1865 326 After the Spirit in the evangelist had introduced the blessed Son of God in a series of glories that are His, either in person or in office, causing Him to pass before us as He is in the Godhead, as He was before the world began, at creation, in patriarchal days, in the ministry of the Baptist, and in His own ministry, and then noticing the world, and the Jews, and the elect, in their several relations to Him (John 1:1-13), the Church seems suddenly (as moved by all that she had been listening to) to utter her faith respecting Him. (See John 1:14.)
The confession she makes is very simple — that she had apprehended in the Son of God a peculiar order of glory, "the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father;" and according to that, she proclaims, that, being made flesh, He had been in the midst of us, full of grace and truth.
This is the Church's or the saints' confession to Him. She had listened to a rich rehearsal of His glories, and was in spirit ravished, but opening her lips, it is of His grace, the glory of the Son of the Father, she speaks. Something like this is in Revelation 1. The glories of Jesus are rehearsed there in the hearing of the saints, His worth and excellency — "Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-begotten of the dead; the Prince of the kings of the earth." And then again the voice of the Church breaks in with the celebration of the praise of His grace — "Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, … be glory and dominion for ever."
Such interruptions evince the deep attention which the soul had been paying to this revelation of the glories of Christ, and in that character they finely admonish our souls, and warn us against listlessness when Jesus is the theme.
This, however, is not the only value of verse 14. It is, in a great sense, the key to the whole of the Lord's public ministry in St. John's Gospel, i.e., from chapters 1 to 9. For it may be easily perceived that the great business of the Lord through those chapters is to beget in us such an apprehension of Him as suits sinners; so that if He be approached as a Teacher, or a King, or a Doer of miracles, or a Judge, He refuses the approach, and lets all know that they are welcome to Him only when they come as sinners to a Saviour, or (in the language of this verse) when they discern in Him the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, seeing in Him a fulness of grace and truth.
This might be shown from all the cases recorded in those precious chapters. But I am looking specially now only at Nathanael.
In the ardour and generosity of a new-found heavenly joy, the earliest disciples are for telling out the news and bringing others to share the presence of Jesus with them. In this way Nathanael is brought into the scene. "Philip findeth Nathanael and saith to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Philip had already shared the joy with Andrew, and Peter, and others, and he now delights to communicate it to Nathanael.
But the work had been already begun, the journey had already been entered upon, in the person of Nathanael. Philip's word rather found his soul in a quickened condition than produced any such thing. His answer — "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" — is not the language of popular prejudice, though such words may have been, I doubt not, common on the lips of scorners; but it is the language of a soul just emerging from a spot where deep searchings had led to some humbling and disturbed experiences in the heart and conscience.
The Spirit of Christ had sent Nathanael to the figtree ere the voice of Philip had called him. And there, in that solitude, he had been convicted of sin. He had been there in the temper of Israel when the families shall be apart, and their wives apart, under the Spirit of grace and supplication: or in company with those who in the day of repentance shall mourn, tabering like doves on their breasts. (Zech. 12; Nahum 2) By confessing, he had been acquiring (in the divine reckoning) the character of a guileless Israelite. (Psalm 32:2.) And moving forth from his solitude in such a mind, meet who he may, he could not forget himself. Little disposed must such a soul have been to join in the language of the scorner, or to esteem any other (Nazarene or Galilean, or even heathen man or publican) worse than himself; but he might well be prepared to listen to anything, however strange, even such tidings as that the chief good, the good of all good, was to be found in Nazareth. For all things were now becoming new to him. He went therefore at once, at the bidding of Philip. He would walk to Nazareth, for a convicted soul can call nothing common or unclean, but itself. If Nazareth be vile, Nathanael in Nathanael's thoughts is viler still. Any thing or any place may be good enough for him. He rises at once to "slay and eat," to have fellowship even with Galilee. Precious is such workmanship of the Spirit of God! precious such experience of the soul — conviction and confession apart even from wife and children, under the operation of the Spirit of grace and supplication! precious in Christ's esteem. It is perhaps the first, but it is a sure, step onward to Him, begun in His own Spirit. The Spirit had sent Nathanael under the figtree, as He afterwards sent Zacchaeus up the sycamore. This readiness of Nathanael to go to Nazareth is very beautiful and very significant of the state of his soul. Jesus knows him as thoroughly as He knew the rich man of Jericho. He had been in spirit with him under the fig-tree, as He had been in spirit with Zacchaeus along the road, through the crowd, and up the sycamore.
Therefore He at once salutes Nathanael on the ground of the divine estimation of him. "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile." As He salutes Gideon in his day — "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." In God's esteem, the poor threshing man of Manasseh was a mighty man of valour, for He had so purposed it. And so, in the reckoning of the mind of Christ, Nathanael was a guileless Israelite: in a divine way he had been acquiring that name under the figtree; and in that name the Son of God knows him.
Nathanael recognizes himself in the words of the Lord. And does not this tell us the consciousness which accompanies or marks a genuine spirit of repentance or conviction? How can a soul that is indeed unburthening itself in the fear of God be guileful? Does not its very relief depend on the entireness and truthfulness of its confessions? Would it be what it is, if there were any practising or concealing? "I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord," is the word of guileless confession.
This was nothing peculiar to Nathanael. It was nothing characteristic of him. It was the necessary common attribute of a true spirit of repentance or conviction. There is "no guile" there. And the figtree having been the place of this Israelite's confession, the Spirit of Christ knows him as a guileless one; and his own spirit, without wrong, recognizes such a thing. The Spirit cannot but bear witness with his spirit that this is so. Scripture tells us this (Psalm 32), Jesus verifies it, and the soul of an elect one under the operation of the Spirit of grace experiences it. But who is in the secret of the soul? The wives are apart while this is going on. (Zech. 12:12.) The dearest intimacies of the heart do not understand it; nor is it a season for using their confidence.
The "sorrow lies too deep for human sympathy." God is thought of by the soul under such an exercise; and therefore as Jesus shows himself in the secret of it, saying, "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee," Nathanael at once stands in the discovery of the glory (like Jacob, or Joshua, or Gideon of old), "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel."
Beautiful process for the discovery of Jesus! Learning Jesus as the One that is in the full secret of our guilt and misery, and yet that He stands near us, not to make us afraid, or to lay His hand heavily upon us. Such an one was Jesus to Nathanael. Such an one was He to the Samaritan also. It was such a discovery that she made of Him. He had told her all things that ever she had done. He had manifested in full light the crimson colour of her sin, and yet He was so near and so gracious that His presence was heaven to her! "Is not this the Christ?" she could not but say. "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God," Nathanael could not but say. This was a real work; simple as well could be, but real. It was conducted by the Spirit in the conscience. Sin was discovered, and the Son of God was discovered in peaceful connection with the discovery of sin. It was the lesson of the brazen serpent. The bite of the fiery enemy was felt, but in the very place and moment of all that conscious mischief, the Son of God was present with healing. Nathanael joins in the utterance of verse 14. The glory had been at his side, as near to him as it was to Moses at the bush, or to Joshua under the walls of Jericho; but Nathanael had beheld it in its true character, "the glory of the only-begotten of the Father." The Word made flesh had been with him, full of grace and truth; this he knew and believed and owned; and he has only to find that such a spot as that was within a step of the glory. "Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these." "Hereafter [henceforth] ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man."
What a short journey to glory! Two stages simply and rapidly made! The spirit of conviction separates him from all but God and his conscience under the figtree; and then the spirit of faith discovers Jesus, the Son of God, in the grace that can talk with him, while knowing him in all his guilt and misery as a sinner.
"Whom he justified, them be also glorified." The fig-tree flourishes just outside heaven, such a figtree as Nathanael visited. It was the breath of heaven that nourished it; it was the Spirit of God that separated Nathanael to that sanctuary; and the Spirit of God can lead at once to the glory of God.