John 1:43-50

Hey, everybody.

Thanks for closing out the week with us, continuing here through the first chapter.

Wrapping up the first chapter. It's.

It's been a little bit of a grind,

but we're wrapping up the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

Jesus is in the process of calling disciples.

We've seen a couple of disciples called.

And now John gives us another story that is a call story.

And, I believe John is the only one that gives us these details.

But let me read the story for you and come back and we'll talk them through.

The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

He found Philip and said to him, follow me.

Philip was from beside of the city of Andrew and Peter.

Philip found Nathaniel

and said to him, we found him about whom Moses in the law

and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

Nathaniel said to him, can anything good come from Nazareth?

Philip said to him, come and see.

When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him, he said, here is truly

an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

Nathaniel asked him, where did you get to know me?

Jesus answered, I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.

Nathaniel replied, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You are the King of Israel.

Jesus answered, do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the tree?

You will see greater things than this.

And he said to him, very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened,

and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

So, this is a little bit of a bridge story.

We we have a calling.

We have here Philip and Nathaniel.

That's part of why John tells us the story.

We're filling in that inner circle that Jesus is going to travel and minister

with.

We also are beginning slowly

to see some of what Jesus can do.

And so here we have a moment in which you wouldn't call this a miracle story.

You would simply say that Jesus demonstrates that he has

a kind of supernatural knowledge of things.

In this case, he tells Nathaniel, I saw you under the tree.

And Nathaniel was floored by that.

And Jesus essentially tells him, you know, you haven't seen anything yet.

And I don't know that I've ever thought about it this way, Michael.

But Monday we'll look at Jesus first miracle, and there's a sense in which

John is kind of easing us into

showing us some of the things Jesus can do.

And yes, this is a call story.

But more than that,

this is a little reminder that this is Jesus we're dealing with.

And Jesus is not like anyone else. Yes.

So John doesn't really have a kind of warm

up to Jesus's display of power.

And I think here, this is probably the closest you're going to get to that.

It is this idea that Jesus was able to see something

that he physically should have not been able to see,

that he had knowledge that was supernatural knowledge.

And that was clearly shocking to Nathaniel.

But there's also a kind of connection here, not just as a

bridge to the story to come, which I mean, obviously, this certainly is bridging

into The Wedding at Cana, which we're going to jump into next week.

But actually, this is also a kind of bridge to the old Testament,

because the very last comment here, which we'll probably spend some time

with more here a little bit later, but this idea of the heavens opening,

the idea of seeing, the angels of God

ascending and descending, this is very clearly a call back to Genesis.

This is very clearly a call to Jacob and to to the ladder

and to this whole idea of the divine connection

between the human one who's called and God above,

except in this case, Jesus is the fulfillment of that connection.

Jesus is the living God taking on flesh.

And so John is connecting us to the Old Testament.

In the midst of this call story.

John is also connecting us to the sort of revelation

of Jesus's power, which is going to be revealed far more,

powerfully, you might say, in the next story.

But here, where we're bridging the gap between the two.

Yeah, there's definitely some foreshadowing here.

You know, do you believe because you saw this small thing?

I'm telling you, you'll see greater things and then

we'll see this phrase over and over again.

This very truly that's a that's a phrase, an introductory phrase

that John uses often or I should say that

Jesus uses often in John.

The English translation is good,

you know, very truly the old language was verily

maybe a modern translation would be, I'll tell you the truth.

But the idea is Jesus is saying, you can you can trust this.

You can take this to the bank.

It's a little dated.

It sounds a little dated as we read it, but we're going to see it a lot.

And then Jesus promises you, you're going to see heavenly things.

You're going to see godly things, spiritual things.

You're going to see the heavens opened and these angels coming and going over

and on, the Son of Man and and all of that's

a little cryptic, but it's Jesus way of saying, look,

don't be impressed that I told you I saw you under the tree.

There's there's way more to come.

And John's going to back that up with moving from this story

immediately into a significant miracle story.

So, Clint,

I think a detail that might be surprising on first blush is the statement made.

The question that Nathaniel asked in verse 46, can anything good

come out of Nazareth?

And the really interesting part about that question,

I think, is that you could read it a few different ways.

You could read that as being, not in good faith, kind of sarcastic dismissal

or one could read that as being a rather earnest and wholehearted request.

And you might be surprised that, you know, at least

some biblical scholars are going to make the point that this kind of question

may not be so much sarcasm as it is an actual theological question,

because if you were a Jew, you knew that the prophecy said Bethlehem.

That's not just a New Testament thing.

I mean, the community understood that the city of David

was going to be important.

And so the idea of the Messiah coming from Judea

was a prominent belief in the time that Jesus lived.

So here this question, how in the world could he be coming from Nazareth?

Maybe a legitimate not not just like an inter town rivalry kind of question.

It may actually be a legitimate theological question, as in, how is it

that this would be different from what we've always thought would be the case?

And of course, the subtext to

that is with Jesus, it's always different than what you expected.

You're always surprised when the Son of God shows up.

Some will see him and many won't.

But that part of that question I think that is really relevant

is the fact that the Gospels are doing this really delicate work.

They're showing us how Jesus fulfills the prophecy, but also showing us

how Jesus surprises those who he comes in contact with.

These people who see Jesus have some of their assumptions disrupted.

And we may be seeing the question like this from Nathaniel.

John sort of giving us a nod to that, that that Jesus is subverting

some of the things that people were looking for in the Messiah.

And John's not going to beat around the bush about that.

He's going to put that right out front.

And we've made the case that John is very interested in evangelism.

This is true in all the Gospels, but I think it's just it's most clear in John.

And we see that pattern here.

He finds Jesus, finds Philip.

Follow me.

And what does Philip do?

Philip went and found Nathaniel.

He goes to find someone else.

And what does he do once he's found him?

He tells him about Jesus.

Come and come and see him.

We found him. We found the one.

The one.

Moses in the law and the prophets wrote his Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.

And when Nathaniel questions this,

whether this is sarcasm or inquiry or theology,

whatever it is that leads him to question it, Philip says, come and see.

And again, this is such a beautiful motif in John.

Come and see.

And then what happens?

Nathaniel sees that Jesus has seen him and he believes.

And Jesus says, you'll have even more reason

than that to believe as you follow me.

So there, there is always in John this idea of open ended sharing.

When one encounters Jesus, one is moved to tell, to share,

to take that good news, to take that knowledge, to take

what one understands about the Christ, the Messiah and take it out to others.

And it will point this out multiple times, but it just it's woven

subtly through all of these stories so far that we've encountered.

And I think this is another good example of it.

So I think one tension that we're going to find in

John and it's being introduced in a text like this,

is actually the tension of the role of miracles in believing.

We're going to see this

in some other miracle stories where Jesus, in some ways actually rebukes

people who come to him because of the miracle that was accomplished.

They believe because they see.

And here we kind of begin to kick off that tension a little bit

when Jesus says in response to Nathaniel in verse 50,

do you believe because I told you, and now I saw you under the fig tree,

you will see greater things than these, and he will that what is to follow.

We, the reader, now have been reminded or have been told.

This is our first time through the book,

that there are going to be accounts of miracles,

that there are going to be great things that are going to witness,

to point us to the reality of who Jesus Christ is.

Some of the question that's going to be wrestled with in this book is,

are those things necessary for belief?

To what extent do you need to see Jesus, the mural

Miracle Worker, for you to understand the reality of his divinity?

Of course, the divine God who's taking on flesh is going to be able

to do things that far exceed our imaginations that that follows.

But I think for the gospel writer John, who has so much emphasis

not just on our witnessing to others,

but also the way that this book is intended to witness to us.

The miracle should be a source of comfort, a source of inspiration.

They should fire within us deeply in our souls.

This kind of residence of who Jesus was and what his miracles

reveal about his character and God's intention in the world.

On the flip side, though, I don't think, Clint, that John really

wants us to get fixated on the miracle itself.

And I will see that played out, and I try to point that out when we get there.

But for now, I think that this sets off an interesting

tension in the book that we'll we'll see as we go along.

You know, we will see before we're out of chapter two.

One of the one of the other ongoing themes,

those who criticize Jesus demand a sign.

They demand that he show them something.

And and John is going to be pretty clear that Jesus has signs all around him.

But if you refuse to see them, he has no interest

in proving himself to those who question him.

So, that word sign is going to be vitally important

in this gospel, and we will begin seeing it already

as we go through the first few passages next week.

And all that said, as we come towards conclusion here today,

isn't it interesting we get the to the end of chapter one.

And if you really consider what, what ground we've covered,

we've with this beautiful prolog, we've introduced

Jesus's place in the history of time,

as well as in a sort of understanding of God's ordering of the universe.

We've introduced the chief witness, John the Baptist,

and now we've also introduced some of the key followers of Jesus.

And we've got that all done in chapter one.

Interestingly, we haven't spent time really any time

talking about Jesus's birth.

We really not spent any time talking about

the details of his baptism or a temptation.

These things that we see in other gospels, we're now going to be thrust

into a very specific miracle and a way of revealing

Jesus's divinity, which is in many ways unique to the gospel accounts.

And I think that how John's laid out chapter one, it just has a beautiful

kind of integrity, though it is different from the other gospels in many ways.

And then now we're going to enter into chapter two,

and you're going to see some of the ways that John introduces the power,

the divinity of Jesus, in a way that could only really follow

because of the way that John's set up thus far.

I don't want to

draw this distinction too firmly, because I don't think

it ultimately would hold up, but I do think there's some truth to it,

and John is less interested

in who Jesus is than in what Jesus does.

And what I mean by that is the Old Testament prophecies

and the things that were supposed to be true,

like Jesus's hometown and the circumstances of his birth.

Those things for, for whatever reason, don't play

a prominent role in the Gospel of John.

John is going to really move fairly quickly towards showing us

what Jesus does, what Jesus says.

There's just not a lot of attention here

to lineage and to some of those things

that are very important in the context of the other gospels.

And it clearly John is interested in who Jesus is,

but that's not the way that he wants to tell the story.

What's going to prove who Jesus is in the Gospel of John

is what Jesus does, and that's really about it.

In that way.

I do think that John has a particular voice to maybe a modern reader.

We said this about Luke as well, but I think a way that John does this

is he introduces Jesus to us, not really bound

like Matthew does in the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

It's in this case really bound up in the idea

that if you could just see Jesus for who he is, you'll know the truth of who he is.

And so in that way, I think that the the works, the acts, the teachings

of Jesus in John and their emphasis, it does give us a unique viewpoint.

As modern Christians, thousands of years separated from that first generation

of disciples, we get an opportunity to, in our own world, in our own life,

and in this moment, really to hear Jesus again, to see him again in action.

And that is an opportunity for us to believe.

Think about the contrast of, say, Matthew and Luke, where they have a

almost an entire chapter of genealogy,

where they have the wise men saying, where will he be born?

And the scholars tell them it'll be Bethlehem.

Well, John does that.

He just does it in half a verse.

Yeah, we found him that Moses in the law and the prophets wrote about.

I mean, that he gets there so much faster, and it's so much less important to him

that we could sort of verify Jesus

prophetically,

because Jesus is going to verify himself.

Right.

Through his ministry, through his actions, through his signs, his exorcists.

He's he's he's going to prove himself.

He doesn't need that other stuff in this gospel.

At least it it appears to me that that's happening here in John.

I think that's really well said.

I don't think anything is added to that.

I hope if you found this conversation insightful, you might give

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Stick with us

as next week, Tuesday, we're going to jump right in to the wedding at Cana.

And the ways that that is such

a beautiful portrayal of Jesus's power that you're talking about right now.

So we look forward to seeing you then, and I hope that you'll be blessed.

Have a great weekend, everybody.