

It says, The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip, and he said to him, Follow me.

Now this is the fourth, that next day refrain has happened in verse 29, verse 35, and now in verse 43, the next day, the next day, the next day.

This is day four, in the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and up until now he's been in the Judean wilderness.

It's more of the southern part of the country of Israel.

He had been preceded by John the Baptist, who went out into the wilderness and proclaimed his coming, and then Jesus had come and been baptized by John the Baptist, then went out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

After forty days of defeating the devil's temptations, he comes back from the wilderness to the Jordan River and begins to call his first disciples.

And on this day, he's going to make the one-day walk back north to Galilee, where Jesus is from, to begin his messianic ministry in earnest.

And along the way he finds Philip.

And he says to Philip, Follow me.

And Philip does.

And we're going to learn through the rest of the gospel that Philip becomes a disciple of Jesus, in fact, becomes one of the twelve apostles of founding stones in the church.

And what Jesus is asking Philip to do is he's telling Philip, Become a disciple.

He's calling him to discipleship.

I think before we go any further, we should just remind ourselves, discipleship, if we're familiar with that word, is kind of been limited to just a religious context, hasn't it?

Whenever I type the word discipleship into Microsoft Word, I'm often told by my computer, Ryan, that's not a word.

Because we have confined the concept of discipleship to kind of religious confines.

But that's really not the case.

Discipleship just means that you are following someone, learning from someone, modeling your life on that person, placing that person in authority over you learning and being shaped by them.

And it is an inescapable reality that every single human being, whether they would self-identify as religious or not, is a disciple of someone or something.

There inevitably will be people who you know personally, family or friends, or people who you're acquainted with through media, whether it's Don Lemon or it's Tucker Carlson, there are going to be people in life who you are a disciple of them because their way of thinking shapes your way of thinking.

Their way of viewing the world shapes your view of the world.

The way that they posture themselves to the world influences the way you posture yourself.

There are going to be people in your life that you draw from, that you learn from, that you follow in order to decide what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and beautiful and what is ugly and repulsive.

There are going to be people in your life of whom you are a disciple.

It's an inescapable reality.

The question you need to ask is, who am I a disciple of?

And can that person give me life?

What Jesus is doing in this text is he's saying, I want you to be my disciple because I and I alone can give you life.

I want you to make me preeminent in your life.

I want you to learn from me and follow me because I can give you what no one else can give you.

I can give you life.

And Philip does just that.

Philip follows Jesus.

Now, I I labeled this little section and I said that what we learn about Jesus in the section is that Jesus seeks.

I don't want to explain what I mean by that.

You notice in verse 43, I'm reading from the English Standard Version, it says that Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

But that word in the original Greek is word fallow.

It's a general word that just means you want something.

And in fact, the King James and some other English translations render verse 43 as Jesus wanted to go to Galilee.

The ESV is true too.

He decided in the sense that he wanted to do something, and so he did it.

That's what a decision is.

But we should note something very interesting.

Jesus wanted to do this.

And if you track through the Gospel of John, what you discover is that the Gospel of John doesn't really give us many insights into Jesus' desires.

It doesn't tell us very often what Jesus wants, but it does tell us a few times what Jesus wants, and those passages are pretty crucial for understanding the heart of Jesus.

The next time that it's really only three passages in the book in the book of John that tell us what Jesus wants.

The next one is in John chapter 5, where Jesus says this As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to all whom he will, all whom he wants.

John 5 · chapter mention

This is what Jesus wants, is that he wants to find his people and give them eternal life.

He is seeking people to give them life.

The final time that we read of Jesus wanting something is in John chapter 17, where he's praying to the Father, and we get an intimate glimpse into the life of the Father and the Son.

John 17 · chapter mention

And in John 17, Jesus is speaking to the Father and says, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory.

The glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

This is Jesus' heart.

This is what he wants.

He wants to find his people, to give them life, so we can bring them to be with him where he is to experience fullness of joy and pleasure forevermore in his very presence.

So these three times that the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus wants something, I think you should read these last two back into verse 43.

And the way that you should read verse 43 is like this.

Look at verse 43.

The next day, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee because he had elected Philip before the foundation of the world, and he wanted to give him life.

He wanted to bring him where he was to see his glory, and so he sought him out.

That's what Jesus is doing in verse 43.

He's a savior who came into the world to seek his people and he will find them.

And when he finds Philip, he invites him to follow him, Philip responds.

Because he's a sovereign-seeking Savior.

Now, this Philip, I said that he ends up becoming one of the twelve apostles, so it might seem like Philip was probably worth seeking after.

If he's one of the founding stones of the church who shakes the world, turns it upside down, and changes the whole course of human history.

There's probably some talent.

There's probably some raw material in there, and maybe that's what drew Jesus to Philip.

But when you read of Philip in the New Testament, you find that's not really the case.

We don't learn a lot about Philip, but he comes up four times in the Gospel of John, and each time he seems to be a little bit out of his depth.

So here we're introduced to Philip for the first time.

The next time is in John chapter 6, where there's a multitude around the lake of Galilee, of thousands of people gathered around Jesus, and Jesus says, I'm going to feed them.

John 6 · chapter mention

And Philip responds, his contribution is to say, That ain't going to happen.

You can't do that.

No one can feed all these people, even if we had unlimited funds.

We can't do that.

He doesn't really understand.

The next time Philip appears in the Gospel of John is in John in chapter 12, and there are some Greek-speaking Gentiles who want to see Jesus.

And they come to Philip, probably because Philip is from a village in Galilee that had a lot of Gentiles in it, and he can speak Greek, and they say to Philip, We want to see Jesus.

And Philip apparently doesn't really know what to do because the text says he goes and finds Andrew.

I think implied in that is he comes to Andrew and says, Uh there's some Greeks who want to see Jesus.

What do I do?

And Andrew brings Philip and the Greeks to see Jesus.

Finally, the last time he shows up in the Gospel of John is in John in chapter 14, the night before Jesus is crucified, he's in the upper room with his disciples in an intimate setting, and Philip says to him, Do you remember?

He says to Jesus, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough.

Remember how Jesus responds?

He says, Philip, have you been with me so long and you still don't know me?

If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

The picture that we get of Philip is kind of a bumbling disciple who's doing the best but doesn't really have what it takes.

And yet that is the exactly the person that Jesus sought after and wanted to call to himself.

You know what you see of Jesus in this text is that Jesus is seeking a people not based on anything in themselves.

That's the nature of all genuine relationship with Jesus.

It's not based on something in you that attracted Jesus to you.

It's not based on your raw material, it's not based on your potential.

The foundation, what generates relationship with Jesus is that he wants to love you.

Jesus wants to seek you out.

That's the kind of savior that he is.

He doesn't look for people who are better than others.

He looks for people that he chooses to set his affection on, and he seeks them down until he finds them.

And then he calls them to follow him.

The next thing we see about Jesus in this text is that he's not only a savior who seeks, he's a savior who sees.

A savior who sees.

Look at the way that Philip responds down in verse 45 in your text.

Verse 45 says that the way Philip responds is he went out and found Nathaniel and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Philip responds by going out and finding a friend and says, We found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote.

We found the one that the Hebrew scriptures said is going to come, the Messiah.

That way of referring to the Old Testament, Moses and the prophets, is a common way of referring to the total of God's scriptures in the Hebrew language.

So the Hebrew scriptures in this time period and even in modern Judaism are referred to by a number of titles: Law, the prophets, and the writings, Moses and the prophets, law of prophets and the Psalms, because the Psalms are the first book in that section that it's called the Writings.

What Philip is saying is he finds Nathaniel and he says, You know, the scriptures, God's word, has said that there's coming a Messiah, a deliverer, and we found him.

And by the way that he introduces Jesus to Nathaniel, it seems to imply that Nathaniel knows his Old Testament.

And Nathaniel must have been searching the scriptures and waiting for God's Messiah to appear.

And if you think through all of the titles that are used in the Old Testament to describe God's Messiah, you might think there would be a lot of ways that Philip could introduce Nathanael to this Messiah who's coming.

He's the king, he's God of God.

There's a lot of things he could say, but look what he says.

Verse 45.

He's Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

That might almost sound like Philip just doesn't get it.

And maybe that is what's happening, is Philip sort of understands, but doesn't really.

Because after all, basic teaching in the New Testament is that Jesus is not a biological son of Joseph.

It's foundational Christian teaching.

Apostles' Creed, one of the earliest Christian doctrines.

We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and he's not a biological descendant of Joseph.

But that's the way that Philip introduces Jesus to Nathaniel.

So we should ask the question why.

It could be that Philip doesn't fully understand, but I think there's something else going on.

I think there's a reason, for example, that verse 44 is in your Bibles.

Look at verse 44.

We get this little insert that Philip was from Besseda, the city of Andrew and Peter.

Besseda is a tiny little fishing village on the east shore of the lake of Galilee, maximum 300 people.

And the last mention of Nathaniel, the other character in this story, is in John chapter 21 that tells us he's from Cana, another tiny little village in Galilee, a neighboring village of Nazareth, where Jesus grows up.

John 21 · chapter mention

In fact, Cana will be familiar to you if you've read the Gospel of John before, because the next incident in chapter 2 is Jesus going to a wedding at Cana where he performs his first miracle.

And the fact that Jesus goes to a wedding in this little village called Cana implies that Jesus had friends and family in Cana, the hometown of Nathanael.

In other words, these guys are from tiny little villages that border each other.

Everybody knew one another.

It seems highly likely that Nathaniel would have been acquainted with Jesus' family and would have known him growing up.

And Philip is coming to him and saying, You know Jesus from Nazareth, the neighboring village, the son of Joseph?

You know Mary and his brothers?

He's the Messiah.

Now, how do you think Nathaniel will respond to that?

Well, look at the way that he responds.

Verse 46.

Nathaniel said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Now the way that we read that in English, I think it gives the initial impression that he's kind of dissing Nazareth.

He's kind of slamming Nazareth.

But I don't think that's what's really happening.

He's not denigrating Nazareth.

I mean, Nathanael grew up in Cana.

Not exactly a booming metropolis.

I think what Nathaniel is saying is he's saying, Philip, you and I both know the scriptures.

And God's word says that the Messiah is going to come in the line of David and be from Judea, and in Micah chapter 5, he's going to be born in Bethlehem.

Micah 5 · chapter mention

Not Nazareth.

So how can he possibly be the Messiah?

In other words, Nathanael is really seeking the Messiah, and he's got honest questions.

He's a little skeptical.

He has some genuine skepticism about the truths, and he wants to make sure if he's going to give his whole life to following this Jesus character, he wants to know that he really is who his friend is telling him.

And look at the way that Philip responds to Nathaniel's skepticism.

Verse 46, Philip said to him very simply, come and see.

Just come and see for yourself.

He just confidently says, Yes, Nathaniel, there are things that I don't even have figured out myself.

But I know that Jesus is who he says he is.

Just come and ask him your questions for yourself.

Just come and see for yourself.

You'll notice last week we looked at an incident in verses 35 to 42 where Jesus uses a phrase, come and you will see.

You remember when the two disciples are following Jesus and they ask Jesus, Rabbi, where are you staying?

Jesus turns and says, Come and you will see.

The future tense, the guarantee.

He says, if you'll follow me, if you're willing to submit to my word, you will see spiritual truth.

That's not what Philip says.

What he says, come and see, is the same thing John the Baptist says in verse 36, whereas Jesus walked by John the Baptist and his two friends, John the Baptist said, Hey guys, look, see, behold, there's Jesus.

You should go meet him for yourself.

It's an invitation.

What Philip is doing is the same thing the Baptist did.

He's saying, just come see for yourself.

Ask him your questions for yourself.

And he can do that confidently.

He can give people the invitation to come meet Jesus because behind the reality that anybody who comes into an encounter with Jesus will want to go invite others to meet Jesus too, behind that reality is that there is a sovereign seeking Savior who is going to find his people, and you can invite people to come to Jesus with confidence, knowing that Jesus is a seeking savior and he'll do the rest.

You don't have to have every single answer to every question.

You just point them to Jesus and say, Come see for yourself, a man who spoke like no other.

Notice the way that Jesus responds as Nathaniel begins to walk to him and look at verse 47.

So Nathaniel's going to go ask some questions.

Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

What an interesting way to make your first impression.

What is Jesus doing here?

Why does he call him a man in whom there's no deceit?

Well, the word deceit is a common word in Greek, and its original usage in very ancient Greek, pre-times of the Bible, in classical Greek, is of fishing bait.

And so the fishing bait then gets used metaphorically for using craft or cunning to deceive somebody in order to get something.

You know, the Trojan horse in Homeric literature?

The Trojan horse was called a deceit.

And maybe a little closer to home to the characters in this story is Jesus calls Nathaniel an Israelite, and the original Israelite, Israel himself, was a man who was characterized by deceit.

Do you remember that the name Israel comes from the character in the Old Testament, Jacob, who God midway through his life renames him Israel, and he becomes a progenitor of the Israelites.

And Jacob was a little bit of a scoundrel.

In chapter 27, God had already promised that Jacob, though he's the secondborn, is going to end up the firstborn and leader of the family, but he didn't trust God's word.

He wanted to take matters into his own hands, and so he deceived his brother Esau to cheat him out of the birthright.

He was a man characterized by deceit.

But now Jesus looks at Nathaniel coming to him, a descendant of Jacob, and he looks at him and says, This is a man in whom there's no deceit.

He's not like his father Jacob.

What is Jesus saying?

I think what Jesus is saying is this.

You get the usage of the word deceit in this text.

This is Psalm 32, a psalm of confession, where David is confessing his sin to the Lord, and he says, Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Picture of the man in the Psalm is someone who is honest about the reality that he has sinned against God, that he cannot cover his sin himself, and he comes to the Lord and uncovers his sin and finds that the Lord forgives and blots out his sin entirely.

And as a result of God forgiving this person, he begins to work in his heart and make him a person in whose spirit there is no deceit.

God's spirit goes to work in his heart and begins to change his desires.

So this person is honest about himself before God.

And as Nathaniel is coming towards Jesus, what Jesus is doing is he's looking to the depths of his souls and he's saying, I know who you are.

I've evaluated your spirit.

I've evaluated your desires.

I've evaluated your heart.

Your whole life down to the depths of your being is an open book before me.

And I'm saying, you're an honest Israelite who wants to confess his sins, who's waiting for the Messiah, who wants salvation, you're a man in whom there's no deceit.

The thing we see about Jesus in this text is that Jesus is a Savior who sees.

To the very depths of your being.

He doesn't just see Nathaniel, but he sees you.

Your whole life is an open book before Jesus.

He sees you.

In this room, every single one of us have things in our life that we have successfully hidden from employers or employees, teachers or students, from spouses, from children, from parents.

You have things in your life that you have, congratulations, you've successfully hidden them.

But you have not hidden them from Jesus.

He sees you.

Everywhere you go and everywhere you lie down and everywhere you rise, he sees everything about you.

He sees the thoughts in your mind before they're even there.

He sees everything.

That's the kind of savior that he is.

Now the way you respond to that reality is what really matters.

You can respond by doing the natural human inclination, which is to retreat and to cover.

But Scripture says if you will try to cover your iniquity, God will expose you.

But if you will recognize that the Jesus who sees you is a Jesus who is gentle and lowly and wants to save sinners, and instead of retreating, if you will come to him, and if you will expose your sin before him, you will find he is one who will forgive you.

If you will uncover your sin before God, he will cover it.

But if you try and cover it yourself, he will expose you.

The way to respond to the reality that Jesus is a Savior who sees you down to the very bit of your bones is to do exactly what Nathaniel does.

Look at the way that Nathaniel responds.

Verse 48.

He doesn't retreat, but he's intrigued, and he says, verse 48, How do you know me?

How is it that you know who I am?

I want to be near you, I want to know you for real, I want to know if this is the real deal.

And the way that Jesus responds is, verse 48, Jesus answered, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Now what does that mean that Nathaniel was under the fig tree?

And the answer to that question is, I have no idea.

In the history of interpretation, there are about 47 possible solutions that have been offered.

Everything from, in rabbinic writing, the fig tree is a metaphor for meditation, and so maybe he's meditating.

In 1 Kings chapter 4, verse 25, it says that in Solomon's rule over Israel, things were so peaceful that every man sat at home under his own fig tree.

1 Kings 4:25

So I don't know what's going on here.

All I know is that whatever's happening, it's something that Jesus could not humanly possibly have known about.

And in saying to Nathanael, I saw you under the fig trees, proving to Nathanael that he's omniscient.

He's saying to Nathanael, I see you when you're in private.

I see your heart, I see your body, I see your rot lying down and you're rising up, I see everything.

When no one else is around, and when you are in your absolute most private moments, there I am.

Your entire life, everything about you, open book before me.

I see you, Nathaniel.

And this is the way Nathaniel responds.

He doesn't retreat, he doesn't run.

He says, verse 49, Rabbi, eyes become as big as saucers, and says, You are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

And notice the first thing that comes from his lips is very interesting.

You're the son of God.

Why that title for Jesus?

Well, because his friend Philip had introduced him and said, Remember Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph?

I think he's the Messiah.

Let's go check it out.

And then Jesus reveals to him the supernatural knowledge that he is who Philip thinks he is.

He really is the Messiah, and he responds with, You're not the son of Joseph, you're the Son of God.

You're God Himself, you're the promised one.

You know things no one can know, you can do things no one can know.

I believe you.

The way that Philip responds is it's very, very simple.

He believes Jesus' word.

He believes that Jesus is who he says he is.

He believes that he's the Messiah.

The next thing he says is that Jesus is the king of Israel.

And it's very interesting that Jesus is the king of Israel, he is the Messiah, but through the rest of the Gospel of John, every time people try to call Jesus the king, he wants to get away from that.

John chapter 6 is the next time the idea of Jesus being the king of Israel comes up.

John 6 · chapter mention

And in John 6, there's this massive crowd, and he has miraculously fed them, and the people get very excited and say, This is the king of Israel, let's make him the king, put him on a throne, give him a sword, and he can defeat the Romans and usher a new political prosperity for us.

And Jesus, that's not the mission that he has in his first coming, retreats to the mountains away from their acclamations of him as the king of Israel.

But here, in this very private encounter, Nathaniel is not trying to manipulate Jesus for his own ends.

He's not trying to use Jesus' power as a means to get something from him.

He just wants to know Jesus for himself.

He believes Jesus is who he says, and he says, I'm yours.

You're the king, I'm your servant.

And Jesus receives that worship.

Because the kind of savior Jesus is is he seeking his people, he sees them, and if you will respond in faith, he will receive you.

Finally, the last thing we see about Jesus in this text is the way that Jesus responds to Nathaniel's faith.

That's in verse 50 and 51.

We see that Jesus shows.

He seeks, he sees, and he shows.

Look at verse 50.

Jesus in verse 50 answered Nathanael and said, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?

You will see greater things than these.

And he said to him, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

So we should ask the question.

Jesus says, Because you've believed, you're going to see even greater things than this.

Even more than you've imagined.

I'm going to show you things you haven't even begun to hope for yet.

Greater things than these.

What is the greater things that Jesus is talking about?

Two things we should notice in the text.

Number one is in verse 51, Jesus shifts from the singular to the plural.

In verse 50, he said to Nathaniel, you believe, but then in verse 51, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you in the plural.

Maybe you have a footnote in your Bible.

If not, then you could just mark in the margins.

This is the you guys.

This is the y'all, all y'all form.

It's the plural.

Jesus is shifting from just speaking to Nathaniel to his disciples in general and saying, If you believe in me, all of y'all are going to see more than you could ever imagine.

So what is it that they're going to see?

Well, Jesus says they'll see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

Did they see that?

Nope.

So Jesus is not depicting a literal vision that they're going to see.

He's using pictures from the Hebrew scriptures to depict for them spiritual realities that his disciples will experience for themselves.

Not just those who are standing there seeing him in the flesh, but all those who believe Jesus in faith are going to see spiritual realities beyond what they could expect or hope for.

So what are those spiritual realities?

And to understand that, we need to see that in this little sentence, Jesus is giving us an insight into what really matters to him.

What really matters is that we would understand the kind of Savior He is.

And what he does is he picks three Old Testament images, puts them together, and says, You're going to see spiritual realities like this.

So we've got to understand these three Old Testament images he uses in this little expression.

Let's just walk through them.

The first one, look at verse 51.

He says, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened.

That sounds really exciting.

We sing songs about heaven being open, don't we?

We should be careful what you wish for.

In the Bible, there's not a lot of passages that depict heaven being open, but when heaven is open in God's word, it's usually not happy things that happen.

When heaven is open and a holy God meets a sinful human race, and there's nothing to mediate between them, what comes down is God's judgment.

What comes down is God's set, purposed wrath and punishment against sin.

The first time the heavens are open in the Bible is Genesis and chapter 7.

The floodgates of heaven open, and down comes God's judgment and water that executes the human race.

Next time in the Bible the heavens are opened is twice in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 24 and Isaiah 64, which describe end time's judgment.

The heavens are opened, what comes down is God's judgment, so that the earth melts and all the inhabitants of it quake.

Finally, the last time the heavens are open in the Bible is Revelation in chapter 19, where John sees the heavens open, and what comes out is a rider on a white horse, who has a sword coming from his mouth, that is the word of God, and a name written on him that no one knows but himself, and his garment is dipped in blood, and he comes to wage war and to tread the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.

It's Jesus coming to execute final judgment.

When heaven is open and there's nothing mediating between a God who is holy, holy, holy, and we aren't, what must come down is his set, resolute, just judgment against our sin.

But there's one exception to this in the Old Testament.

There's one time in the Old Testament the heavens are open, and what comes down is blessing.

And it's in the book of Malachi, the last book in our Old Testaments.

It's a book that we studied a little bit a few weeks ago when we were introduced to John the Baptist, because John the Baptist is predicted in the book of Malachi.

Malachi chapter 3 says, There's going to come a day when God's going to send his messenger into the world, and that messenger is going to prepare the way for the Lord to come to earth.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

And when the Lord comes, Malachi chapter 3, verse 10 says, God will open the windows of heaven and empty out for you a blessing until it is beyond enough.

Malachi 3:10

And then the Lord appears, and his name is Jesus, and he's baptized by John the Baptist, and what happens?

The heavens are opened, and judgment doesn't come down, but the Spirit of God comes down like a dove, and the audible voice of God the Father says, You are my beloved Son, and you I am well pleased.

Now John's gospel is the only of the four Gospels that doesn't recount for us the baptism testimony where the heavens are opened above Jesus.

Instead, what we have is Jesus explaining to his disciples the significance of him being able to open the heavens.

He's saying, I'm the one who can open the heavens and send down not God's judgment on you, but God's blessings upon you beyond enough.

But how are you going to do that, Jesus?

That's the next image that he uses, verse 51.

Look down in your Bibles again, verse 51.

He says, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see the heavens open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

The angels of God ascending and descending.

What is that talking about?

Well, that's referring back to a vision in the Old Testament that's very important.

It's a vision of the original Israel.

Jacob, the forebearer, the progenitor of the nation of Israel, had a vision of angels ascending and descending upon a ladder.

Do you remember this vision?

Genesis chapter 28 is where it's found.

Genesis 28 · chapter mention

After Jacob had stolen his birthright from his brother Esau, he's fleeing the wrath of his brother, and he's going north.

And in Genesis chapter 28, we pick up the story here in verse 10.

Genesis 28 · chapter mention

Jacob left Beersheba and went northwards Haran, and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set.

And taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep, and he dreamed, and behold, he has a vision.

And there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.

And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it, on that ladder.

And behold, the Lord himself stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Israel.

So there's this vision that the Lord is there, and the heavens are open, but wrath isn't coming down because there's a ladder connecting heaven and earth.

Somehow this ladder is going to connect heaven and earth, so God can send down what he says in the next verses, a blessing.

And God doesn't give this blessing in three bullet points, but I put those bullet points there for ease of reading and also to prove that God is a Baptist.

Because here he preaches the world's first three-point sermon.

And he says to Jacob, here's the blessing I'm going to send down.

The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your offspring.

So Israel's going to possess a land.

Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the east and the west and the north and the south.

So Israel's going to become a plenteous nation.

And then verse er, rather, point number three, in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Israel is going to be a mediator of God's blessing to all the nations of the earth.

Jesus picks up that image and says, the bridge, the ladder between heaven and earth, what can connect God's blessing to sinful humanity, that's me.

I'm the one on whom the angels will ascend and descend because I'm the bridge, I'm the ladder.

I am the only one who can bridge heaven and earth and pull down God's blessings and give them to you.

But lastly, we have to ask the question, okay, Jesus, but how will you do that?

And we find the answer in the last image that he uses at the end of verse 51.

Look down in your Bibles.

One more time.

Verse 51.

Truly, truly, Jesus says, I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

That's Jesus' favorite title for himself, is the Son of Man.

What does it mean?

Very simply, it means human.

It's used 108 times in the Old Testament, and it always means human.

It's the way that you just use language in Hebrew, son of whatever, it means you're characterized, your quality, your nature is that thing.

We even use this in the modern day when you call somebody a son of a, well.

Jesus says he's son of man.

That is, he's really human.

But there's one particular text in the Old Testament that tells of a very special human, a very special son of man.

It's in the book of Daniel, Daniel has a vision, and Daniel records, I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man.

So there's a human being, and he came to the ancient of days, he comes before God the Father, and is presented to him, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him, should worship him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall never pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

So this man is doing what only God can do.

He's ruling over God's created world as though he were God, and he's being worshipped as God.

Somehow there's a man who is like God.

When Jesus says, I'm the Son of Man, what he's doing is he's picking up this usage in the book of Daniel, and he's saying, That's me.

I can be the bridge because I'm not from this earth.

John chapter 1 verse, or chapter 3, verse 13, Jesus says, No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

John 1 · chapter mention

Jesus says, I'm from heaven, and I'm descending to become a man, to be the bridge between God and humanity.

I'm going to descend, become a son of man, and I will be the bridge that can bring heaven's blessings to earth.

Now we shouldn't think for a single moment that if Jesus is going to leave heaven and come to earth, that he can open the heavens and the wrath of God not come down.

God's wrath is perfect and holy and just against sin.

A good judge will judge what is evil.

And God is a judge, a good judge, and he will judge evil.

The way that Jesus can be the bridge is not that he evacuates heaven of God's justice, but that he plants his feet on earth and he opens up heaven, and he allows the floodgates of God's wrath to come down on his very brow.

The night before Jesus is crucified, the scriptures tell us he's in the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples, sweating drops of blood and anxiety, thinking of the next day when he's going to endure the judgment of God.

He says, Father, let this cup pass from me.

And he has the option to go back, to pull the ladder up as it were.

But he stayed.

And the next day, Jesus, the Son of God, is nailed to a cross, and on that cross, the floodgates of heaven are opened.

The earth is covered with supernatural darkness for three hours, and God opens the heavens, and the floodgates pour down the torrents of God's just wrath on none other than God Himself, who's become a man.

Jesus is gouged with the fullness of the wrath of God.

He shakes the heavens, as it were, the Father, Son, and Spirit, emptying every drop of God's judgment against sin, so that Jesus, before he dies, can finish by saying, It is finished.

All the floodgates of God's wrath have been evacuated because I've endured them for you.

But the bridge still isn't complete.

The ladder is still not set up because he has descended, but now he must ascend.

And that's what he does three days later, and resurrecting from the dead, ascending back into heaven, seating, being seated at the right hand of the Father, and now the ladder is set up between heaven and earth, and it is stable and secure, and heaven calls you come.

Come to the Son of Man and put your trust in him, the one and only Savior God has appointed, who can bridge heaven and earth, open up heaven, and rain down God's blessings because he's already endured God's wrath for you.

Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

He is the bridge, and if you believe in him, you will live forever.

And he asked one simple question after what I just read in John 11.

He says, Do you believe this?

Not what you have to offer, not what you've done or haven't done, not are you strong enough to climb the ladder, but do you believe that the ladder Jesus has set up is secure and can take all your sin away, clothe you with righteousness, and bring you into the presence of God?

I think it's interesting to note in John and chapter 1 that we've been studying the last few weeks, Jesus is given many titles.

Titles are just heaped upon Jesus.

When you read through the Gospel of John in chapter 1, just in this one chapter, Jesus we find is the Word, the eternal Word, who is with God and is God.

He's the light of men, the true light, the only begotten from the Father.

He's greater than John the Baptist.

He's Jesus the Christ, He's the only begotten God, He's the Lord, the Lamb of God, He's the eternal one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, He's the Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah, of whom Moses and the prophets wrote.

He is the King of Israel, but all of that is on the lips of other people.

When Jesus wants to look at you and say, This is what is really important to me, He looks at you and says, I am the Son of Man.

I've descended from heaven and become a man and borne your wrath so that I can bring you to God.

He wants you to see him as the bridge between heaven and earth.

He wants to see you as the only one who can cause God's heavens to open and rain upon you blessings until it's more than enough.

And his one question to you is this Do you believe this?

That he is seeking you and he sees you, and he will show you greater things than these if you will but believe him.

And if you do, his command is very simple.

Come, follow me.

That's the kind of savior that Jesus is.

Lord, thank you for the reality that salvation from eternity past to eternity future is secured not on the basis of what we do, but on the basis of what Jesus has already done.

Thank you that what you offer to us is more than we could hope, think, or imagine that you are a seeking, seeing, showing Savior.

You are a Savior who is all sufficient for all of our needs.

Lord, we ask that you would give us your spirit to awaken in our hearts affection for this Jesus who is so worthy of our love, our faith, and our obedience.

We ask that you would give us your spirit this week to grow us in our boldness for you and our zeal for you and our enthusiasm for you because, Lord, you're worthy.

You're worthy, Lord.

We ask that you would increase our love for you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with Jesus.